Q: Getting iPhone to recognize change to iTunes Library Drive Letter
I am trying to do something that should be extremely simple and Apple has found a way to make it incredibly difficult. I am moving my media to a new computer. On my old computer, all of the media was on the J: drive. On my new computer, it is all on the D: drive. Other than that, the folder structure is exactly the same. In the documentation for migrating to a new computer, Apple says to enable the 'Keep iTunes Media folder organized' option. There are several reasons why this is not an option, chiefly because iTunes is the absolute worst at organizing your media folder. I've seen cases where iTunes just dumps all your perfectly organized files into one folder for you to figure out what is what when you go searching for the file you need. No thank you, I'm perfectly capable of organizing my own files. Not to mention, my media files are on a data drive and the app folder where the iTunes library files are stored is on a SSD with limited storage. So...the iTunes library keeps record of the media location using a file 'iTunes Music Library.xml'. I've updated that file to use the new location and when I open iTunes on my new computer, everything is perfect. All my media is there with all my custom artwork I've applied (iTunes can also be really awful at matching artwork on music not bought through iTunes!). So great, let's get my iPhone recognized now because that's really the only reason I use iTunes. As soon as I connect my phone and it starts the sync process, it overwrites everything in the XML file and reverts all of my music back to the original location (now the music in the iTunes library has !'s next to all my synced music). You go to access a song and it will prompt you for the new location, which I can browse to, and then iTunes even prompts to use this new location to update the other "missing" files, but the problem is, this functionality only searches the subfolder where the particular file you are accessing is located, which in this case is one album. Do you know how many albums I have?! You mean I have to manually go to every single album and update the location?! Again, no thank you! So my thought at this point was, ok, let's just resync all the music with the phone, which although is still a huge pain given the extremely slow transfer speeds from your computer to your phone (Hi Apple, meet USB 3.1 or even USB 3.0) in combination with the size of my library (we're talking days to complete!!), it is still less of a pain then going to every single file (or one song from each album) and updating the location. On a side note - it would be really awesome if the sync over Wi-Fi technology would work consistently...I mean, they've had what, over 4 years to get it working and you're still lucky if your phone is recognized over Wi-Fi. That means I have to leave my phone hooked to my computer for days and who realistically has the ability to do that? Sorry, I digress. So, I removed all of my music from my phone and got iTunes to be happy again with the new drive letter. Great, let's start the arduous process of syncing my music back to my phone. I re-enable the option to sync my music and what happens, my iPhone again overwrites my iTunes library with the old media location! Excuse me, but how does it make sense to have the phone, which is a destination and contains a subset of your media library, to be the system of record for where files are stored on the source? I mean come on! That is absurd!! I've always hated that Apple is so proprietary and forces you to use iTunes (some of the worst software ever developed) to manage/sync your media. But, for years I have justified it by saying iPhones just work. No hassle. Well, I will say, this is not just working and my insinuation that Apple makes simple products that just work no longer holds water. At this point I am very close to saying goodbye to the iPhone and switching to Google's Project Fi. I'm tired of my friends' less expensive phones outperforming my overpriced device that uses antiquated technology. Any way, sorry to dump all this on the community, but it is absolutely ridiculous that it is so complicated to change a drive letter and I am at my wits end. Thanks in advance to anyone who can offer a solution.
iPhone 6s, iOS 9.3.1, Windows 10, iTunes 12.3.3.17
Posted on Apr 18, 2016 7:44 PM
I apologize, I only read about 20% of that.
iTunes does not use the .xml file, it uses the .itl file which cannot be edited. It creates the .xml for other applications to read. The only way to get it to use the .xml is to create a blank library and import the .xml so it populates the new .itl with the .xml references.
The search for multiple broken links functions but because you have decided not to let iTunes organize media it cannot make correct assumptions as to folder hierarchy and file location based on tag information.
I don't know why it did the switch back. It isn't the iPhone doing that, it is iTunes itself, possibly based upon incorrect rebuilding of the library database .itl file if you really did it the way I understand.
Posted on Apr 18, 2016 7:58 PM