Bugzilla – Bug 745
Extend iTunes support to include UNC paths
Last modified: 2008-12-18 11:52:44 UTC
It would be great if the iTunes support could be extended to allow UNC paths from an iTunes library. Specifics: I have iTunes running on a PC, accessing my music collection on my Linux machine. The Linux PC has three Samba shares: /home/mp3 (exported as \\spirit\mp3) - location of the actual mp3 files /home/mp3_playlists (exported as \\spirit\mp3_playlists) -- where my slim playlists will (may) get stored (actually not sure if this is used if I use iTunes) /home/itunes (exported as \\spirit\itunes) -- where the iTunes Music File.xml etc. files are stored. I have iTunes set up to read the music library from \\spirit\itunes, and the iTunes xml file has entries in it like this: <key>Location</key><string>file://localhost//Spirit/mp3/Aimee% 20Mann/Lost%20in%20Space/Aimee%20Mann%20-%20Lost%20in%20Space%20(Lost%20in% 20Space).mp3/</string> All is working well, except that the slimserver can't see the contents of the iTunes playlists. Here's an excerpt of the debug info: 2004-12-19 11:43:53.7060 found end of dictionary 2004-12-19 11:43:53.7064 got a track named Mr. Grieves location: file://localhost//Spirit/mp3/Pixies/Doolittle/Pixies%20-%20Mr.%20Grieves.mp3/ 2004-12-19 11:43:53.7071 iTunes: normalized file://localhost//Spirit/mp3/Pixies/Doolittle/Pixies%20-%20Mr.%20Grieves.mp3/ to file:///Spirit/mp3/Pixies/Doolittle/Pixies%20-%20Mr.%20Grieves.mp3 2004-12-19 11:43:53.7079 iTunes: file not found: /Spirit/mp3/Pixies/Doolittle/Pixies - Mr. Grieves.mp3 KDF indicated that the problem was around the normalization of the filename-- and that I could switch to using mapped drives. I can do that, but it will require reimporting all my music into iTunes, so I thought I'd see whether there was an easy fix that you could make at the server end to support UNC paths. Thanks. -dave
I have a similar config here that I've been using since slimserver 5.1.x. Early versions required a patch but since about version 5.3.x this config just works. The main difference between what you describe and what I setup is that playlists, music, and the iTunes library are all on one share. BTW, I thought I was the only one doing this odd ball config :) On the linux box which runs slimserver and holds the iTunes library and music I have setup the following (Dirs have / after them) and exported it as a SMB share named 'music': /music/ (<-- share this in /etc/samba/smb.conf as 'music') |-- iTunes 4 Music Library |-- iTunes Music/ |-- iTunes Music Library.xml `-- playlists/ If I look at my iTunes Music Library.xml file I noticed the song paths were as such: file://localhost/Volumes/music/iTunes%20Music/... so I set a symlink to allow the slimserver to correctly map songs found in the iTunes database: mkdir /Volumes; ln -s /music /Volumes/music; My slimserver 5.4.0 has the following options set: Home / Server Settings: iTunes: Use iTunes Music Folder: /Volumes/music Playlists: /music/playlists (make sure this is owned by slimserver for rw) Home / Server Settings / iTunes: Find iTunes Library Automatically: Find iTunes Library Automatically iTunes Music Library.xml Location: /Volumes/music/iTunes Music Library.xml iTunes Music Folder: /Volumes/music/iTunes Music On my Mac OS X clients I use iTunes with the default settings. I ended up using the terminal to remove ~/Music/iTunes and creating a symlink from /Volumes/music to ~/Music/iTunes. Now when iTunes starts it follows the symlink from ~/Music/iTunes to the mounted music share at /Volumes/music which contains the folder structure above. If I attempt to start iTunes while the music share is not mounted iTunes gives an error that creating the iTunes Library failed because the symlink is not valid. (This is a good thing). By having the iTunes Music Library, the iTunes Music folder, and the slimserver playlists folder on the same share all the iTunes clients easily stay in sync with one another. As a solution for your problem try this: 1) mkdir /Spirit 2) ln -s /home/mp3 /Spirit/mp3 BTW, I found that with iTunes on OS X if it finds the iTunes Music Folder it will automaticly recreate a missing iTunes Music Library database by scanning the iTunes Music Folder contents. You'll loose any iTunes playlists however.
Dave: This should already work, but SlimServer is running in the background as a user that may not have access to your shared volume. Check out http://www.slimdevices.com/ su_faq.html#troubleshooting-sharedvolume and reopen the bug if this doesn't address your issue.
There are 536 bugs in the database with targets of '---' that were fixed prior to new year 2006. I am setting them to targets of 6.2.1 to keep them from showing up in my queries.
Routine bug db maintenance; removing old versions which cause confusion. I apologize for the inconvenience.