wtfff, iTunes

[ysobel]

The main reason I use iTunes is because it is the easiest way to sync iThings.

I currently want to set it on fire.

#

So, okay. Long time ago, I used to store music files on an external hard drive (because there wasn't enough room on my computer ... shush). Said external HD died. I found a program that could get songs off my iPod and put them back into iTunes along with the playlists, so, fine.

Mind you, iTunes still had listings for all the files on the external HD, never mind that it was pining for the fjords. And I couldn't figure out how to weed out broken listings aside from manually playing each file one by one, and augh no.

So, okay, I probably lost some stuff in the whole process (music files that hadn't been on my iPod), but whatever, still had the important stuff.

Fast forward to a few months ago. iTunes loses its shit, more or less, and playlists and whatnot are all frelled. I run the same sort of backup thingie, which leads to having multiples of a lot of my stuff but easier than manually rebuilding everything, right?

Fast forward to today, when iTunes decides, for no apparent reason, that I have something on the order of 12 songs and 1 app and 3 movies, none of which is close to the correct count. I run the backup program. Again. Now there are some things in my library that are listed three or four or five times.

Double check that everything is okay, and go to sync my iPad. Which iTunes says has 8.mumble gigs free, which is great except for when I push the sync button, it spins for a bit and says that the iPad cannot be synced because there is not enough free space. Additional 32 GB required.

...32 fucking gigs.

I uncheck the "include all music lolz" option because it's propbably trying to include the three-to-five copies of everything, and manually check off playlists, and ... I still need 31 gigs.

*stares at it, too exhausted even to cry*

Fuck this, I'm going to bed.

Comments

[branchandroot]

First sleep. When you are all refreshed: I know what this is. The iPad has corrupted data files, probably all those backup multiples which it /thinks/ are taking up real space and it doesn't know how to get rid of them. There are two things that usually work. One is getting one of the device-cleaner applications. I use PhoneClean, since it's my iPhone that has this little problem, and that one might do for a Pad too. It deletes all those corrupted and orphaned files that are telling the device there's no room. The more extreme option is to do a new restore of the device (that is, restore it as a new device, not using any of your backups). That means re-doing the settings and re-loading all your files, which is a pain but does usually work.

I suspect iTunes will keep flipping out unless you do a delete-and-reinstall on /that/ too, and just let the wretched thing re-build the library from the actual song files (which should be moved to somewhere handy like your desktop before attempting the clean install). *makes a face* Do you have a ton of playlists that would need re-creating?

[ysobel]

Sleep helped ... still cranky though.

DLed PhoneClean, thanks! Haven't run it yet.

I have probably 50 current playlists but most of them will be straightforward to rebuild, just time-consuming. Bleh. But hopefully dealing with it now will reduce stress/time later...