Bugzilla – Bug 6144
iTunes playlists empty on Linux SLimserver
Last modified: 2009-07-31 10:15:19 UTC
Background: I run iTunes on my Windows Vista PC. I run Slimserver on my Ubuntu 7.10 server edition. My music folder is copied from the PC to the Ubuntu server, as is the "iTunes Music Library.xml"-file. I have stated in the settings the path to my music library and to the iTunes...xml-file Problem: All my iTunes playlists turn up in the list. But all are empty.
I'm not sure this can work at all: as the paths in the XML file and the playlist are using drive letters which do not exist on Linux, it can't find any song. Has this ever worked for you?
No it has never worked for me. But it was one of the key features for me buying this product. And I took it for granted that by specifying the path to the music directory in the settings it would work. I even tried yesterday to find and replace all the paths in my xml file to be correct for the linux file system, but that did not work either. If this bug is not a bug, I would strongly recomend it will be a feature. I can not be the only one having iTunes on my mac or PC and a storage server, linux or whatever, that is allways turned on, which holds al the music and the Slimserver. Else, I would have to run the slimserver from my PC, and allways turn on the PC before playing music on my Squeezebox - totaly the opposite of why I bought the Squeezebox - apart from it looking good ;-) /Stefan
I tried another manual search and replace on my whole iTunes Music library.xml-file yesterday and now the playlists were OK. What I did was that I changed the path from my Vista path with drive letters to the correct Linux-one and it worked. Eg. the line <key>Location</key><string>file://localhost/C:/Users/Public/Music/Artist1/Album1/song1.mp3</string> was changed to <key>Location</key><string>file://storage/Music//Artist1/Album1/song1.mp3.mp3</string> Surely, this would not be to hard for the squeezcenter to take in concideration when it process the iTunes Music library.xml-file would it? I have already stated in the settings where the folder of my iTunes library is so that information is known. /Stefan
iTunes is not designed to work on linux. Having slimesrver parse the xml file on linux requires some added effort on the part of the user due to the vast array of configurations possible, and the oft changing specification of the itunes xml file. The settings on the iTunes settings page are there to help, but still usually mean that the music folder root must be the same root for iTunes(after mapping) in order to help with the find/replace. it's not perfect, but isn't likely to get much better. The argument could be made that supporting this kind of setup should be dropped rather than supporting it half way.
As I also refered to in antoher bug-report of mine we discussed; in http://www.slimdevices.com/marketing/Squeezebox-v3-Datasheet.pdf it is stated that the product "works with iTunes" and it works on Mac / Win / Linux. If the product does not work with iTunes and on Linux, it should not be sold with these promisses. /Stefan
it does 'work with' Linux but requires a specific setup, or a bit of work. After all, iTunes itself doesn't 'work with' Linux AT ALL. As an example, my tested setup does the following: Music stored on linux server, /mnt/music /mnt/music exported as a samba share: \\server\jukebox WindowsXP running iTunes Mapped drive J: to \\server\jukebox Set iTunes to use J:\ as library root. Set j:\ as the iTunes library location. SC on Linux finds iTunes Music Library.xml in root of music folder, allowing me to "use iTunes" Playlists that properly reference file on my linux server via j:\ show up, as do the songs. Anything referencing stuff the linux box cannot see, useless. This is fully expected. If you want iTunes to completely manage your music and hook up through SqueezeCenter, you'll need to be on Windows where you can be sure that what iTunes sees, so does SC. There is NO promise. Ideally, SC would talk to iTunes and get data directly. But, unsurprisingly, iTunes does not play well with others. Apple does not share the daapd protocol openly, so it is not in use. Also note, the spec says "works with iTunes, MusicIP, etc. It does not say, it works with them even on platforms where the items in question are not supported. Rhapsody isn't available in Linux either, as the service doesn't support linux.
(In reply to comment #6) > Playlists that properly reference file on my linux server via j:\ show up, as > do the songs. > Anything referencing stuff the linux box cannot see, useless. This is fully > expected. KDF, can you explain what you mean with this? Does your iTunes playlists show up in Squeezecenter and are populated the correct way? I wonder why I can not get things to work then. I guess your iTunes Library.xml file look something like this on a simmilar row to what I posted above: <key>Location</key><string>file://localhost/J:/Artist1/Album1/song1.mp3</string> /Stefan
Speculation in the bug meeting earlier was that this should 'just work', and Andy said he'd have a look.
After doing an upgrade to SqueezeCenter-version: 7.0 - 14871 - Debian - SV - iso-8859-1 the other day and doing a clean search of the music library, the iTunes playlist import now works! Don't know what you guys did in that fix (if any) but as said, it works. I did not alter any other settings on server or computer. So I see now hinder from closing this bug, from my behalf. /Stefan
Great, marking fixed.
(In reply to comment #9) > After doing an upgrade to SqueezeCenter-version: 7.0 - 14871 - Debian - SV - > iso-8859-1 the other day and doing a clean search of the music library, the > iTunes playlist import now works! Don't know what you guys did in that fix (if > any) but as said, it works. I did not alter any other settings on server or > computer. > > So I see now hinder from closing this bug, from my behalf. > > /Stefan > Closing bug.
Reduce number of active targets for SC