Since I don't use iTunes, I can't be of service to you... except in this way: Have you tried using the search function on this board? I would venture to guess that this has been discussed in the past. I am sure an iTunes user will see your post soon and give you some more knowledgable information than I can provide.

Happy New Year!

:-)

Thanks Detriotbootybass. Happy New Year to you too! +)

Suggestion appreciated. I have searched. Will spend some more time looking into it.

Cool...

Are only stored in your iTunes database but not inside your tracks itself. Funny that it happens with comments as well, it shouldnt.

Yeah, so therefore it should still be there. I thought it was strange.

Does anyone know how to prompt itunes to recall this information.

(I have thoroughly searched this board but there is no info on this specific problem).

Thanks

Diva, if you have transferred your files to a different location, then iTunes wouldnt find them, right? At least, it doesnt connect the files from the old location to the (same) files on the new location, I would think. But the old info should still be accessible somehow, I dont know how to tell iTunes the new locations of your files.

iTunes doesn't have any mechanism (that I know of) to manage file location by track. So if you move files around outside of iTunes, the next time you run iTunes, the files won't be found. So you'd have to import all of the files again (I'm assuming that's probably how you did it), and iTunes would treat them all as brand new files, thus the reason for losing the ratings. As for losing the comments, when you reimport them, that shouldn't happen. But, if the files were in any way manipulated or read with SSL, I've seen problems with the comment tag getting messed up, which might explain why they didn't come back after you moved and re-imported them.

nik and djjb thanks for your help.

I did reimport the files to itunes after saving them on the ext hd.

So what I am still wondering is: Is the info lost or still on my laptop somewhere?

If it is lost what should I do to prevent it happening again? Should I save tracks on the ext hdrive first and then add the comments etc in itunes after?

From what I understand ratings may be lost (as this info is unique to itunes and not the track info) but the comments should be saved. Correct?

Thanks again

I don't know of any real way to prevent what happened, and that is one of the downsides to iTunes, as once iTunes has a record of a file, you really can't move it around without having to re-import it and re-rate it. As for the comments, they should still be in the file, but as I said earlier, I've seen some problems with the comment field with iTunes not always getting put into the file correctly, especially those that have been used in SSL. You might consider another tagging program to examine the files to see if the comments are still in the files.

The rating data may not be entirely lost. In iTunes preferences, look in the Advanced tab for the iTunes folder location. This is where iTunes keeps the iTunes xml and database files. There may be old/back files there, which *might* still have the old data. Of course, extracting that data, should it be there, is beyond my skill level.

thanks for the tips. Will keep playing around with it.

Diva, you could send me your itunes XML file, it wouldnt be hard to change the locations in the XML file.

Not at the moment. Laptop is offline (also frustrating). Thanx for the offer though :) It's getting fixed on Jan 10th.

Anyone having this same problem check scratchlive.net for SSL Helper. Thanks SpinThis! I can't wait for this app ;-)

i hope it'll be useful to you guys. ;)

i'll post a screenshot in the next day or so--SSLHelper is getting there. :)

i'm working with screenweaver and rewriting a lot of code right now to get (at least) the windows version working without having to install 30 megs of extra web server software, etc. (mac has all that built-in so it's less of an issue.)

Great, man. Keep up the good work!