iTunes, CoverScout creating thousands of duplicate files, Arghh!

[AndyMoore]

I found that my Music files have all been duplicated. My Music library is double the size of what it should be, 122Gb!

Looking in iTunes, everything seems normal. No duplicates. All is fine.

In Finder, every file is duplicated and each one has <space>1 appended to the name before the extension mp3 or m4a etc. Even videos files.

All are dated 9th September which is the same date that CoverScout has, so that points to a connection there.

I have tried to delete some of the <space>1 files but these are the ones that iTunes has linked to so they appear as missing in iTunes even though the originals are in the same folders as the duplicates.

So I'm recovering the files I just deleted from Time Machine and am trying to work out the best way to sort this mess out without resorting to nuking the whole library and starting again. I don't want to lose all the meta-data which nuking it would do.

Going through every folder individually is going to be a nightmare.

Any suggestions?

 

[ThE.MeSsEnGeR]

I don't know if this will work, but it's worth a try. in your main iTunes folder, search for all songs within it.

in the results window, arrange them by date modified or created or whatever, just arrange them in a way, that all the files created on Sept. 9th, will be next to each other. select them all and delete them.

just make sure you DO have the originals.

once you're done, go to your iTunes library and tell it to "organize" itself, by going to File->Library->Organize

I hope I gave you some ideas. let me know what happens.

PS. just out of curiosity, what's CoverScout?

 

[AndyMoore]

It's not just the duplicated files that are dated 9th September. The majority of files have this date strangely enough.

CoverScout is used for searching for iTunes album artwork.

 

[ThE.MeSsEnGeR]

ohh, that's why I don't like those kind of applications, to search for lyrics, cover arts, names, etc... automatically. I like to do it manually, even if it would take me hours to do so; I'll do it gradually.

ok, let's try this. MOVE (not copy) your WHOLE itunes folder to a different location (to your desktop maybe). then, go to iTunes and Consolidate your files. go to File->Library->Organize

that option tells iTunes to put one copy of each of the songs/movies of the Library, inside an organized iTunes folder. that way, it'll copy only one copy of each song, no matter if it's named <space>1 or not, you want just one copy. then when it's done, check if all the songs inside iTunes are linked correctly. check your iTunes folder size (the new one). if all is in place and you ABSOLUTELY are sure you no longer need the 122GB one, delete it. BUT AFTER YOU HAVE CHECKED AND RECHECKED that your files are stored in the new iTunes folder where it originally should be.

 

[AndyMoore]

Thanks for the suggestion but it didn't work. It only Organised 790 of 8603 music files

 

[AndyMoore]

I'm now trying something else. I've created a new iTunes folder on my desktop and have changed iTunes to point to the new folder. Now I'm consolidating the files. Hopefully, it should give me an iTunes folder without the duplicates although it won't help the file naming issue.

 

[ThE.MeSsEnGeR]

Thanks for the suggestion but it didn't work. It only Organised 790 of 8603 music files

bummer

I'm now trying something else. I've created a new iTunes folder on my desktop and have changed iTunes to point to the new folder. Now I'm consolidating the files. Hopefully, it should give me an iTunes folder without the duplicates although it won't help the file naming issue.

hopefully it'll work... let me know how it goes.

 

[AndyMoore]

Well that seems to have sorted the problem.

I had to go through the process again to move all the files back to my Music/iTunes folder but it's back down to 60Gb. It's also fixed the linking to duplicated files issue. There's none of the <space>1 files now.

 

[ThE.MeSsEnGeR]

Well that seems to have sorted the problem.

I had to go through the process again to move all the files back to my Music/iTunes folder but it's back down to 60Gb. It's also fixed the linking to duplicated files issue. There's none of the <space>1 files now.

nice... I'm really happy for you!

 

[artistry]

Duplicate artwork too

I just discovered that Coverscout has stored several gigs worth of cover art in the Library folder

user/Library/Application Support/Coverscout 3/

I had about 5 gigs of images in there! Worth checking out...