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Comment by drivebyacct2 | Hacker News Reader

My friends swear I'm an idiot, despite having written my own music library software because I couldn't stand the others, but I've had the same problem with iTunes being slow as shit. My initial import takes thousands of times the time it takes for other software to do the same thing and it has a nasty habit of "forgetting" where your library is if you don't leave it at the default.

I love it, I just reloaded OS X and it keeps trying to start iTunes. Everytime I just deny the TOS and it slinks away. Good riddance.

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Techies that find iTunes so frustrating do amuse me. My iTunes library has been located in a non-default location since the original iTunes for OS 9.

External drives, network locations, internal secondary drives, over the years my needs and requirements have changed. iTunes has worked in all those locations. My current library has a creation date of 2009.

Initial import does take quite some time. Good thing I haven't had to do it since... well 2009 I guess.

iTunes isn't the black box people make it out to be. iOS device management through iTunes is, I'm not even going to touch that one. However the regular library functions of iTunes are quite simple and keeping a library from being destroyed isn't difficult.

> Good riddance.

Still the best library based jukebox for OS X. I'm willing to put it up against any other option.

I've never had freezing/crashing/apocalyptic issues with iTunes on Win or OSX, but for a company that prides itself on user experience, iTunes leaves a lot to be desired. I pine for the day when a real Winamp gets on OSX, and not in that half assed form they came out with a few months ago. But maybe thats just cuz I'm old and set in my ways. Or maybe I just like a simple way to queue up some songs, or the ability to see 50 songs in my playlist, while only taking up a narrow side of my screen. But that's just the retro grouch in me...

Your right as far as I know on your last point, not that I've done much searching, but I can hope there's something out there someday.

Yes, many people have no problems with iTunes. However I find it amusing that people think the large population of the rest of us to be 'crazy' or some such because we all seem to experience the same problems and can reproduce them very easily.

Itunes is the very definition of a black box. If you have an even slightly large library, it becomes a slow behemoth writing it's awkward binary-xml-shit files every time a change is made.

And no offense, you did not move your library across all those spots without issue. It's frankly not possible. Moving those files causes iTunes to lose it's absolute references to them and you have to do a reimport.

It's possible to get iTunes to change its idea of where the music files are. I've done a similar amount of iTunes library moving, and it's been quite amazingly reliable through all that upheaval.

A combination of consolidating and setting the default media location and re-consolidating and holding option on launch etc will eventually get it to find all its media.

shinratdr has fanboy confirmation bias. You'll get nowhere with them.

Fuck off if you have nothing to add to the discussion except BS, thanks.

> However I find it amusing that people think the large population of the rest of us to be 'crazy' or some such because we all seem to experience the same problems and can reproduce them very easily.

That's not the reason. It's because you choose to bitch about them instead of attempting to solve them, even though they are completely solvable problems that don't happen in a clean setup. Reproducing means nothing, except that you didn't bother to try and solve the problem.

> If you have an even slightly large library, it becomes a slow behemoth writing it's awkward binary-xml-shit files every time a change is made.

This is just patently false. See my other comment for a detailed explanation. Long and short of it is iTunes doesn't even use the XML file, it exists for 3rd party apps to use. If your machine locks up every time a 30MB file is written (written, not even accessed) then there is something wrong with your storage media, not iTunes.

Perhaps you have some sort of 3rd party syncing app that immediately accesses the iTunes XML every time it is re-written? That's more likely than Apple not noticing that their media player locks up every time when accessing a large library.

> And no offense, you did not move your library across all those spots without issue.

Hard to take offence to something I didn't say. My iTunes library has existed on all of those locations at one time or another, it wasn't the same library every time. Like I said, last time I recreated it was in 2009. It still existed in those locations and didn't randomly reset itself as you claim.

> It's frankly not possible. Moving those files causes iTunes to lose it's absolute references to them and you have to do a reimport.

Oh no! Exclamation marks everywhere! Click the song, browse to the song, iTunes asks if you want to check the folder for any other references. 5 minute scan later, all pointers are fixed. It's not only possible, it's dead simple.

It's almost like you could have discovered that with a simple Google search. Or hell, just actually trying instead of jumping immediately to whining.

> Long and short of it is iTunes doesn't even use the XML file, it exists for 3rd party apps to use. If your machine locks up every time a 30MB file is written (written, not even accessed) then there is something wrong with your storage media, not iTunes.

It doesn't matter that iTunes doesn't read the XML file. Any machine will take at least a couple seconds to write out an entire 30MB file. And if it does this every single time you update a playcount or rename a playlist, and blocks your user interface during this, then there's a fundamental flaw with the software.

> It doesn't matter that iTunes doesn't read the XML file.

Yes, it does.

> Any machine will take at least a couple seconds to write out an entire 30MB file.

True, but if it's locking up iTunes every time that occurs then THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOUR MACHINE OR SETUP. End of story.

> And if it does this every single time you update a playcount or rename a playlist, and blocks your user interface during this, then there's a fundamental flaw with the software.

No doubt. Since that doesn't actually happen, there isn't such a fundamental flaw.

Again, I love the fact that you, just like the people I talked about in my first fucking comment, treat me like I'm stupid, despite the fact that I know what I'm doing (hell, enough to reproduce 90% of iTunes's features in my own media library/player). You even imply that I run to whinning instead of Googling. Why don't you Google these issues. You'll find dozens of other people with the exact same issue.

