Q: Way for iTunes to respect my custom Artist/Album assignments?
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Feb 5, 2016 7:17 PMby OlyDLG,Kenichi Watanabe wrote:
Did you do the "consolidate library" step on the old computer, before copying off the iTunes folder?
NO, THE DRIVE IS NO LONGER IN THE COMPUTER, WHICH IN TURN IS NO LONGER AROUND: ANYTHING I WANT TO DO TO THE DRIVE, I HAVE TO BE ABLE TO DO IT THROUGH THE MAC.
Since you may not have been using default iTunes settings on the older computer, it's possible the song files were located outside of the iTunes folder (for the song files iTunes cannot currently locate) on the old computer.
IF THEY WERE OUTSIDE THE ITUNES FOLDER ON THE OLD DRIVE, HOW DID THEY END UP IN THE ITUNES FOLDER IN ITS VERBATIM COPY ON THE NEW DRIVE?
For one of the songs with an exclamation point, do a right-click Get Info; in the Info window, go to the File tab. The entry there for Location is where iTunes expects to find that song's file. Is the song's file actually at that location?
PROGRESS: NO, THE EXPECTED PATH FOR A PROBLEMATIC SONG IS iTunes/iTunes Media/<ARTIST>, BUT THE FILE IS ACTUALLY IN iTunes/iTunes Media/Music/<ARTIST>--DOES THIS SUGGEST A BETTER STRATEGY FOR A FIX? FOR EXAMPLE, I COULD DRAG THE PROBLEMATIC <ARTIST> FOLDERS UP INTO THE iTunes Media FOLDER, WHICH I PRESUME WOULD ENABLE ITUNES TO FIND THE FILES; IF I THEN REDEFINE THE ARTIST IN ITUNES, WOULD THAT MOVE ALL THE FILES BACK INTO THE RIGHT PLACE, WHILE ALSO PROPERLY UPDATING THE PLACE THAT THEY SHOULD BE LOOKED FOR?
If you can see the song's file using Finder, in iTunes try to play that song with exclamation point. iTunes should prompt you to locate the song's file; locate the song's file for iTunes. After iTunes finds that song's file, it may be able to extrapolate where the other "missing" song files are located, based on finding one of them. If some more songs are automatically found, but not all, repeat finding the song file for iTunes with a song that still has an exclamation point.
AT THIS POINT, THIS SOUNDS LIKE A "PLAN B"
THANKS!
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Feb 5, 2016 7:33 PMby Kenichi Watanabe,THE EXPECTED PATH FOR A PROBLEMATIC SONG IS iTunes/iTunes Media/<ARTIST>, BUT THE FILE IS ACTUALLY IN iTunes/iTunes Media/Music/<ARTIST>...
Since the song file is located at the correct location, I would first try locating the song file for iTunes when prompted (at the correct location). If all of the other un-locatable song files are "problematic" for the same reason, I think iTunes will be able to extrapolate their correct locations based on the info you provided by locating one of them. I would try it that way. If iTunes cannot automatically locate other missing song files, try the method you described.
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Feb 5, 2016 11:27 PMby OlyDLG,I can see why you thought that might work: after I pointed iTunes to the location of a file, it asked me if should try to find the rest; I said yes and it failed, but at least I got an exact count of the number of "broken links": 1681. Maybe it was just that album, so I'm going to try a few other songs from other albums, but so far, no love for that method.
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Feb 5, 2016 11:49 PMby OlyDLG,My method worked: moving the artist's folder to where iTunes is presently expecting to find it enabled iTunes to find it, and then renaming the artist for the entire group of songs moved the artist folder into the iTunes Media:Music folder; I found, however, that if I left the performer as Album Artist, then it still used the performer for the name of the Artist folder (although displaying my assigned artist, the composer, as Artist in iTunes), but simply clearing that field "forced" iTunes to move the album into an Artist folder named for the composer, i.e., my artist choice. So it looks like I have a lot of work ahead of me--both inside and outside of iTunes, but at least I'm reasonably confident everything will be as I want it in the end.
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Feb 6, 2016 12:07 AMby OlyDLG,Also, I've found that, for albums for which this is applicable, setting the Album Artist field to Various leaves whomever I want in the Artist field and groups all the songs on one album into an Album folder of that name under an Artist folder of Various; in other words, in the path formalism iTunes Media:Music:<Artist>:<Album>, the value in the Album Artist field takes precedence in determining the path-value of Artist. FWIW to posterity.
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Feb 6, 2016 1:31 AMby Kenichi Watanabe,Good job in finding a solution that works, although it may be time-consuming to go through 1600+ songs (I hope most of them are on complete albums instead of individual songs).
It is true that Album Artist (when present) is used instead of Artist (for song file path). The Album Artist field was added because the Artist field can sometimes have an entry that is different from the primary artist of the album. For example, the album's main artist is Bob, but for one of the songs on album, there's a guest artist, and Artist field says Bob and John or maybe Bob feat. John. If only the Artist field is used for iTunes Media folder organization, the album's song files get split up into different folders. But for this example, the Album Artist field always has Bob for all songs on the album. iTunes uses Album Artist for iTunes Media folder organization (because it's present), and all the song files on the album stay together in one Album folder.
For a compilation album like a "Greatest Hits" collection (with no primary artist), using Various as Album Artist works to keep all song files of the album together. The songs are organized using Various as the Artist folder (instead of the actual artist), but at least all of the song files are stored together in their respective Album folders.
If you don't plan to have a different entry in Artist for songs within an Album (as a general rule for your re-organized iTunes music library), you can clear the Album Artist field as you go through your library to edit the Artist entry. When you are done (with the "project"), you can sort your music library song list using the Album Artist column, to see if you missed any. Then iTunes always uses Artist to organize the iTunes Media folder. OR, you can use the same entry in both Artist and Album Artist fields (as your general rule), which allows you to have useful exceptions when you want to preserve differing Artist entries within an album (and also for compilation albums with no primary artist). Songs purchased from the iTunes Store have entries for Album Artist.
In my music library, I have songs with and without Album Artist entries. My (not very strict) rule is, if it's already there, I don't remove it. If it's not there, I don't add it, except when I notice that the Artist entries for an album (with more than one song) is not the same for all songs.
