Retroactive iTunes no longer reading CDs or iPods on Catalina or Monterey

[ForegroundBehind]

Hello all,

While iTunes still runs and plays my music library, a few weeks ago out of the blue it no longer reads CDs or iPods. I have tried reinstalling and have tried this with both Catalina and Monterey. Before, CDs and iPods would immeditately show up in the iTunes menu, but now CDs open in the Music app and iPods show up in the Finder, which for me defeats the main purpose of downloading Retroactive in the first place.

Any help or insight is appreciated. Thank you

 

[Grumpus]

You could try killing AMPDevicesAgent, as recommended here.

 

[iAssimilated]

I was using iTunes via Retroactive on my systems up until four months ago. I was very much in the "I'll never stop using iTunes" camp, but I started having issues with iTunes syncing my music library to my iPod ever since I moved to Big Sur (last December). Killing AMPDevicesAgent did nothing to help my situation. Due to all these problems, I finally decided to give up iTunes and try Music. Since then, my iPod syncs correctly and all my weird issues have gone away. I would not have said this four months ago, but maybe it is time to move to Music. iTunes is EOL and will only become harder to use.

 

[arw]

I can only comment on the latest Big Sur 11.6.8 but there iTunes via Retroactive is still flawless as ever. Syncing iPod Classic 5G, 7G and Nano 7G and various iPhones.
So at least on Catalina and Big Sur there should be something else going on.

 

[ForegroundBehind]

Thanks everyone for your input. When I try killing AMPdevicesagent, I get "No matching processes belonging to you were found". And when I plug in my iPod I get an error message saying "iTunes can't read the content of this iPod". It shows up in the iTunes menu, but only with an option to restore, not all the songs.

Does the iPod still sync through Finder and not the Music app? This was the main reasons I sought to switch back to iTunes. When the iPod would sync through the Finder, the time it would take to sync was extremely prolonged when compared to iTunes.

It doesn't look like there's contact info for the developer on github. Is there way to submit feedback/troubleshooting? It was strange that it was working flawlessly on Catalina for me with syncing an iPod Classic, iPod Touch, and importing CDs, and started having these problems suddenly.

 

[Grumpus]

The developer hasn't committed any updates since late 2020, but you could open an issue if you're willing to sign up for github. As far as I can see, the only issues closed recently were closed by those submitting them and not by the developer so the project may be abandoned.

Yes, syncing is done via Finder. Have you tried restoring the ipod with Finder?

 

[ForegroundBehind]

I don't need to restore the iPod as it runs fine, iTunes just doesn't seem to read it. I suppose barring an update to this program I'll have to switch the Music app and Finder for the time being.

Thanks everyone for the input

 

[ForegroundBehind]

Well I have switched to the Music app for the time being, although the playlist feature makes it impossible to organize new music in the way I did easily in iTunes previously, when changing the metadata, the songs disappear from the playlist - there's that and a lot of other little complaints I have...

I hope the developer will provide an update for the new OS

 

[Grumpus]

I don't know what's happening on your system, but it sounds like the new AMP machinery is grabbing your iPod before iTunes can. You might want to read AMPDevicesAgent explained, in particular the section on stopping Finder from automatically opening when a device is plugged in. I haven't needed to try this, since iTunes 12.9.5.5 continues to work well for me under (clean-installed) Monterey 12.5.1.

 

[ForegroundBehind]

I don't know what's happening on your system, but it sounds like the new AMP machinery is grabbing your iPod before iTunes can. You might want to read AMPDevicesAgent explained, in particular the section on stopping Finder from automatically opening when a device is plugged in. I haven't needed to try this, since iTunes 12.9.5.5 continues to work well for me under (clean-installed) Monterey 12.5.1.

Interesting, thank you for your input. Is it correct to say that I should try the "Stop Finder automatically opening" option? My issue with the iPods is that iTunes crashes when I connect them, and then I get an error message saying something like "iTunes is not compatible with this OS". It used to just happen with one iPod, but now both my Classic and Touch cause iTunes to crash. Sometimes it happens with CDs from my external drive.

When everything was working smoothly on Catalina, CDs and iPods would automatically open with iTunes no problem. I tried clean installs of both Catalina and Monterey and now I have the same issues on both, so I'm just running Monterey now, which otherwise I like. It's good to know that you are having success with Monterey.

 

[Grumpus]

Interesting, thank you for your input. Is it correct to say that I should try the "Stop Finder automatically opening" option?

If it doesn't work a way is given to undo the change, so yes, I would definitely try it to see if it helps. That blog article is talking about Catalina, but Monterey almost certainly works in much the same way.

