Before leaving work yesterday, I turned on iTunes on my computer with the foolish expectation that when I got home it would be ready to play music right away, without me having to start it up (yes, I am that much of an anal retentive). The problem seems to have been that all my music was on my external hard drive, so the computer went back to the default folder. When I got home and plugged it in to the mac, iTunes started loading the library from the external HD again, but when it had finished, the main library was littered with those little exclamation marks that mean that it can't find where the songs are located. I flicked through and worked out about half were lost.
I wondered what to do and after a bit of searching on the web, saved my library file, deleted all the songs and then reloaded the library file. This time, it said something along the lines of "import successful, but some files could not be found". I looked down and the library had been reduced to about 11,000 tracks, about a third of what there should be. I searched the external HD in a panic, but there were about the right number of files there, so, for some reason, iTunes just can't find them...which is bloody annoying.
The only solution I have found, has meant deleting all my songs from iTunes, and then just dragging and dropping the iTunes library folder in iTunes again. It's worked and the library is back to an (unnecessary) 30,000 odd songs, but it has also deleted all my playlists and all the info about playtimes etc. Really, really annoying. I now have to go through and re-list about 200 odd album playlists. I could of course just not do it, but I wouldn't be able to look at the iTunes window without sweating or something else OCD.
I still have no idea why it may have happened in the first place, so I have no idea what to do to prevent it happening in the future? Anyone experienced anything similar? Probably...
Well, my Macbook Pro stopped being able to burn dual layer DVDs again. This is the third time that the disk drive has broken since last June when I first bought it, and the fourth time something has needed fixing. I was really worried when I rang up Applecare that they were going to be unwilling to fix it again and would claim that whatever the problem was, it was something that I had done and therefore not their responsibility.
I called them up and as expected the guy sounded a little sceptical. He said that he would have to go off and speak to the technical staff and to his shift boss and would call me back. I wasn't holding out much hope, and was bracing myself to launch into a massive argument, demanding my consumer rights. He called back and indeed told me that Apple were not going to be able to repair the computer again, but instead were actually willing to replace it with a brand new, updated Macbook Pro, from their new line! I couldn't actually believe it, and listened in amazement as he reeled off the stats of the machine they would be giving me. I kind of felt a little guilty at first, but then again, if a computer breaks down 4 times in less than a year, it does suggest something is seriously wrong and any decent company probably should be willing to make a repair in those circumstances. The computer arrived late last week and since then I have been busy installing all the programmes I had on my old one and realising that some don't work now as the new versions of the Macbooks all come with Leopard.
I am still not sure about Leopard. I am not sure if it's a result of the new processors or the ram increase or Leopard or a combination of them all, but it's very, very quick, even compared to my last Macbook Pro. Of the new features, the multi-touch trackpad is really nice, and pretty useful. I can imagine some of these functions will become part of my basic workflow as the two-finger scrolling has done. Stacks seems pretty pointless - even a little annoying - I may have to get rid of the downloads stack quite soon. I haven't got enough disk space to use Time Machine, and probably wouldn't anyway. The empty trash button in the trash can is very nice, and I like the new hover functions in the dock. The transparent menu bar is alright, but seems a little pointless. The other changes seem a quite good, mainly ironing out little problems with Tiger and cleaning up the interface. I think it's probably something that will grow on me, the more I use it.
On the whole, I have to say I am pretty pleased with the way Apple have treated me - and it's not often that you get a chance to say that about a customer service department.
My Macbook Pro is not burning dual layer DVDs. Again. I bought the computer in June or July last year. After about 3 months, the metallic finish on the hinge latch button started wearing off and I took it in to be repaired. The lovely man in the Shibuya Mac Store "Genius" Bar, (he had a very American name, something like Virgil, and interesting facial hair), told me that it was clearly my fault and therefore not covered under the Mac warranty. He then proceeded to get out a little screwdriver-like thing and to scrape into the joins on the mac to show me that dirt had collected there, which he suggested were from a "viscous fluid". Now, I know a thing or two about viscous fluids and assured him that no viscous fluids had come anywhere near my Mac. I said that I thought that it may have been sweat that my hands secreted in the boiling Japanese summer. After a long, long argument, he agreed to fix the button (which being a computer, required the entire bottom of the Mac to be replaced). This ended up taking about a week.
Then about 3 months later, the computer stopped burning dual-layer DVDs. I burn quite a lot of DVDs and so was quite annoyed by this. I did wonder if perhaps I was burning too many and had somehow worn out the drive, but I hadn't burnt a stoopid number of them and anyhow, what the f**k, if they sell a drive as able to burn DVDs, it should bloody well burn DVDs, and not suddenly stop after 3 months. It seemed that a lot of people on the web were having similar problems and I took it back into the Mac Store ready to have another long arguement with my bald American friend. This time, though, I got a very nice Japanese man who took one look at the problem and agreed to send it off for repair. This took about a week.
Now, three months later, the exact same problem has happened. I called the Mac Helpline and again they have agreed to repair the drive and are even going to come and pick the thing up from my house and deliver it back when finished. The guarantee on the new drive will last for 90 days or until the original 1 year guarantee on the computer runs out, whichever is longer. This pisses me off. If they are going to replace the drive, surely I should get a year guarantee on the new drive too, independant of how long the computer's guarantee is. Also, considering that of the 6 months I have had the computer, 3 weeks will have been with the computer being repaired, surely they should extend my guarantee to cover this. Otherwise they could just sell broken computers, take a year to "fix" them and give them back still broken and claim the 1 year guarantee and run out. I can't really fault the service I have got, at least when I have argued enough to get it, but just am very pissed off about having to constantly get service at all. My last Mac lasted 5 years and only needed a repair once. Mac should really think about the quality of the drives they put in their laptops.
