iPod & iPhone Driver Plugin 2.0

[Bjork77]

I tried using both ALAC and FLAC on iTunes 12.5.3.16, but I received a different error this time for the FLAC files, "The specified file could not be located". This is after updating MusicBee to the latest version you had linked.

[BoringName]

I tried using both ALAC and FLAC on iTunes 12.5.3.16, but I received a different error this time for the FLAC files, "The specified file could not be located". This is after updating MusicBee to the latest version you had linked.

It's still working ok for me so there must be something specific about your setup it doesn't like.

If you open the following folder, are there any files in there?
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\MusicBee\iPod & iPhone Driver

Change <username> to your username on that PC.

From the 3 lines menu top right of MusicBee -
Edit Preferences->Devices
Select "iPod & iPhone Driver" and click "configure"
Select settings and make sure under "Media Storage" that the "Storage Path" field has "iPod & iPhone Driver\" in it. Without the quotes.

[BoringName]

I've updated the plugin again. Just another visual change when syncing.

The counts displayed will now be more accurate (not include playlists) and deletes are handled a little better but still not perfect.

The best I can do is make an assumption on the number of deletes based on the number of tracks to be synced and the number of tracks in iTunes.

The basic logic is No of Tracks in iTunes - Tracks to be synced  = Tracks to be deleted. If tracks to be deleted is less than zero it's assumed to be zero.

It's not perfect but it's the best I can do without a major rewrite (I'm sure this time). In certain situations this logic will fall over and the progress bar will go over 100%. Something like the following would trigger it -
Tracks in itunes - 200 made up of 2 playlists of 50 tracks and 150 tracks.
User unticks the playlist of 150 tracks and ticks another playlist of 100 completely different tracks.

The logic above will assume 50 tracks need to be deleted instead of the required 150. End of the day it's not a huge deal, the plugin still works fine, it's just a display issue.

This version will throw an error if you have "delete files that are not on the auto-sync list from the device" unticked but the "confirm deletion" box is ticked, like in the picture below.


Just tick the delete files option, untick the "confirm deletion" box then untick the deletes option again.

[BoringName]

Just a note about some of the estimates I have listed previously for sync times, I may have been a bit optimistic due to file caching (I think).

No matter what I do, I can't stop the sync process from accessing the actual media files (track files). Disabling metadata refresh certainly makes it faster but the mechanical drive where my music is stored still gets thrashed during the sync but only the first time. I'm not sure why as technically the sync process is just sharing information between the MB database and the iTunes database (both stored on NVME C: drive). If the files have previously been synced the HDD shouldn't need to be accessed at all if metadata refresh is disabled.
So here is what happens when I do a sync and no sync changes need to happen, it's just going through the database to check if something needs to be synced.
I do a full sync, HDD gets thrashed and it takes about 22 minutes for 36,000 songs.
I do another full sync straight after, no HDD activity occurs and the sync takes less than 10 min. (I assume because whatever info it's accessing got cached by windows in the first sync.)
If I restart the PC and do a full sync it takes 22 minutes again and thrashes the HDD.

If I restart MusicBee and iTunes without restarting windows it still performs the sync quickly so it's windows caching that is speeding it up, not something with either program.

I'm just going to assume it's a quirk with iTunes.

Anyway, all this overly long post is trying to say is, ignore my previous post where I said 36,000 songs took 8 minutes. 22 minutes for that many songs is more realistic sync time if you store your tracks on a mechanical drive or network drive. If everything is on SSD's you will probably see a much better result.

[Bjork77]

I tried using both ALAC and FLAC on iTunes 12.5.3.16, but I received a different error this time for the FLAC files, "The specified file could not be located". This is after updating MusicBee to the latest version you had linked.

It's still working ok for me so there must be something specific about your setup it doesn't like.

If you open the following folder, are there any files in there?
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\MusicBee\iPod & iPhone Driver

Change <username> to your username on that PC.

From the 3 lines menu top right of MusicBee -
Edit Preferences->Devices
Select "iPod & iPhone Driver" and click "configure"
Select settings and make sure under "Media Storage" that the "Storage Path" field has "iPod & iPhone Driver\" in it. Without the quotes.

