iTunes issues

Of course I've used iTunes for four years now and never had a single problem. Super fast, super responsive, extremely convenient interfaces that get the job done, a bunch of additional features that make life easier even though I don't need them.

Now all of a sudden, it just refuses to detect my iPod. Windows knows it's there. I can access the files on it through My Computer. iTunes doesn't recognize anything plugged in though.

I've restarted my computer, restarted the iPod, reinstalled iTunes, and nothing works. I've tried different USB ports as well. None of it worked.

Any ideas?

Of course I've used iTunes for four years now and never had a single problem. Super fast, super responsive, extremely convenient interfaces that get the job done, a bunch of additional features that make life easier even though I don't need them.

That sure don't sound like iTunes.

Anyway, did you recently update your ipod?

Noooope.

I've found that me, all of my friends, and all of the people I've ever talked to outside of ZU seem to have extraordinary fortune with iTunes. My roommate uses it and he has 120 gigs of music. Loads really fast and is extremely manageable.

Originally Posted by Andy

Noooope.

I've found that me, all of my friends, and all of the people I've ever talked to outside of ZU seem to have extraordinary fortune with iTunes. My roommate uses it and he has 120 gigs of music. Loads really fast and is extremely manageable.

Strangly enough, itunes used to crash my computer all the time, but with the recent update, it is quite reliable for me too. I'm still just a little hung up on past experiences.

There may be a setting that has been unchecked saying something like "Detect connected devices" in Itunes itself. Other than that, maybe try a computer restore back to when it was working? Sorry I can't really come up with anything overly useful.

it's not just ZU that hates iTunes, it's basically the whole internet.
especially audiophile communities, iTunes pisses audiophiles off.
it pisses me off.

That doesn't really help, nighthawkx.

I know that I am a terrible, evil, disgusting person for using iTunes and that every time I load it a baby holding a puppy strangles it to death and then kills itself in a violent bloody mess. I understand that it hogs 1% of my ram and that I am inferior to you for using it, and something about not supporting high-fidelity filetypes and is only compatible with 99% of released music and doesn't fill in blank tags with question marks like it should. I get all of that, it makes sense.

However it's beside the point. I'm wondering if anyone here has any kind of experience with this sort of thing and what they did in the past. Apple is telling me to disable every process I have running that isn't iTunes and something tells me that that's just not a great idea. Worse comes to worse I can try foobar, but I really don't want to spend six hours consolidating my library and re-tagging six gigs of music and spending two hours configuring foobar to have the functionality iTunes did.

until the iPhone 3g and the 3gs Apple didn't really have any decent mp3 players so with the exception of the one I bought off a friend and sold a few months later, my iPod "experience" has been quite limited. I alway used other companies products(creative before they became crud, sandisk, cowon, etc.)

have you tried reinstalling itunes?
have you tried a different version?
have you reset the iPod to the default settings?
is the firmware on the iPod up to date?
can't really think of anything off the top of my head outside of that.

Yes, I'm really not super great at running software (can you tell? I use iTunes) and knowing how to fix issues that happen with software. But I did figure out how to reinstall iTunes, how to update my iPod, how to reset my iPod, and how to reboot my computer.

I always try at least three or four ways to fix an issue before asking for help about it. :/

Originally Posted by Andy

I understand that it hogs 1% of my ram

Wait, you have 25 gigabytes of RAM?

Originally Posted by Andy

and doesn't fill in blank tags with question marks like it should

I wonder what player does that

Originally Posted by Andy

However it's beside the point.

Exactly, I won't argue anything (except for the couple above messages) and try to help you out with a couple things below, such as this. the above was just the little fun I am allowed to have. (:

Originally Posted by Andy

I'm wondering if anyone here has any kind of experience with this sort of thing and what they did in the past. Apple is telling me to disable every process I have running that isn't iTunes and something tells me that that's just not a great idea.

Here's my idea - uninstall iTunes. Press ctrl+alt+delete. Is applemobiledeviceservice.exe still there? Check and post again, I might be able to help you out from there, it might be Apple leaving 30 files left on your system when uninstalling programs.

Originally Posted by Andy

Worse comes to worse I can try foobar, but I really don't want to spend six hours consolidating my library and re-tagging six gigs of music and spending two hours configuring foobar to have the functionality iTunes did.

