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strange song titles after transfering backup music to iPod through iTunes

5551 Views 11 Replies Latest reply: Jan 12, 2011 6:33 AM by turingtest2 RSS
CakeSpear Calculating status...
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Dec 26, 2010 4:34 PM
Hi, i recently lost my iPod classic(80GB) which i have been using soly as a music player. Luckily i had made a backup before i lost it. I then baught a new iPod classic(160GB) and *transfered my backup to my new iPod through iTunes*. This workded fine, except that *alot of the songs titles have been changed to something like: AYFV, GGVE, YVOB etc* ( i transfered my backed up music directly to my connected iPod, not putting them in the iTunes Library first )

I have about 9000 songs on it, and i dont know how to find many of the songs i like and love. I remember most of my songs by its Tittle rather than Artist or Album. I have a Samsung Galaxy with SoundHound downloaded... but scrolling through 9000 songs to find the 'corrupted' titles and changing them kinda throws me off

Why has this happened? What can i do about it? How can i prevent this from happening in the future? Can i back up my playlists as well?
HP Pavilion, Windows Vista
  • Katrina S. Level 7 Level 7 (24,085 points)
    Not sure exactly what you backed up, but it sounds like you backed up the ipod files and yes, they are listed with those cryptic names & folders.

    Going forward, I suggest backing up the files on your PC instead!

    This article might help you getting the ipod files to look like a real language. Scroll down to the section titled
    'The Brute-Force Approach—Copying your Media Back Manually': mputer/P1/
    iMac 10.5/ Win 7/WinXP, Windows 7, external hard drive, older iPods
  • turingtest2 Level 8 Level 8 (42,855 points)
    Most media files contain some form of tag which records details such as the title, track number, artist. etc. If you import such a file into iTunes then iTunes will read the tag data from it and list the data that it has found. For files which don't have a tag, typically those in .wav format but .mp3 files don't have to have tags, the only information iTunes has when it imports will be the filename.

    Although the tag can record much of the metadata (data about data) of the file, certain information such as ratings, playcounts and playlist membership is stored in a database. There is a database for your local iTunes library and a database on the iPod. Putting the media files onto the iPod in their XXXX.<ext> format *is not enough* for them installed into the iPod's database. Despite your description above, if you were able to restore your iPod backup to a new device, then you must have backed up and then restored the whole drive, not just the Music folder. If you still have the whole image and a compatible device then you can do this again.

    When iTunes places media on an iPod it uses the F00-FXX folders and XXXX.<ext> filenames in a scheme called a hash table. The details aren't important, but it is a way of efficiently relabelling files with much shorter filenames that won't clash with each other. As a by-product it also discourages casual piracy from the iPod's drive since you don't know which file is which.

    If you only have the media files then, as you have seen, the best you can do is import them into iTunes. Those which have tags will be correctly reorganised. Those without will be given their current filenames as their track names and placed in the Unknown Artist\Unknown Album folder. I would suspect that most of these files will be in .wav format in which case you will have to listen to and rename them one at a time. If however there are files in .mp3 or .acc format then you may be able to build tags for them using MusicBrainz Picard Tagger. iTunes won't detect any updates you make with third party tools, but I have a script for that called UpdateTagInfo.

    Given how easy it is for an iPod to be lost, stolen or damaged it should not be relied upon as the only place for your media. It makes much more sense to to maintain your library in iTunes on your computer, then sync that library to the device. Instead of backing up the device, which takes ages each time and limits you to replacing it with an identical device, back up the library.

    *Fast backup for iTunes library (Windows Only)*
    Grab SyncToy 2.1, a free tool from MS. This can be used to copy your entire iTunes library (& other important data folders) onto another hard drive or network share. You can then use SyncToy periodically to synchronise or echo your library to the backup. A preview will show which files need to be updated giving you a chance to spot unexpected changes and during the run only the new or updated files will be copied saving lots of time. And if your media is all organised below the main iTunes folder then you should also be able to open the backup library on any system running the same version of iTunes.