I don't have any files in that folder; might that be the issue? The file path is correct in the device path section.

[BoringName]

I don't have any files in that folder; might that be the issue? The file path is correct in the device path section.

Change the "convert to" field to "Mp3" and see if that works. Just to rule out a problem with ffmpeg.

[Bjork77]

I made a single-track playlist with one FLAC file, and tried the conver-to-mp3 method, and no dice. I still got the "Track source file not found".

[BoringName]

I made a single-track playlist with one FLAC file, and tried the conver-to-mp3 method, and no dice. I still got the "Track source file not found".

Each file is sent to MusicBee to see if it meets any of the conversion criteria. If it doesn't match, MB just returns the same filename, if it does match, MB converts the file to the temp folder I got you to check earlier and returns the filename of the converted file.

That error means the filename MB is returning doesn't exist. There is nothing in the code that could be messing that part up and it's working for me so best guess is some kind of permission issue or settings problem that is preventing MB from creating the converted file.

Are you using the portable version of MB?

Maybe try running it in administrator mode, that might get past a permissions issue.

edit: Also its a good idea to exclude antivirus.
I'd recommend the following folders.
C:\Program Files(x86)\itunes  (might be C:\Program Files\iTunes for the 64 bit version)
C:\Program Files (x86)\MusicBee
C:\Users\<username>\Music\MusicBee
C:\Users\<username>\Music\iTunes
And the folder where your music is stored.

That will definitely speed up the sync on a large library.

[Bjork77]

I appreciate all the suggestions so far. I have a few updates(and mostly bad news) surrounding this problem now.

As far as the plugin, I've tried running iTunes and Musicbee in compatibility mode, admin mode, and uninstalling iTunes. The thing that confuses me the most about this is that for my iPod Video 5.5, I was able to convert on-the-fly with no issue, and that was without the plugin. This might be unrelated, however.

On a second, more depressing note, I recently had to replace the logic board on my iPod video 5.5 due to a battery issue, and I replaced it with an identical board. As I mentioned before, I was able to sync that iPod with no issues to Musicbee, without using any driver plugin(the serial number and name would show up in MB, and the iPod would show up in file explorer as an iPod, not a hard drive. As of replacing the board, I haven't been able to get Musicbee to recognize the iPod as an iPod, and no matter how many times I've tried restoring through iTunes 9.2.1 using a downloaded firmware I haven't had any luck. I'm pretty bummed about this because it was working fine before the board was replaced, and I followed the same steps I used the first time, and now it's acting just like my 7th gen iPod classic which only reads as a hard drive. I'm pretty sure at this point I've exhausted all my options. I'm telling you this second part in hopes that you may have some insight about this bizarre bug.

[BoringName]

As far as the plugin, I've tried running iTunes and Musicbee in compatibility mode, admin mode, and uninstalling iTunes. The thing that confuses me the most about this is that for my iPod Video 5.5, I was able to convert on-the-fly with no issue, and that was without the plugin. This might be unrelated, however.

Yeah, that's a bit strange really. The only difference as far as MB is concerned is what folder to put the re-encoded files into (specifed in the storage field). Might be worth doing a search for *.m4a and see if they are getting created in a different folder on the system. Don't just search for the song name because when it gets re-encoded it's given a different filename to the song.

In regards to the iPod, I assume you have unchecked the "enable disk use" settings?

Does it show up in MusicBee at all?

edit: Maybe try the version of ipod firmware this person used 2.04-35
https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=35605.0

edit: occasionally my partners iPod will just show up a drive letter in MB but usually when that happens iTunes will not detect it either so I have to eject it from windows, unplug it and plug it back in again. Probably not related to your issue though....

[Bjork77]

As far as the plugin, I've tried running iTunes and Musicbee in compatibility mode, admin mode, and uninstalling iTunes. The thing that confuses me the most about this is that for my iPod Video 5.5, I was able to convert on-the-fly with no issue, and that was without the plugin. This might be unrelated, however.