Also, if you run the Activity Monitor app and type 'AMP' in the search box (upper right), you'll probably see an AMPDeviceDiscoveryAgent process. You could try killing that and then restarting iTunes along with unplugging and replugging your iPod to see if that works around the problem.

I experienced a problem almost the opposite of yours - I couldn't get Finder to sync any of my 3 iPods. I posted about that here. Fingers crossed that iTunes keeps on working for me under Monterey 12.5.1, because Finder won't sync my iPods on this 2019 MacBook Air. I'm too lazy to start again from Monterey 12.4 as long as iTunes is working.

 

[ForegroundBehind]

Thanks again Grumpus. I did the Stop Finder option, and your stopping AMP Device Discovery suggestion, and installed a fresh version of Retroactive, which according to the download page Retroactive 2.0 was released two days ago, so it seems there was an update!

Unfortunately, iTunes crashed in the middle of importing five tracks to my iPod Classic and I got the same error message after "This version of iTunes cannot be used with this version of Mac OS". BTW, I installed 10.7. Might that be the issue?

 

[Grumpus]

Thanks again Grumpus. I did the Stop Finder option, and your stopping AMP Device Discovery suggestion, and installed a fresh version of Retroactive, which according to the download page Retroactive 2.0 was released two days ago, so it seems there was an update!

Wow, a new version of Retroactive is great news!

Unfortunately, iTunes crashed in the middle of importing five tracks to my iPod Classic and I got the same error message after "This version of iTunes cannot be used with this version of Mac OS". BTW, I installed 10.7. Might that be the issue?

Oh, sorry, I've been assuming you were running iTunes 12.9.5, which works well for me. If you want to try 12.9.5, there are some things to be aware of:

Apple doesn't offer a stand-alone download of iTunes 12.9 for Macs, so to get it Retroactive downloads a roughly 6 GB Mojave installation dmg and extracts iTunes from it. I'm guessing this hasn't changed with the new Retroactive. The download and extraction can take quite a while, so patience is needed.

The iTunes library (*.itl) format will be different between 10.7 and 12.9.5. If you launch 12.9.5 normally, it will convert the library file after saving the old .itl file in the Previous iTunes Libraries folder. At this point it's unlikely that you'd want to go back to 10.7 (since it doesn't work) but if you did, you'd need to copy and rename the saved iTunes Library.itl file from the Previous iTunes Library folder over the 12.9.5 *.itl file.

If you want to be a little more cautious, press and hold the Option key while you start the new iTunes. It will let you select an alternate library or create a new one. You could create a new library, for example on your desktop, add a few songs to it, then see if it can sync them to your iPod. If that goes well and you want to stay with 12.9.5, just shut it down and start it again while holding the Option key, but this time select your original *.itl library file.

I hope it goes without saying that you should have good backups of your iTunes files and media before doing any of the above. A little paranoia is a good thing.

 

[arw]

Unfortunately, iTunes crashed in the middle of importing five tracks to my iPod Classic and I got the same error message after "This version of iTunes cannot be used with this version of Mac OS". BTW, I installed 10.7. Might that be the issue?

Oh, sorry, I've been assuming you were running iTunes 12.9.5, which works well for me.

I can only speak for Big Sur (11.6.8) but running iTunes 12.9.5 as well, I also have zero issues with neither old iPod Classics nor recent iOS 15 iPhones.
So I‘m confident you‘ll get it to work properly. Even more as Retroactive 2.0 lists Ventura as compatible -yay, thats promising!
Btw, for importing CDs I would give XLD a try which offers a vastly more sophisticated error detection than iTunes/Music do and flexible folder naming. I can screenshot my settings if you want to try it without spending too much time configuring it.

 

[TightLines]

I will move everything over to a Plex server before embracing Apple Music…

 

[ForegroundBehind]

I have my music library backed up always on two separate external SSDs, so no concerns there. I went with 10.7 because it was the last to have the album artwork on the sidebar which I always liked. I switched to iTunes 11 and so far so good, imported tracks to my iPod no problem. I'll try out iTunes 12 in case I have any problems with this but hopefully I can stay with 11.

arw, I haven't heard of that but I'll try it out, thanks. I would appreciate the screenshot of your settings when you get the chance.

And many many thanks to the developer of Retroactive for making it possible to preserve iTunes functionality. I agree with TightLines, after trying the Music app and syncing devices/organizing music, it is dreadful.

 

[arw]

arw, I haven't heard of that but I'll try it out, thanks. I would appreciate the screenshot of your settings when you get the chance.

