Dumb iTunes or dumb me?

[Vigilante]

Intriguing title eh?

Anybody use iTunes in Windows with an iPod? I hate those things.

Anyway, I have a system here with iTunes and a little 2gb ipod. iTunes and the ipod are talking to each other just fine, but iTunes is having serious trouble getting any music into its library.

I've tried playing multiple retail audio CDs, what happens is iTunes pops up and searches CDDB, then the little search thing goes away and it sits there. It doesn't show the tracks, doesn't import them, you can't even PLAY the CD?! I mean, what the heck? Can't you play and audio CD with iTunes? I open up in Media Player and it plays it just fine.

In iTunes in the advanced menu, you can't select to search CDDB for the track info, because the commands are all greyed out.
If I run the CD diagnostics, it says the same thing on any disk, it just lists some stuff and that's it. No errors, if that is what's supposed to happen.

So anyway, I've got this customer who just wants to put her dang music on the iPod, she's been to tech support calls, reinstalled iTunes 3 or 4 times, did this and that. I've check other software, firewall, internet connection etc...
If you go to File-add file to library, you can manually grab the tracks off the CD and put them in iTunes, but of course they are all generic names which sucks.

So why does CDDB appear not to work? Why doesn't iTunes allow me to play an audio CD? And why doesn't it allow me to rip the tracks?
If I do the manual add tracks to library, the track plays just fine. But this person needs more automation, iTunes should at least play an audio CD. I don't get it.

cheers

 

[DonNagual]

I use itunes for my ipod on a Windows XP computer and don't have any problems. I had problems with itunes a few releases back, but this latest release (I am on 6.0.4.2) seems really stable.

Assuming she has the latest version installed, I'd suspect the firewall is blocking it from accessing the CDDB database and that is messing itunes up? Just a thought.

Also, is she on a "limted user" account? I have heard of people having troubles with this, and apparently there are some hacks out there to help. Try running under "admin" as a test.

 

[Liquidlen]

Vig...
I don't use Itunes , however I was reading that the copyright software controls/protection can have issues with your retail purchased CD.These are not designed to check online for license and Authorship etc as the internet download songs do.
You might try experimenting with some of these settings.

P.S. I have seen a lot of your work at TS ,I do not believe the title of this post is appropriate, hwever it might make for a hit record. Heh!

 

[Vigilante]

Thanks guys.

CDDB is one issue, and that is still the case, it checks, and does nothing. But the weird thing is, whether it is being blocked or not, iTunes would not show the songs, or generic track titles, I couldn't PLAY the CD even, which was weird.

Even weirder is that, out of the blue, iTunes DID start reading the tracks. I notice on the left side bar when you insert a CD (or the ipod), a new entry is made in the list for "users ipod" or "audio cd" or whatever. Now, that additional category for CD was never being made when a disk was inserted, after the CDDB check. But then it started doing that, however, CDDB still fails.
I took her and my CD and stuck them in a different PC with Winamp and CDDB found the CDs and titles just fine, no problems.

I concure it is likely a firewall. She has Panda Platinum but the firewall portion is off. Doesn't mean much though I've seen a lot of AVs still block stuff with their firewalls off. So I fiddled with the settings for some time, turning things off, lowering protection etc.. but CDDB still wouldn't work.

Not sure if it's limited user, probably not but I'll check. Push comes to shove I may have to remove Panda altogether, since you can't really "stop" these things. Oh, and that reminds me, in Panda, in the firewall settings when you click the button to access the "program access" settings, nothing happens! So I can't even see the program access settings, which shouldn't matter if the firewall is set off. But yet, maybe it's all interconnected in some diabolical conspiracy?

I just hate it when stuff doesn't work. You know? I mean, I deal with non-working stuff all day, but I fix it, and the fixes work. But like, even when the fixes don't work, well, something else is wrong and.......oh never mind.

I get to play with this system again on Tuesday after Memorial Day tomorrow, so whatever other tips anybody has about getting CDDB to work. Oh, and Panda's logs don't seem to say it's blocking anything, but still...

Liquidlen, thanks for the compliment, lol, you're not to shabby yourself!
I work alone, and sometimes you just need to get more minds on a project.

 

[Vigilante]

Just to have closure on this. The culprit was a hiding copy of Zone Alarm! HA. I didn't notice the process or any icons or start menu links for it. But there it was hiding at the bottom of the add/remove program list. So removing that, along with getting the latest copy of iTunes fixed the situation.

 

[Tedster]

I seem to remember there was some hoopla about itunes being spyware because it reported data use without your knowledge. Perhaps zonealarm is blocking unwanted outbound traffic. This was similiar to the sony CDs with rootkits on them.

 

[SNGX1275]

I seem to remember there was some hoopla about itunes being spyware because it reported data use without your knowledge. Perhaps zonealarm is blocking unwanted outbound traffic. This was similiar to the sony CDs with rootkits on them.

The anti-apple attitude is very prevalant here. Settle down guys, really.

Apple removed that reporting data thing a long time ago. It wasn't even reporting personal data, it was just usage data. But now you have to opt in if you want to be included.

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

Why not try RealPlayer Vigilante? I use it and it seems a great deal faster than iTunes. Also, it allows u to sync RealPlayer and WMA formats to the iPod. Give it a go.

 

[Vigilante]

It isn't MY computer, I don't think I would use iTunes. Not an Apple-bashing thing Just that within 10 seconds I couldn't find like 5 features I was looking for. It's useless to me.

BUT, my player of choice is simply Winamp. Or plain old Media Player 10 for some of my videos.
But I DO use Real Rhapsody service. $10 bucks a month and I get all the songs I want, anywhere I want. It's been great. But I don't use it to buy music, cause I hate DRM, I just use it to listen.

I do wish I had an iPod though!

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

Oh, right sorry. Missed that point in ur post.