Yeah, that's a bit strange really. The only difference as far as MB is concerned is what folder to put the re-encoded files into (specifed in the storage field). Might be worth doing a search for *.m4a and see if they are getting created in a different folder on the system. Don't just search for the song name because when it gets re-encoded it's given a different filename to the song.

In regards to the iPod, I assume you have unchecked the "enable disk use" settings?

Does it show up in MusicBee at all?

edit: Maybe try the version of ipod firmware this person used 2.04-35
https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=35605.0

edit: occasionally my partners iPod will just show up a drive letter in MB but usually when that happens iTunes will not detect it either so I have to eject it from windows, unplug it and plug it back in again. Probably not related to your issue though....

Maybe I can try setting up MB(portable) and iTunes on a separate computer with the plugin, and seeif this issue happens there too. the only problem is if it does work, I'm not sure how I'll fix it on my primary PC(other than reinstalling windows).

As far as that post, the iPod shows up in musicbee and iTunes, but in MB it will only show up as a hard drive, and in windows explorer it will only show up as a hard drive. When it was working before, it would show up as an iPod, in explorer, and this is an issue that persists across every computer I've tried this on. I had to install iTunes 9.2.1 on my Mac using a VM for windows 7, because for some reason on my PC, my laptop, and on a win10 sandbox VM iTunes won't install, as it gets to the last step of installing the iPod device service and says "I don't have permission to run this service". This happens regardless of the drive I try to install iTunes on. On windows 7, I can install iTunes 9.2.1, but if the iPod is not in DFU mode and I don't have a copy of its firmware(this is for both the classic and the video) I can't restore the iPod because the version of iTunes is too old to contact apple servers(and sometimes even this doesn't work because it will return an error saying "this iPod cannot be restored: error code 1413). As you can probably tell, I'm at my wit's end with this stuff, but I know there has to be something I can do to fix this, because other people don't have this problem. The next(and potentially last) thing I can think of doing is taking all of the micro SD cards out of my flash adapter, removing and rebuilding their MBPs individually, and reformatting the cards and starting from scratch, on the win7 virtual machine, restoring them of their respective firmwares, and hoping that musicbee will recognize them as iPods again.

[BoringName]

it gets to the last step of installing the iPod device service and says "I don't have permission to run this service".

That's a problem that could be related to the re-encoded files not working. You don't need 9.2.1. I know the guide on here says to use that but you can use later version to restore the ipod and it should still only install the 2.0.4 firmware. I restored my partners with itunes 10 and that's working fine. It also has an i-flash card in it.

What are you running on your main PC?

I would try uninstalling itunes and making sure all the apple services are completely removed. Then re-install signed in as an administrator.

I wouldn't mess around with the SD cards, I really doubt that has anything to do with it. it could just be an issue with the iPod device service.

[Bjork77]

Ah, I see. I was going off of what most of the guides said for restoring the ipod for musicbee. what version of itunes are you using on your main pc specifically?

[BoringName]

I'm using 12.5.3.16 on my test machine because that is the latest version that isn't insanely slow to add songs or suffer from the delete bug in the iTunes API.

My partners machine that syncs to the iPod is using 10.7 which is the last version before they removed cover flow and iTunes DJ. But she hasn't been able to login into her iTunes account on that machine for about 12 months so I'm not sure how it will go restoring these days if it hasn't previously downloaded the firmware.
Now she has been moved over to MB I will put her machine on 12.5.3.16 as well. She might even be able to buy music on there again....

Pretty sure 2.0.4 is the latest version for ipod classics so it shouldn't matter what version of iTunes you use. There are some floating around with 2.0.5 but they were specific devices.

You haven't mentioned whether you disabled "Enable Disk Use" or not.

[Bjork77]

Ah sorry; I've tried disabling that, but it hasn't netted any different results. Right now i've just removed all of the apple services and feature I could from my main PC, and i'll try installing 12.5.3.16 and testing my luck there.

PS, should I replace my MB installation with a portable one? How easy is it to transfer settings?