Hey Bapples,

Thanks for getting in touch,

Before I can start troubleshooting I need to gather some further information and get a better understand about how you manage your music.

1. How big is your ITCH library?
-- Is this organised by iTunes into folders on your internal drive?
-- Or is this music organised into folders by you?
-- Can you explain to me how a file is saved on your computer.
( C: / MUSIC / ARTIST / ALBUM / TUNENAME.Mp3)

2. Do you use any other USB devices?
-- Mouse?
-- Keyboard?

Thanks.

Thank you for responding.

My ITCH library is 16,769. I don't use all the files, so if I need to we could change that. The music is saved as (C: / Libraries / Music / iTunes / iTunes Music / Artist / Album / Tunename.mp3). The music is saved this way when I transferred all my music from an external drive to my internal. I did not know a better way to place all my music in the same place. I have organized my music in ITCH into crate, not used the iTunes tab.

Last night, about 2.5 hours into a gig ITCH froze on me. I do not use any other USB devices. Please let me know if you need any more information.

Thank you

Hey Bapples,

Thanks for that information,

Your library size doesn't sound to big. The way its organised at this stage should not be having an affect on your computers performance, but as this library size grows you could run into further issues due to the way files are saved. If you are up for the task I would suggest re-organising your music into something like the below before it gets to big and this becomes to much of a task...

Option 1.
(C:/ Libraries / Music / 2013 / Hip Hop / All music files here. )
(C:/ Libraries / Music / 2013 / House / All music files here. )

Option 2.
(C:/ Libraries / Music / 2013 / April / All music here. )
(C:/ Libraries / Music / 2013 / May / All music here. )

By doing this you cut down the amount of folders Serato (and your computer) have to search through to find the file. This speeds up performance.

1. Have you analyzed your ITCH library?
2. Checked to make sure there are no corrupt files in your library?
-- Open ITCH
-- Click the little GREY box in the top LEFT corner of your library window.
-- This puts your tracks in order of Missing "?", Corrupt "lighting bolt", Normal.
-- Remove all corrupt files from your library.

Let me know how you get on.

Thanks :)

How essential would it be that I reorganize my library completely? I have 1,503 folders and 4,260 total folders including the albums.

Also, I get a pop-up message on a lot of my songs that work perfectly fine in iTunes. It says "not authorized" "this application cannot be used to play this content" "in order to play this content, please open it with iTunes." This stops me from fully analyzing all my files, because I have to click ok after the pop-up.

Some of the lightning bolt corrupt files are inside the itunes logo and I cannot delete them. How do I go about that?

Hey Bapples,



Its not essential now as your library is not to big.
But sorting it out now could save you a way bigger job further down the track.

To quickly put all files into one folder you could search ".mp3" in your music folder.
It will find all your MP3 files. You could then copy them to another folder?
You would have to repeat the process for every file type you have.



Have you installed Quicktime?
-- Download and install quicktime.
--> support.apple.com

Install Quicktime.
Restart your computer.
Launch ITCH.

Do those files now show up as supported files?



You will need to delete them from your iTunes library.
If they have a iTunes logo beside them, this means Serato is READING the information from your iTunes library. It can only READ information, it cannot delete it.

Thanks.

I uninstalled my Quicktime and reinstalled it. The same result occurs as "not authorized." Also, I have deleted the songs from my iTunes (only about 3 songs).

Will the analyzing files and fixing the corrupt as well fix my problem of not having any effects?

Hey Bapples,



The files you are trying to play might not be supported?
Are you able to upload a couple files to this thread?
-- I will have a look at them and get back to you.

Analyzing files and removing corrupt files wont bring back your effects.
-- Analyzing files will speed up the time it takes a track to load to a deck.
-- Removing corrupt files will decrease the chance of Serato crashing / freezing.

If effects are not loading when you start ITCH up this usually means you computer is low on temporary storage space. RAM.

Things that can help resolve this.
-- A smaller library size.
-- Remove external drives from the setup.
-- Use internal hard drive space.
-- Increase Computer Ram.
-- Library management.

