transferring itunes playcounts

[fennek]

hi,

I have used itunes for two years now, meaning that I have ripped my entire cd collection and also bought music online which is sitting in an external hard drive. I have rated a lot of good stuff but by far not all since I would, if I stopped eating, starve to death before I had to listen to a track twice.

I remember from about a year back when I installed panther all my playcounts were gone, which bothers me a lot, knowing that tiger will come sometime next year. That is because I have not listen to some well rated songs very often, thus play count gives me a better image of my own listening habits during certain life situations.

My itunes now is like your favourite jacket that gets more personality if you wear it. I like personality.

Did I just mess that up, how can I keep all ratings and playcounts?

thanks



fennek

 

[mslifkin]

hi,

I have used itunes for two years now, meaning that I have ripped my entire cd collection and also bought music online which is sitting in an external hard drive. I have rated a lot of good stuff but by far not all since I would, if I stopped eating, starve to death before I had to listen to a track twice.

I remember from about a year back when I installed panther all my playcounts were gone, which bothers me a lot, knowing that tiger will come sometime next year. That is because I have not listen to some well rated songs very often, thus play count gives me a better image of my own listening habits during certain life situations.

My itunes now is like your favourite jacket that gets more personality if you wear it. I like personality.

Did I just mess that up, how can I keep all ratings and playcounts?

thanks



fennek

Hi Fennek,

If you did an upgrade of Tiger, (as opposed to a clean install) in all probability all your ratings and playcounts would be preserved. I say "in al probability" because I've never attempted an upgrade before; I've always done a wipe and clean install. However, all is not lost. Before you install Tiger you should do the following:

1) Copy your entire iTunes library (/Music/iTunes) to an external drive.
2) Open up iTunes and de-authorize that computer (that's under the Advanced menu)
3) Install Tiger.
4) Launch iTunes. It will ask you if you want it to search for your music. Click on No. iTunes will then create an empty library.
5) Quit iTunes, an rename Music/iTunes to Music/iTunes.org. This is just in case you have to back out.
6) Copy your backed up iTunes directory from your external drive to your Music directory. Once you're done the Music directory should contain both iTunes and iTunes.org directories.
7) Launch iTunes again, and you should see your entire library, complete with ratings and playcounts. As a matter of fact, even the window size of iTunes itself should be the same as it was prior to the upgrade.
8) Try to play a song that you've purchased from the iTunes Music Store. iTunes will probably tell you that your computer is not authorized to play that song, and will ask you for your iTunes Music Store account and password. You have to re-authorize your computer. Once you do that your song will start playing, and everything will be fine.

Now this is all assuming that Apple doesn't make any major changes to iTunes in Tiger. I know that this works because over time I've added Macs and /or wiped and reloaded them. Hope this helps.

Looking forward to Tiger myself!

Marc

 

[MacFan26]

When you installed Panther, did you do the update or the clean install? (if you remember) I kept all my playcounts when I installed panther by just updating.


sort of off topic, but speaking of playcounts, does anyone know how to change them other than resetting them to zero or doing it manually?

 

[Loge]

sort of off topic, but speaking of playcounts, does anyone know how to change them other than resetting them to zero or doing it manually?

To manipulate playcounts and lots of other useful stuff, you need Doug's Applescripts for iTunes -

http://www.malcolmadams.com/itunes/index.php

Search for "new play count" to find the script that does what you want here.

 

[MacFan26]

To manipulate playcounts and lots of other useful stuff, you need Doug's Applescripts for iTunes -

http://www.malcolmadams.com/itunes/index.php

Search for "new play count" to find the script that does what you want here.

very cool thanks

 

[fennek]

Thanks

Thanks for the advice guys.

I have always done clean installs just because I think that all these upgrades tend to slow down the computer. I am working on an imac 800 which is becoming sort of slow at times so I figured that it would make sense to upgrade to Tiger soon after it comes out (which I am guessing will be in January...).

cheers,



fennek