I forgot my UI is in German, but it shouldn't be a big hurdle.
Don't mind the ancient look, this is my CD digitizing Power Mac G5.
Really old CDs can take up to an hour or more but eventually they are (mostly) properly ripped (according to AccurateRip database).
Whereas iTunes just skipped the tracks or saved interrupted streams.
All occurring errors/results for each track are logged in a file for complete certainty.
With these settings I got really good results but any remark is appreciated.
It's configured as a headless system: insert CD > CD gets ripped > CD gets ejected > insert new CD

The "CD Rip Offset Correction Value" is specific for your ROM drive and accounts for the model-specific geometric deviation of the laser positioning. It's necessary to get bit-perfect results.

Offset Technology » Exact Audio Copy

Sample Offset is another new feature of EAC, it will help to always get the same WAVs compared a different

www.exactaudiocopy.de

 

[ForegroundBehind]

Excellent! Thanks, arw

 

[ForegroundBehind]

Update: all of a sudden I'm having the same problems with iTunes 11. Just like last time they seemingly occurred Out Of Nowhere with regular daily use. I'm in the process of switching out to the latest version of iTunes available on Retoractive to see if that works consistently.

 

[Grumpus]

Update: all of a sudden I'm having the same problems with iTunes 11. Just like last time they seemingly occurred Out Of Nowhere with regular daily use. I'm in the process of switching out to the latest version of iTunes available on Retoractive to see if that works consistently.

Go to System Preferences, Security & Privacy. Click the Privacy tab and scroll down the list on the left to find and highlight Full Disk Access. You should see a list in the right pane showing programs which have been granted Full Disk Access. Do you see a checkmarked entry for bash? If not, that could be the problem. Retroactive, at least for iTunes 12.9.5, guides you to allow Full Disk Access for iTunes so that it will be able to sync iPods and other devices. Since the unlocked iTunes is launched via a bash script, bash is what's put into the Full Disk Access section of Security & Privacy. If that entry is removed or unchecked, iTunes loses the ability to sync devices (don't ask me how I found this out ).

 

[ForegroundBehind]

The bash was checked on full disk access, yes, thanks Grumpus.

I'm having another issue now: I just did a clean install of Monterey to see if this would resolve the issues. I installed iTunes and it ran, but after a few seconds my computer froze and restarted. I have used app cleaner twice each with iTunes and with Retroactive itself, but now, no matter which version of iTunes I try to install, it says it installs successfully, but the actual iTunes window never opens, and the dock icon says "application is not responding", so I have to force quit.

EDIT: I restarted the computer and it seems to be working now, so I'm in the process of importing the music. Will report back if there's any issues.

 

[HDFan]

1. What computer are you using?
2. CD drive - which drive, which cable?

 

[ForegroundBehind]

1. What computer are you using?
2. CD drive - which drive, which cable?

I'm on a 2020 Intel Air, the CD drive is an LG using a USB-C cable.

After a fresh install everything has been going well with iTunes 11... until an update to Ventura. I lost three songs in the update, and with tens of thousands of tracks I can't easily find which ones they are. I deleted all of the tracks off my computer and reimported everything from my backup SSD, but again three songs are missing. Does anyone have any advice or experience regarding this?

EDIT: Actually iTunes 11 keeps shutting down unexpectedly now, again this started with the update to Ventura. I am running Retroacitve 2.0 which is supposed to work with Ventura.

 

[Grumpus]

In a terminal, you can use the find command to make a list of all the songs stored in the iTunes Music directory on your MBA, then use it again to make a list of the songs on your backup device. Comparing the two lists using the diff command should give you an idea of what's missing:

cd ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes\ Media/Music
find . -type f \( -name '*.mp3' -o -name '*.m4a' \) -print | sort -o ~/LIST1.txt

cd /Volumes/MyExternalDevice/Music # or wherever your music backup lives
find . -type f \( -name '*.mp3' -o -name '*.m4a' \) -print | sort -o ~/LIST2.txt

cd
diff LIST1.txt LIST2.txt

The above assumes you have only mp3 and m4a music files, and you'll need to adjust the directory names for the cd commands to suit your situation.

As for the unexplained shutdowns, you might try launching the Console app to look for an error message when iTunes crashes. If the problem is associated with plugging/unplugging an iPod or IOS device, you can try to kill the process associated with Finder's device detection machinery before you start iTunes to see if that fixes things:

pkill -SIGTERM AMPDeviceDiscoveryAgent

 

[Rafterman]

I would love to stop using iTunes Retro for my video library. But the TV App refuses to use my custom metadata, like iTunes does. TV App just changes it to what *IT* wants. And the Books app takes Audible books and copies them to a nameless directory, with its own meaningless file names, with no way to change thst behavior, like the TV and Music apps allow. What sa mess Apple's new apps are.