Lets try the following test,

1. Navigate to your " _SERATO_ " folder on your C: / Music folder.
2. Rename this folder " _SERATO_01"
3. Launch ITCH 2.2.2

You will notice the library is empty. (thats fine while we are troubleshooting, we can bring this all back)

Do the effects load up with no issues?

Let me know how you get on.

Thanks.

I have noticed that my CPU usage typically peaks. The routine things that I do to attempt to reduce this are as follows: disk defrag, (in system properties/advanced) visual effects turned to "adjust for better performance," in advanced "background services," also I run a program called CCleaner to remove temporary files.

When I changed the file name to "_Serato_01" and reopened Itch, my itunes songs showed. I plugged in my Twitch and the effects showed as normal. I ensure an accurate test, I unchecked "show Itunes library" and the effects still showed as properly.

Hey Bapples,

Nice work!
So the effects panel is now loading correctly for you?



When the CPU spikes does it cause any issues for Itch?
-- Does the audio signal get affected?

I noticed you are running a core 2 duo processor and 4GB of ram.
This fine, but its just above minimum requirements. CPU spikes can happen in this situation as your computer is working hard to process everything.

If the issue is now resolved I will close this thread.

Please let me know :)

Thanks.

Well I changed the file name in serato, do I now change it back to normal to get all my crates and songs back? When I changed it back, I may get the same issue of no effects. Also, my song authorization is not resolved. Did you look at the songs I attached?

Finally, if I reorganize my files on my computer, will all my crates still stay the same or will I lose all the songs in the crates? I have multiple that I use for various gigs.

Thanks.

Hey Bapples,



Changing it back to the original Serato folder will probably bring back the "no effect" issue.

1. Did you add much music directly into ITCH?
-- Or did you have all your music organised through iTunes?
-- If its all organised through iTunes, all we need to do is turn on "show itunes library"

2. We can transfer your crates across from your OLD Serato folder.
-- Navigate to your _SERATO_01 folder.
-- COPY the SUBCRATES folder.
-- Navigate to your new _SERATO_ folder.
-- PASTE the SUBCRATES folder, and replace the one thats in there.
-- Launch ITCH and your crates will show up.
-- You may have to LOCATE tunes. This is because the old crates will have the old file path location.
-- Click the FILES button, then click LOCATE FILES.

3. Regarding the M4p files.
-- This file type is not supported.
-- I have checked out all 4 of them and they need to be authorised on my computer before I can play them in iTunes or before they can be re-encoded to mp3 files.
-- This means whoever purchased them with their iTunes account needs to login to iTunes with there details on your computer and authorise them for your computer.
-- You will then be able to play them in iTunes.
-- You will also be able to re-encode them to MP3 files. (see attached image)
-- Once this has been done you will be able to play the new files in Serato DJ.

Let me know how you get on :)

Thanks.

I loaded all my files straight into Itch, but a lot of my files are played from iTunes. So the crates for the most part are back and working. I just need to test this out further if I am missing songs.

I am relocating the files, so that should work. When I convert my files to MP3 format, do you know of an easier way to convert them without getting duplicate copies? Also, a way that you would recommend to convert the files without having to look up every current format? I'm assuming I could just search for the file type in the Music folder, just want a quicker way to convert files so I can finish analyzing my files.

Even with the CPU usage below 50%, I still am not getting effects. The problem has not been fixed yet.

Thank you.

Hey Bapples,

Following on from our phone call this morning. I will wait to hear back from you once you have re-organised your music files / iTunes library.

Thanks :)

Hey,

I have reorganized my entire library. The effects seem to be working (more tests need to be performed). However, I am having beyond terrible freezing issues. It is to the point that I can't even function the program properly for a long time. I have never had this problem before. Unfortunately, I will be out of the country for the next 2 weeks. So, we should arrange another call for then.

Thanks.

Hey Bapples,

Nice work re-organising your library :)



Let me know once your back and we can look into it further.

Thanks.