    Various PCs, Windows XP Pro, iPhone3GS iOS4.2.1, 160Gb 1.1.2/2.0.4, 30Gb 1.3, Nano 1.4 - iTunes
  • Katrina S. Level 7 Level 7 (24,085 points)
    +The way i backed up my music was by accessing the iPod in harddrive mode or whatever, found the 'hidden' music folder and copy pasted it onto my Lacie drive through Lacie Network Asistant ( which is used to comunicate with the Lacie Networkspace hard drive ).+

    This is where the 4-letter file names came from. It's how files are stored on ipods in the hidden folders. iPods have done it that way from the start.

    +I reefuse to believe that i am the only one who has had this problem+
    trust me, you're not. If your song tags were not all correct, or if you had data corruption issues, this sort of thing can happen.

    +... again copied my backed up music, but this time to my 'iTunes( 10.1.1 ) libbrary' ...... The results were EXACTLY the same, the same song titles were corrupted+
    That seems normal. Copying an ipod file can't fix the tags.

    +I would like and appreciate a definite answer to my problem, thanx.+
    Just an FYI, this is a user-to-user board. Turingtest2's idea of using a tag fixer program is your best bet.

    Getting back to the first part of your post,
    +More specifically i put it on a Lacie Networkspace( 1TB ) through my wireless home network. I am a person who loves music a lot and listen to it ALL the time, as so i am 100 percent positive that none of my songs ( more specifically the titiles ) had the format XXXX ( 'capital letter' 'capital letter' 'capital letter' 'capital letter' ).+
    How were you listening to it then? If none of them have the odd file names, why not use that copy? I must not be understanding something.
  • turingtest2 Level 8 Level 8 (42,855 points)
    I ment that im positive that none of my 9000ish( yes i am ) songs had cryptic song names like AISY or UKOS when using my old iPod, 'before' i lost it.
    When i baught a new one( iPod ) after loosing my old iPod, and transfered the music backed up from my old iPod ontoo my new iPod, alot of songs now had cryptic tittles like UIMD or UVSS.
    Clear? I may have explained myself in a complicated maner before.

    When accessed via the iTunes interface the files would have had various data, like a meaningful track name associated with them, but in the underlying folder structure iTunes ALWAYS gives the actual files the shortened filenames.

    Your non-wav files that were correctly tagged should have retained their information when you recovered them from your iPod. The files with the 4 character names should all have minimal information associated with them other than their name, in particular the Artist and Album fields will both be blank. Creating a smart playlist to gather such items together for repair should be easy enough. In fact even easier just focus on media kind. How about...

    *Kind contains Wav*

  • turingtest2 Level 8 Level 8 (42,855 points)
    No, such a script would be relatively easy... If I can find some time later today I could probably adapt one of my existing scripts.

  • turingtest2 Level 8 Level 8 (42,855 points)
    Here it is... CustomSearch.vbs. Select some tracks, or your entire music collection once you've tested it. Double click on the script to run. It will create a playlist called !Results (unless it already exists) and add every track with a four-letter track name to it (unless already in the list). Should be easy enough to modify if you want to search for other criteria that can't be expressed in a Smart Playlist. There should probably be a start-up option to clear the previous search results but I don't have time to add that in just now. Just delete the existing list by hand if you need to.

  • turingtest2 Level 8 Level 8 (42,855 points)
    CakeSpear wrote:
    "767 matched criteria"
    Hey man, thanx alot, i owe you a bone!
    Out of interest, how did you make that script?

    Just recycled bits of a couple of others I've written. If you're interested in rolling your own you'll need to get hold of a copy of the iTunes SDK and learn a little VBScript. Essentially all the script does is loop through a selection of tracks, adding those with track names of exactly 4 characters to a playlist. It's then all wrapped up in a bit of error checking, some code to make sure it doesn't create duplicate entries in the playlist, a summary dialog and an open software license. You'll find more of my scripts at - feel free to explore and adapt them.
    This was seriously very cool 4 me, i really apreciate it! 5 stars! Bingo, strike and tutchdown and all that
    Unless your a woman, 'your the man TurningTest2!!!'
    But seriously, thank you very much, my problem seems to be solved now.

    You're welcome.



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