Song Sergent doesn't affect iTunes

[Holger]

Hi.

I'm experiencing a problem where Song Sergent don't seems to affect iTunes och the iTunes library.

Song Sergent will find the same problems every time i run it, every time i rescan the library the problems i already fixed are "back" again. It used to work as intended before, but now i can't get it to work.

I have run all updates to both OS, iTunes and Song sergeant.

What shall i try next?

//Holger

[beastie]

My guess is that Song Sergeant is not looking at the right place for your actual music library. Have a look at the "Library" section of Song Sergeant's preferences and ensure that it is referring to the correct location for your music library (and media location).

Another thing to try would be to go into Song Sergeant's "Misc" preferences and turn on "Display information about minor errors", then try fixing the problems again.

[Holger]

The library seems to be correct (standard folder) and the "Display information about minor errors" didn't solve the problem either.

However, I have found another strange thing. Look at the picture and the XML from library XML that i found. The song i took as example is present once in iTunes, but three times in the XML and in Song Sergent. What could the cause be of these problem? and how to solve it?

Code: Select all

<key>10839</key>
      <dict>
         <key>Track ID</key><integer>10839</integer>
         <key>Name</key><string>We Can Work It Out</string>
         <key>Artist</key><string>Andreas Johnson</string>
         <key>Album</key><string>Absolute Music 63 (CD.1)</string>
         <key>Genre</key><string>Top 40</string>
         <key>Kind</key><string>MPEG-ljudfil</string>
         <key>Size</key><integer>4613333</integer>
         <key>Total Time</key><integer>182073</integer>
         <key>Track Number</key><integer>11</integer>
         <key>Track Count</key><integer>22</integer>
         <key>Year</key><integer>2010</integer>
         <key>Date Modified</key><date>2010-11-20T22:28:32Z</date>
         <key>Date Added</key><date>2012-03-31T21:00:28Z</date>
         <key>Bit Rate</key><integer>202</integer>
         <key>Sample Rate</key><integer>44100</integer>
         <key>Comments</key><string>Track 11</string>
         <key>Album Rating</key><integer>60</integer>
         <key>Album Rating Computed</key><true/>
         <key>Persistent ID</key><string>0F0F353EF86540A0</string>
         <key>Track Type</key><string>File</string>
         <key>Location</key><string>file://localhost/Users/Fredrik/Music/iTunes/iTunes%20Media/Music/Andreas%20Johnson/Absolute%20Music%2063%20(CD.1)/111-andreas_johnson-we_can_work_it_out-lzy.mp3</string>
         <key>File Folder Count</key><integer>5</integer>
         <key>Library Folder Count</key><integer>1</integer>
      </dict>
      
      
      
      <dict>
         <key>Track ID</key><integer>10927</integer>
         <key>Name</key><string>We Can Work It Out</string>
         <key>Artist</key><string>Andreas Johnson</string>
         <key>Album</key><string>Absolute Music 63 (CD.1)</string>
         <key>Genre</key><string>Top 40</string>
         <key>Kind</key><string>MPEG-ljudfil</string>
         <key>Size</key><integer>4613333</integer>
         <key>Total Time</key><integer>182073</integer>
         <key>Track Number</key><integer>11</integer>
         <key>Track Count</key><integer>22</integer>
         <key>Year</key><integer>2010</integer>
         <key>Date Modified</key><date>2010-11-20T22:28:32Z</date>
         <key>Date Added</key><date>2012-03-31T21:00:29Z</date>
         <key>Bit Rate</key><integer>202</integer>
         <key>Sample Rate</key><integer>44100</integer>
         <key>Comments</key><string>Track 11</string>
         <key>Album Rating</key><integer>60</integer>
         <key>Album Rating Computed</key><true/>
         <key>Persistent ID</key><string>99C4BADABE2DCF54</string>
         <key>Track Type</key><string>File</string>
         <key>Location</key><string>file://localhost/Users/Fredrik/Music/iTunes/iTunes%20Media/Music/Andreas%20Johnson/Absolute%20Music%2063%20(CD.1)/11%20We%20Can%20Work%20It%20Out.mp3</string>
         <key>File Folder Count</key><integer>5</integer>
         <key>Library Folder Count</key><integer>1</integer>
      </dict>
      