1. Export iTunes library to m3u
2. Import with foobar
3. Save those six hours of tagging music
4. ???
5. PROFIT !!!

~~

In an off topic message, I just gave away my iPod and went back to my 3 year old iRiver e10 with 6 GB memory. Why? Because this is the first time I have enjoyed music on a portable player in a loooong time. I really did miss the sound quality it had. It's a known fact that the 3.5mm jack on ipods suck jenna jameson's *******.

Originally Posted by Danger

Wait, you have 25 gigabytes of RAM?

iTunes takes ~40 megs of ram. Though I wasn't stating a statistical fact, just exaggerating for effect.

I wonder what player does that

Foobar did it for me. Nitpick, I know, but ****ing annoying one nonetheless.

Here's my idea - uninstall iTunes. Press ctrl+alt+delete. Is applemobiledeviceservice.exe still there? Check and post again, I might be able to help you out from there, it might be Apple leaving 30 files left on your system when uninstalling programs.

It was neither there before or after I uninstalled iTunes.

1. Export iTunes library to m3u
2. Import with foobar
3. Save those six hours of tagging music
4. ???
5. PROFIT !!!

I don't spend a lot of time organizing, playing with, or touching my music at all. So I have no idea what the hell an m3u is. But it took some three hours of tagging last time I switched to foobar and it wasn't even half done.

In an off topic message, I just gave away my iPod and went back to my 3 year old iRiver e10 with 6 GB memory. Why? Because this is the first time I have enjoyed music on a portable player in a loooong time. I really did miss the sound quality it had. It's a known fact that the 3.5mm jack on ipods suck jenna jameson's *******.

sounds amazing to me. Like really rather phenomenal.

Originally Posted by Andy

iTunes takes ~40 megs of ram. Though I wasn't stating a statistical fact, just exaggerating for effect.

It doesn't even take that little, even if I have zero songs in my playlist. :/
Don't get me wrong, some of the effects like cover flow are nice, but it can use lots of RAM, and let's not talk about virtual RAM usage.

Originally Posted by Andy

Foobar did it for me. Nitpick, I know, but ****ing annoying one nonetheless.

If it does that, it's because the songs were wrongly tagged in the first place.

Originally Posted by Andy

It was neither there before or after I uninstalled iTunes.

Ugh, weird.

Here's what processes iTunes have in the background, even when it's off:
iPodService.exe
iTunes Helper.exe
qttask.exe
mDNSResponder.exe
AppleMobileDeviceService.exe
distnoted.exe

which ones of the above are there? it'll help me troubleshoot the problem.

Originally Posted by Andy

I don't spend a lot of time organizing, playing with, or touching my music at all. So I have no idea what the hell an m3u is.

A playlist...

Originally Posted by Andy

sounds amazing to me. Like really rather phenomenal.

Yes

Originally Posted by Danger

It doesn't even take that little, even if I have zero songs in my playlist. :/
Don't get me wrong, some of the effects like cover flow are nice, but it can use lots of RAM, and let's not talk about virtual RAM usage.

It's never used more than 40 megs for me, and I have 6 gigs of music.

And I ****ing hate cover flow. I just have it display lists of songs, organized by album into ~8 playlists., I'd take a screenshot but I uninstalled it for the purposes of this thread.

If it does that, it's because the songs were wrongly tagged in the first place.

Nono, instead of having a blank tag, it would fill it with a question mark, unavoidably. I tried editing the tags of a song, and there would be nothing in certain tags, like the album tag. But it would display a question mark there. I hate that so much.

Ugh, weird.
Here's what processes iTunes have in the background, even when it's off:
iPodService.exe
iTunes Helper.exe
qttask.exe
mDNSResponder.exe
AppleMobileDeviceService.exe
distnoted.exe


which ones of the above are there? it'll help me troubleshoot the problem.

Zero of them.

A playlist...

I found a python script that exports an iTunes XML file into an M3u File. Should I try that and then import the m3u using foobar?

EDIT:

Thanks for the help, man.

