Why does Mojave iTunes ignore music tracks?

[blackxacto]

17,1 iMac, 10.14.4, booted from 128gb SSD card, Music Library stored on internal 2TB hd.

I have told iTunes where the "iTunes Media" folder in on the 2TB internal drive. Most tracks play fine from a 4,000 track library. But the only way for iTunes to recognize two music files I have made, is to manually double click the tracks on the 2TB hd, then iTunes on the 128SSD card sees the two files. Why is this?

The two tracks are MPEG audio files, 192 bit rate, 44.1 kHz, stereo, id3 tag v2.2, encoded w iTunes 12.9.2.5.

Also booting from the 128SSD card Mojave iTunes imports audiobook tracks stored on the 2TB hd in the "iTunes Media" folder, but half the tracks are unplayable. ALL these tracks play in Column View w Finder. I tested them.

Is Mojave iTunes screwing up? or me?

 

[Stephen.R]

It may be adding the ones you open from finder and still have missing references in the library. Try searching for the title of the song, see how many results it shows.

 

[blackxacto]

No, I’ve checked that very thing. Somehow the Column View player is totally separate software. It’s strang, I point iTunes to the internal 2TB “itunes media” folder. It knows where to get everything, but if I have music files I have made, it may not see them.

Also pointing to the internal 2TB drive to find audiobooks, works halfway, if I made the audiobooks from sound files. ITunes CAN TOTALLY ignore audio tracks set as audiobooks. It smashes them all into music, or totally ignores them.

 

[Stephen.R]

Ok so hang on I think I see where this is going.

The "column view" player you're talking about sounds like the Finder's quicklook feature (previewing files).

iTunes is completely different software, and it doesn't just automatically load new files from an arbitrary directory structure. You have to add the files to iTunes for it to show them. There is one special folder "Automatically add to iTunes" that it will scan and import from, but that's it.

As for your audiobook files - iTunes reads the mp4 file tags to identify what 'type' of file it is. I suggest grabbing Subler.app (https://subler.org) and using that to set the 'Media Kind' attribute.

 

[blackxacto]

Ok so hang on I think I see where this is going.

The "column view" player you're talking about sounds like the Finder's quicklook feature (previewing files).

iTunes is completely different software, and it doesn't just automatically load new files from an arbitrary directory structure. You have to add the files to iTunes for it to show them. There is one special folder "Automatically add to iTunes" that it will scan and import from, but that's it.

As for your audiobook files - iTunes reads the mp4 file tags to identify what 'type' of file it is. I suggest grabbing Subler.app (https://subler.org) and using that to set the 'Media Kind' attribute.

I said iTunes is separate.

If “Automatically Add folder” is true why point the app to the remote library in preferences? Are you saying pointing is a waste of time?

 

[Stephen.R]

The path you specify is the base path iTunes uses for it's library file (i.e. a list of all tracks so it doesn't have to scan all the files every time) and the actual media files (in an "iTunes Media") folder.

If you don't set that, anything you open in iTunes (which it will, by default, copy into your iTunes library) will end up copied into the 'Music/iTunes' folder in your home folder.

So its not a waste of time, but you also need to be aware of how iTunes works.

 

[blackxacto]

The "automatically add" you speak of is only concerning iTunes Store purchases.

Pointing iTunes to another library is all that's required. I am saying iTunes ignores some sound files completely. So I must dig down in the folders, find them on the remote library and double click them for iTunes to play them and link to them. I have no idea why some sound files are ignored by iTunes. iTunes is correctly pointed to the remote library "iTunes Media" folder. 95% of the library is linked by pointing. The 5% is a mystery.

 

[Stephen.R]

The "automatically add" you speak of is only concerning iTunes Store purchases.

Pointing iTunes to another library is all that's required. I am saying iTunes ignores some sound files completely. So I must dig down in the folders, find them on the remote library and double click them for iTunes to play them and link to them. I have no idea why some sound files are ignored by iTunes. iTunes is correctly pointed to the remote library "iTunes Media" folder. 95% of the library is linked by pointing. The 5% is a mystery.

If you simply add a new file to an existing directory under the iTunes media directory hierarchy, iTunes will not know anything about it. That’s just the way it works.

You asked why it doesn’t work - I’m telling you why. You need to add tracks to iTunes for it to recognise them. If you want to continue to argue I’m wrong you can argue to yourself about that and your problem.

 

[Partron22]

If you simply add a new file to an existing directory under the iTunes media directory hierarchy, iTunes will not know anything about it.

Never understood why Apple didn't add a "scan my music library, and put any tracks in it, into my playable music". That might take a while, but it's not much harder than adding a lock button for your playlists would have been.

 

[blackxacto]

Found this:
https://www.kirkville.com/how-to-move-your-itunes-library-to-an-external-hard-drive/comment-page-1/

 

[Stephen.R]

Never understood why Apple didn't add a "scan my music library, and put any tracks in it, into my playable music". That might take a while, but it's not much harder than adding a lock button for your playlists would have been.

Because that has unexpected side effects.

If you put a track with id3/mp4 track info into a part of the iTunes directory hierarchy that doesn’t match the tags, what should it do?

You might expect it to respect the id3 tags, you might expect it to respect the folder you’ve put it in.

This is why it only has a single directory to scan - it forces the use of id3 tags and at that point why bother scanning/listening to the rest of the directory tree for new files constantly.

 

[Partron22]

If you put a track with id3/mp4 track info into a part of the iTunes directory hierarchy that doesn’t match the tags, what should it do?

Punish idiots. I'd dump it to some folder on desktop.
OTOH, if you do it right, iTunes should be able to recognize it and add it to its database.
It's not all that hard of a parsing problem.

 

[Stephen.R]

Punish idiots. I'd dump it to some folder on desktop.
OTOH, if you do it right, iTunes should be able to recognize it and add it to its database.
It's not all that hard of a parsing problem.

I don’t see why it’s a problem to just add the file to the directory if does scan?

 

[mikzn]

I've always had my music media on a separate drive and available to different Macs, never had a issue adding the songs to main library - just put the new folder of music in the main media folder ( i manually organize ) and drag the newly added folder to the library in iTunes

If you include already added items in the same artist folders - they don't duplicate - so it's easy to just drag a folder to the library to make sure and renew the links - path to the songs?