Songs that Play in one iTunes but not the other... [Archive]

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Earendil

Mar 8, 2004, 04:02 PM

So recently I transfered some music from my Panther PB to a widows XP home Notebook. The music on my Panther machine had all been played in iTunes, but after the transfer a few songs that show up as "MP3 Audio File" type on my computer, and "file" on the XP machine, will not play in the windows iTunes version. What gives? stranger yet, the files will play in WindowsMP, and RealOne says it can play them, but it needs to "download new software" first.

The only thing I can figure is that somehow an updated version of QT has pegged the file as it's own. Even though I've had most of these files since QT4.0

Is there a way to fix this on the windows side?

TIA,
Tyler
Earendil

Sparky's

Mar 8, 2004, 04:32 PM

Earendil

Mar 8, 2004, 04:56 PM

I can't help you with the fix but everytime I buy music from the iStore I'm reminded that "these songs are lisenced to play on one computer only" so maybe its the tune itself. I personally burn from itunes to a CD then either import to my machine at work or just play the CD.

That would be a problem, except that I didn't get them off any iStore. Nor are they copy protected files...
They appear as regular ol' music files to me and my computer. What really boggles my mind is that Windows MediaPlayer and MacOS iTunes are able to play them, but not Windows iTunes...

Tyler
Earendil

mkrishnan

Mar 8, 2004, 05:25 PM

...after the transfer a few songs that show up as "MP3 Audio File" type on my computer, and "file" on the XP machine, will not play in the windows iTunes version. What gives? stranger yet, the files will play in WindowsMP, and RealOne says it can play them, but it needs to "download new software" first.

It sounds like maybe these files did not get extensions in their names for some reason when they got to your PC. How did you move them over? Do they show up in iTunes at all on the PC and refuse to play, or are they just missing?

On the PC, go to one of the files, and check its extension. If it's called a type "file" on the PC, usually it means that there is no extension. Try changing the name so that it ends in .mp3 (if it is) or .m4a (if it's AAC). You can do this by clicking on the file name in an explorer window if it doesn't have an extension, or through a command prompt.

If this does work, then you can probably search for files of type "file" in your iTunes folder and then change all of them to the right extension. I have to think about it, but I think there should be a command something like "move */*/*. */*/*.m4a" that will automatically do this if you start in the root iTunes directory But I don't think that's the right syntax.

You might also try one of the utilities at:

http://www.snapfiles.com/freeware/system/fwfilerename.html

Earendil

Mar 8, 2004, 09:25 PM

It sounds like maybe these files did not get extensions in their names for some reason when they got to your PC. How did you move them over? Do they show up in iTunes at all on the PC and refuse to play, or are they just missing?

I'll try what you suggested, but I'll also answer your questions.
I used an ethernet connection, direct transfer of files. They don't show up at all on the PC iTunes, they don't import. The files do show up as physical (in a sense) files on the PC machine, in other words they did transfer.

Tyler
Earendil

Sparky's

Mar 9, 2004, 04:38 PM

Earendil

Mar 9, 2004, 05:04 PM

One additional thought, did you try to (after turning sharing on both machines and connecting) open iTune on the PC and "Import" the files from the MAC? Not just transfering files from one to another.

No, I didn't try it that way I don't believe. They were transfered as files from Mac to PC, and then Imported from PC HD to PC iTunes.