Originally Posted by Andy

It's never used more than 40 megs for me, and I have 6 gigs of music.

lol'd, I just checked at my friend's computer (running iTunes 9) and it took about 106 megabytes of RAM, excluding the 4324 peripheral processes. He has about 6 gigabytes too.

Originally Posted by Andy

Nono, instead of having a blank tag, it would fill it with a question mark, unavoidably. I tried editing the tags of a song, and there would be nothing in certain tags, like the album tag. But it would display a question mark there. I hate that so much.

I find it the perfect motivation to "Fix your ****ing music now, it takes about 5 seconds per album at most".

Originally Posted by Andy

Zero of them.

And when iTunes is installed?

Originally Posted by Andy

I found a python script that exports an iTunes XML file into an M3u File. Should I try that and then import the m3u using foobar?

http://www.ericdaugherty.com/dev/itunesexport/
Try this, it's graphical and fancy

Originally Posted by Andy

EDIT:

Thanks for the help, man.

I'm not too helpful yet. We'll see soon.

Originally Posted by Danger

lol'd, I just checked at my friend's computer (running iTunes 9) and it took about 106 megabytes of RAM, excluding the 4324 peripheral processes. He has about 6 gigabytes too.

Just checked after reinstalling, 32 Megs, not including the extra stuff, though that stuff takes <8 so .... yeah.

I find it the perfect motivation to "Fix your ****ing music now, it takes about 5 seconds per album at most".

It takes like, an entire minute per album for me....

And when iTunes is installed?

All but the Apple Mobile Devices. I just checked MSConfig and it was disabled. So I enabled it and still no iPod connectivity.

http://www.ericdaugherty.com/dev/itunesexport/
Try this, it's graphical and fancy

Tried it, reinstalled foobar, imported the M3U, and it's still not up to date. Gotta lot of converting/tagging left to do still, should take another hour or so.

I'm not too helpful yet. We'll see soon.

Nah, it's the thought that counts man, you're being very helpful now.

EDIT:

Enabled AppleMobileDevices and now it ****ING WORKS.

GAH. Thread solved. I appreciate the help guys. It can be locked now.

I do not know why this happened. I disabled Apple Mobile Devices weeeeks ago and it still worked fine. Ain't that spontaneous.

Originally Posted by Andy

Just checked after reinstalling, 32 Megs, not including the extra stuff, though that stuff takes <8 so .... yeah.

o_o

Originally Posted by Andy

It takes like, an entire minute per album for me....

Oh, let me teach you how to do it quick!
a) select album
b) alt+enter
c) tools > automatically fill values
d) now is where you actually have to work a bit. first time it'll take a minute, but the next and the next it'll take down to 5 seconds, even for all albums of an artist.
Let's pretend I have The Beatles- The Decca Tapes
01 - To Know Her Is To Love Her
02 - Crying, Waiting, Hoping
03 - September in the Rain

What I type in in "pattern", then, is %tracknumber% - %title%

However, if it would be like
The Beatles . To Know Her Is To Love Her
The Beatles . Crying, Waiting, Hoping
The Beatles . September in the Rain

the "pattern" would be %artist% . %title%

Do you see how it works? It's really powerful.

And if track numbers are missing..
alt + enter
tools > auto track number

and if artist/album is missing
alt + enter
type in artist or album just like that

Originally Posted by Andy

All but the Apple Mobile Devices. I just checked MSConfig and it was disabled. So I enabled it and still no iPod connectivity.

a) uninstall iTunes
b) start the iTunes installer
c) go to the temporary folder where it extracts the individual install files (I don't know where exactly, try a temp folder or a google search)
d) copy them all
e) turn off the iTunes installer
f) install applemobiledeviceservice manually using one of the setup files

Originally Posted by Andy

Tried it, reinstalled foobar, imported the M3U, and it's still not up to date. Gotta lot of converting/tagging left to do still, should take another hour or so.

Don't worry, try the method above.

Originally Posted by Andy

Enabled AppleMobileDevices and now it ****ING WORKS.

GAH. Thread solved. I appreciate the help guys. It can be locked now.

I do not know why this happened. I disabled Apple Mobile Devices weeeeks ago and it still worked fine. Ain't that spontaneous.

Oh, ignore the above advice then about reinstalling itunes, glad it worked