You wasted a lot of effort typing that reply. One of my more infuriating replies I've gotten here.

edit: Annnnnd a quick look at your other comments in this thread tell me everything I need to know. You're even running around telling other people describing the exact same problem and acting like they're crazy. You realize that something working for you doesn't mean it's bug free, right?

My media library takes an arbitrary number of sources, takes 2 minutes to parse my library, works with more file formats, doesn't store an incomprehensible, incompatible format that no one else can write, doesn't require inane Terms of Service and more. I'm very, very happy that iTunes works for you. For a ton of people, it's a damn headache.

> Again, I love the fact that you, just like the people I talked about in my first fucking comment, treat me like I'm stupid, despite the fact that I know what I'm doing

I treat you like you're stupid because you present stupid little issues as insurmountable problems.

> (hell, enough to reproduce 90% of iTunes's features in my own media library/player)

Programmers IMO are some of the worst for jumping to "I can do this better!" instead of again attempting to solve the problem.

> You even imply that I run to whinning instead of Googling. Why don't you Google these issues. You'll find dozens of other people with the exact same issue.

I don't imply it, I say it. Because you do.

Also, Google offers the EXACT same solution: Clean up your machine because if it can't write a 30mb file that isn't even being read without locking up, there is something wrong with it.

> You wasted a lot of effort typing that reply.

Personally I think it was used perfectly.

> One of my more infuriating replies I've gotten here.

Yeah, being challenged on your BS can be frustrating. I'm glad I could be a part of that.

> Annnnnd a quick look at your other comments in this thread tell me everything I need to know. You're even running around telling other people describing the exact same problem and acting like they're crazy.

You call it crazy, I call it lazy. Whatever, it's still bitching over fixing. I'm not calling them crazy for having the problem, I'm calling them lazy for having the problem for so long and just bitching about it instead of doing something about it.

> You realize that something working for you doesn't mean it's bug free, right?

Of course, just because something isn't working on a particular setup doesn't mean its bug-ridden either.

>I don't imply it, I say it. Because you do.

>Why don't you Google these issues. You'll find dozens of other people with the exact same issue.

You're a stupid little fuck, aren't you. I DID Google them instead of whining first. You really think I sunk probably a hundred hours into writing something purely from scratch before Googling. Good god how can you breath with your head that far up Apple's ass?

>Of course, just because something isn't working on a particular setup doesn't mean its bug-ridden either.

And we've always been at war with Oceania.

LOL, Hey I'm not the one who insists he is a programmer and yet can't solve the missing items issue in iTunes.

You can hire this stupid little fuck for $100/hr, I'll solve all your impossible iTunes problems. If you're really that retarded, I'm sure it will be money well spent.

> Good god how can you breath with your head that far up Apple's ass?

...You presented the problem, idiot. I'm not just guessing as to what your issue was. You presented the simplest iTunes problem in the world to solve, and then acted like it was sufficient motivation to write a competitor.

Head up Apple's ass? I'm not the one so blinded by marketing I expect it to immediately work without issue. It's still software. The only one with unrealistic expectations of iTunes is you, namely that it should function perfectly on a machine that can't write 30mb without locking up.

> And we've always been at war with Oceania.

Give a break. Here: Send me your music player, $20 says I can get it to crash on launch.

You're a real piece of work. Do you understand the definition of confirmation bias? Does the likely over a dozen point difference in our comment scores on your our posts here not give you any indication that this just might not be an isolated issue? Or are you one of these people that is never wrong and can't admit that you might not have experienced every possible use case or code path of iTunes?

Seriously, do you understand the absurdity of what you're claiming, outside of this application or your or I's anecdotes... that the claim that the software is bug free or works perfectly for everyone is just an outlandishly stupid thing to claim as an absolute?

>Give a break. Here: Send me your music player, $20 says I can get it to crash on launch.

Soon enough, I'm preparing to release it by the end of May. I'm not really sure how you plan on crashing it given it's design, but it's cute that you continue to make absurd assumptions and personal attacks.

> Does the likely over a dozen point difference in our comment scores on your our posts here not give you any indication that this just might not be an isolated issue?

I can't see the point difference between our comments, how would I know that? Moreover, why should I care? Congrats, you've proven other techs also don't like things that confuse them and would prefer to join in your bitching.

> Or are you one of these people that is never wrong and can't admit that you might not have experienced every possible use case or code path of iTunes?

You're acting like I'm saying iTunes is perfect. It's not, it's riddled with issues and a frank conversation on it's future is important. I'm just saying the issues most techs present to me, including the one you did, are the simplest issues to solve and indicative of a weird attitude techs have towards iTunes, where they assume it will fuck them over before trying anything to solve the problem.

If you had presented a real issue, I wouldn't have even continued. You instead presented the simplest one that only happens to novice users, so I laid into you appropriately.

> Seriously, do you understand the absurdity of what you're claiming, outside of this application or your or I's anecdotes... that the claim that the software is bug free or works perfectly for everyone is just an outlandishly stupid thing to claim as an absolute?

That is a ridiculous claim. Good thing I never once said that.

> but it's cute that you continue to make absurd assumptions and personal attacks.

My point was that any software on a machine with sufficient issues can crash. That wasn't an "absurd assumption or personal attack" it was verifiable truth.

>Techies that find iTunes so frustrating do amuse me.

Probably outliers with music libraries in the multi TB range

That's what I would have expected, but OP says his library is 200GB hence why I made the argument. My library is 115GB and doesn't come close to experiencing these issues, and it's accessed from seven different Macs, all with different hardware, software and of different generations.

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