Linux & iTunes Integration & Special Characters - Does it work for you?

[the-ninth]

Hi,

Since I am having problems getting the iTunes integration to work with files or folders that contain special characters (like German umlauts or French accented characters) and I saw some similar threads I wanted to ask around a bit who else has such problems to find out if it is just a problem with my setup, a general problem on my NAS platform, or even a general problem of the Linux version.

I am using a Synology DS408 with the latest SC version 7.3.2 from Synology (not SSODS). The history of my problem is already described here: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=60761. I changed the SC start script for it to use UTF-8. My files are ripped with dBpoweramp, maintained in iTunes under Windows and the iTunes library is copied to the NAS, where it should be picked up by the iTunes integration feature of SC. However, all files or folders with special characters are simply ignored.

Apart from appreciating any hints on how to further approach my problem, I would be happy to hear whether the special characters are working for you and which of the following platforms you are using:

*) Synology
*) Synology & SSODS
*) Other Linux-based NAS or server
*) Windows or MacOS

Thanks for your input, see you, Robert

PS: If I just point the normal scan function of SC to the iTunes Music Folder special characters work fine. However, then obviously I don't get the artwork assigned in iTunes and the iTunes playlists.

[mherger]

Do you see any information about the missing tracks in your scanner.log?

If you enable the music path _and_ iTunes integration, do you see them?

[the-ninth]

Hi mherger,

Thanks for your reply!

Even when setting all three scan options to DEBUG for the logging I don't get any messages in the scanner.log at all, so also none related to the files with umlauts.

When using both music path and iTunes integration then I get the files with umlauts as well but no duplicates, so it seems the two functions complement each other.

However, I would like to use the "Don't include unchecked songs" option from the iTunes integration and if I also use the normal music path then it will include all of these anyway.

See you, Robert

[christoph.spiegel]

Hi all,

sorry for posting to an old thread, but I'm still having the same problem as described here.

I'm using Squeezebox Server 7.5.3 along with the iTunes plugin on Debian Lenny. I'm syncing the iTunes library from my iMac via SMB. All involved systems are UTF-8, the Squeezebox Server tells me and so locale does, also Samba is configured to that encoding. When I'm listing the files on the server (ssh, ls), all special characters are displayed correctly (in my case especially German umlauts). Also the iTunes XML file appears to be UTF-8 encoded and displays properly when opening it on the server (ssh, nano).

However, when importing from iTunes, any album including umlauts will be completely ignored.

What I just tried an hour ago: when I'm disabling the iTunes plugin (and just point the Squeezebox Server to the local directory where the music is stored, that is, the iTunes Music directory), everything will be fine. Therefore I conclude that it cannot be a problem with the filesystem or Samba but with either iTunes' XML file or the iTunes plugin in the Squeezebox Server. Very annoying.

Are the any news regarding this issue?

I'm aware that there are already several posts about this issue, however, most of them do not contain a final solution. But maybe I've overlooked one.

Best regards,
Christoph

[paf]

Hello

Are there any new information about this problem, does the iTunes Plugin in 7.6 solve it?

If not, I will get rid of my Synology NAS and buy a cheap Windows notebook for SBS - or alternatively sell my SqueezeBoxes and look for a system which is really able to play my iTunes music and playlists.

To be honest, I have more than enough of an audio player system which is able to predict weather and read e-mails but not able to interpret my iTunes library correctly.

Regards
Patrick

[christoph.spiegel]

Are there any new information about this problem, does the iTunes Plugin in 7.6 solve it?

Hi Patrick,

for me, the iTunes plugin works now with SBS Version: 7.6.0 - r32854.

I didn't use it for a while and re-enabled it after the last SBS update, then it worked all of a sudden.

Christoph

[paf]

Salut Christoph

...after the last SBS update, then it worked all of a sudden....

Does it mean that the iTunes plugin of SBS 7.6 on Linux is now able to scan and interpret an iTunes library including files with special characters (7.5.x could not)? And that the playlists contain all these files too?

Did you still have to rename all file references in "iTunes Library.xml" so that they make sense for Linux?

Thanks
Patrick

[christoph.spiegel]

Hi Patrick,

Does it mean that the iTunes plugin of SBS 7.6 on Linux is now able to scan and interpret an iTunes library including files with special characters (7.5.x could not)? And that the playlists contain all these files too?

yes, for me it works, also the playlists do. It also didn't work for me with 7.5 (see my previous post in this thread).

Did you still have to rename all file references in "iTunes Library.xml" so that they make sense for Linux?

Never did that.

Make sure you system's encoding is UTF-8 (should be the case for all modern Linux distributions).

Christoph

[rolski]

Very odd - I have the opposite problem - it all worked ok with 7.5.5 and it doesn't work with 7.6.1 beta.....

[slate]

Not an iTunes user myself, but it is my understanding that the latest version of iTunes moved some library around or renamed.
Hence I thiknk that when stating if something works or not you should state the versions of both SBS and iTunes.