One of these days I will learn not to grab the latest and “greatest” software the moment it comes out. Yesterday, I upgraded my iTunes to version 9 and my iPod Touch’s firmware to 3.1.1. Then, I noticed that one of my podcasts was out of order, and furthermore, the release date was no longer showing up on the iPod itself. Strangely, only one podcast was having this issue.
I started to suspect that this was my fault, since this one podcast, Escape Pod was a podcast I was listening by going through its archives. I had written a program which downloads the archived episodes, and modifies the ID3 tags so iTunes will properly recognize the file as a podcast and insert it into its database as if it had downloaded it itself. Getting the release date working correctly was one of the harder points, so I figured that I still didn’t have it quite correct and the new iPod firmware was being more sensitive to it. I got even more annoyed by the fact that iTunes, after upgrading my iPod’s firmware, decided to trash the old firmware versions preventing me from ever downgrading.
Then, I read online discussions where others were having this problem. Now I know that it is not my fault, but rather something that Apple screwed up. I also saw someone who noted that they had upgraded their iTunes, but not their iPod, and had the same issue. So, I trashed iTunes, pulled out my Snow Leopard disk, found the iTunes package on the disk, installed it, reverted my iTunes library to the backup prior to the upgrade, and voila, my podcasts are sorting correctly again.
Now if only I will learn to let others try first, and upgrade myself after reading their reports. This is a really sloppy bug on Apple’s part, and likely means that iTunes 9 was rush. I’m actually happier back on 8, especially since the window zoom still functions as a toggle between the mini player and the normal window, which was changed in 9.
Hopefully someone will benefit from this post, and not upgrade to iTunes 9 until this regression is resolved.
Legacy Comments:
Cory Klein - Oct 29, 2009
Howdy, I stumbled upon your interesting site when looking up a simple Perian issue (fell onto the AC3 passthrough page). I was wondering if your podcasting script is able to fix my problem for me without much leg work. Each day I download an archived version of a radio program and add to iTunes. After adding, I have to set it to ‘remember playback position’. Any chance you have an interest in modifying your script to add the file and change said option for me? Thanks for your time, I understand if you are not willing to do this. I do not want to be one the demanding Open Source Users you previously wrote about. :D
Cory Klein - Oct 29, 2009
Sorry I meant to leave me email address the first time around….
Graham Booker - Nov 17, 2009
Cory, This is best done with Applescript. Something like this should do the job. Just select all the tracks and run this script: tell application “iTunes” repeat with aTrack in selection set bookmarkable of aTrack to true end repeat end tell
Chris H - Jun 25, 2010
How about sharing this app that changes podcasts, so that itunes think it downloaded the show by itself? This would make my life so much better to have such a utility.
Graham Booker - Jun 25, 2010
Chris, I’ve considered releasing it up ever since I gave it to a colleague who wants to learn iPhone programming so he could see Cocoa bindings. Give me a few days to clean it up a bit more.