Importing Playcount in iTunes from .xml

[mainstreetmark]

My notebook jammed up again, and instead of wait for it to unjam, which has taken an hour, I hard booted it. Well, it did what I feared - it crapped up my iTunes 4 Music Library file (I have about 8 damaged ones now).

It's usually able to recover, but this time it did not, and i lost all my playlists and half of my songs. My most recent backup of this file was from August, and the iPod hasn't been sync'd in a long time, and isn't aware of many of the new songs.

But, I do have a iTunes Music Library.xml file from two days ago. I was able to successfully import that and restore all my songs and ratings and playlists. But, no playcounts.

Does anyone know how to restore the music library from the XML file, such that it remembers your playcounts?

 

[wrldwzrd89]

My notebook jammed up again, and instead of wait for it to unjam, which has taken an hour, I hard booted it. Well, it did what I feared - it crapped up my iTunes 4 Music Library file (I have about 8 damaged ones now).

It's usually able to recover, but this time it did not, and i lost all my playlists and half of my songs. My most recent backup of this file was from August, and the iPod hasn't been sync'd in a long time, and isn't aware of many of the new songs.

But, I do have a iTunes Music Library.xml file from two days ago. I was able to successfully import that and restore all my songs and ratings and playlists. But, no playcounts.

Does anyone know how to restore the music library from the XML file, such that it remembers your playcounts?

You can't, because the XML file doesn't store playcounts for some reason. I don't know why Apple implemented it this way - it sure stinks if you want to keep your playcounts.

 

[Loge]

The xml file does store play count info - for example look for a key such as the following -

<key>Play Count</key><integer>2</integer>

If the play count is zero though, the key is absent.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

The xml file does store play count info - for example look for a key such as the following -

<key>Play Count</key><integer>2</integer>

If the play count is zero though, the key is absent.

That's weird. Even though the playcounts are present, iTunes won't import them. How strange.

 

[mainstreetmark]

...and we arrive back to the original questions.

 

[jbembe]

has anyone ever figured out how to do this?? I have an xml file which loaded 30% of the playcounts when I tried to reuse that file for itunes. any good programs to recover all playcount/rating/info from the xml files?

 

[mainstreetmark]

I think you gotta start banking on that "Backup to Disc" feature of itunes, or what I've been doing, instead of backing up the XML, back up the actual iTunes Library file. The XML just seems to be drug along these days, as iTunes doesn't appear to acutally use it for data storage.

 

[jbembe]

Hmm, so using the File>Back Up to Disc option seems to be saving ALL files which is quite large and the playlist information. I'm not sure I understand how to just save library parameters...

Also, if I have a new computer and use the mac program that moves everything over to the new computer, will all of my iTunes properties be saved? If not, how do I make sure the transition will happen without data loss? Finally, I have the iTunes library and information saved on an external drive.

THanks!

Josh