      
      <key>10967</key>
      <dict>
         <key>Track ID</key><integer>10967</integer>
         <key>Name</key><string>We Can Work It Out</string>
         <key>Artist</key><string>Andreas Johnson</string>
         <key>Album</key><string>Absolute Music 63 (CD.1)</string>
         <key>Genre</key><string>Top 40</string>
         <key>Kind</key><string>MPEG-ljudfil</string>
         <key>Size</key><integer>4613333</integer>
         <key>Total Time</key><integer>182073</integer>
         <key>Track Number</key><integer>11</integer>
         <key>Track Count</key><integer>22</integer>
         <key>Year</key><integer>2010</integer>
         <key>Date Modified</key><date>2010-11-20T22:28:32Z</date>
         <key>Date Added</key><date>2012-03-31T21:00:29Z</date>
         <key>Bit Rate</key><integer>202</integer>
         <key>Sample Rate</key><integer>44100</integer>
         <key>Comments</key><string>Track 11</string>
         <key>Play Count</key><integer>1</integer>
         <key>Play Date</key><integer>3416236339</integer>
         <key>Play Date UTC</key><date>2012-04-02T16:32:19Z</date>
         <key>Rating</key><integer>60</integer>
         <key>Album Rating</key><integer>60</integer>
         <key>Album Rating Computed</key><true/>
         <key>Persistent ID</key><string>2C8A958F68F79387</string>
         <key>Track Type</key><string>File</string>
         <key>Location</key><string>file://localhost/Users/Fredrik/Music/iTunes/iTunes%20Media/Music/Andreas%20Johnson/Absolute%20Music%2063%20(CD.1)/11%20We%20Can%20Work%20It%20Out%201.mp3</string>
         <key>File Folder Count</key><integer>5</integer>
         <key>Library Folder Count</key><integer>1</integer>
      </dict>      

//Holger

[beastie]

This is one I hadn't heard of before!

I imagine that there is no way to resolve this outside of iTunes itself. I would suggest trying out this advice to hopefully get iTunes to start behaving.

[Holger]

You don't know anything else to try that i can do that don't destroy my library playcount and stars?

//Holger

[beastie]

I can think of one thing to try, though it is not a simple solution either. I would configure iTunes's import settings (in general preferences) to use a different format than the existing problematic songs but at a similar or slightly higher quality level, then select the songs and ask iTunes to convert them to that format.

In your case, you'd end up with roughly 200 more duplicate tracks with AAC compression instead of MP3. Use Song Sergeant to prefer those new tracks when merging duplicates, and the triple-MP3 references will hopefully disappear.

[Holger]

Sadly, that solutions didn't seem to work either.

But I tried another thing: I tried to delete one of the problem songs (duplicate entry songs) from iTunes (and let it even move the mp3 to trash). This track will still remain in song sergeants "missing" tab. Probably in the "ghost" entrys are still left. When i try do delete them in song sorbent by "remove selected from iTunes"-button, the following error message appears: "Remove Missing Error, Song sergeant encountered one or more error whilst removing the below tracks. Please rescan your library and try again [song name]".

Any new idéas or solutions?

Is there possible to edit the XML-file by text-editor and let the XML update the iTunes library to manually delete the "gost tracks?"

[Holger]

I have now solved the problem. The solutions that worked (or maybe the workaround) was to delete the iTunes library.itl and rebuild it from the XML-file.

Thanks for your help anyway. Time give Song Sergent 5 stars at appstore, it was extremely handy to let song sergeant clean and fix up the library after rebuilding and messing with it!

//Holger