Shame on me for believing Apple when they say that their new Leopard OS “works with the software and accessories you already have.” I’ve already mentioned that Leopard didn’t play so nicely with Safari. It turns out that it doesn’t play well with iTunes either.
Some background. On my Tiger installation, I was using iTunes 7.6, which is the latest version. Leopard didn’t work with that particular installation of iTunes, and installed its own: iTunes 7.5. This caused some major problems when I tried to run iTunes:
iTunes cannot open this music library because it was created with a newer version of iTunes.
The error was fatal, so iTunes was completely unable to open. This time, though, at least the error made sense. Presumably, all I needed to do was run a System Update to get iTunes 7.6.
Trouble is, System Update told me I already had the latest version. Apparently, there was a flag somewhere that said I had already downloaded iTunes 7.6. Stellar.
While flailing about and worrying that I’d lost my library forever, I did manage to lose my most up-to-date copy. However, I had a backup from a month ago that saved 99% of my information. Phew.
If, like me, you have a backup of your songs but just need to make sure you have a recent library file handy, here’s what I’d recommend before you make the leap to Leopard:
- Before you upgrade, back up your iTunes library. This is easy to do. Find your iTunes Library file (it’s in the same directory as your music folder; for me this is Music:iTunes). Copy the file, and save it in your “Previous iTunes Library folder.
As a side note, iTunes will make its own backups here, but I couldn’t find any information about forcing that to happen. My best guess is that it happens when you make a substantial change to your library. My latest backup was from the day after I updated all the genres in my library. - If you find an error similar to the one I got, try Software Update. Maybe you’ll get lucky.
- If Software Update doesn’t bear fruit, go to Apple’s iTunes Download page and download it yourself. Sometimes Apple just needs a swift kick in the pants to get going.
- Your library should still be intact. In case it isn’t, simply revert to the backup you made in Step 1. Piece of pie.
A big thanks to Julian who walked me through a lot of this when I was freaking out last night.
Now, I definitely think things could have been a lot worse. Vista had these problems and more with driver and software compatibility in the early days, and if a library snag is the worst that I have, then I’m set.
But these errors still strike me as pretty basic, and fundamental to the upgrade scenario. What if someone upgrades right when Leopard comes out? What if they upgrade a few months after, and have newer versions of software than Leopard comes with? I just want Apple to be perfect, and it feels like some usability testing could have gotten them there with Leopard.
Or maybe I’m just an outlier.
Again I think it’s worth noting: the upgrade process works fine if the applications are in their standard location–but since you had moved iTunes away from its standard location you ran into all of these issues. That’s where the bug lies.
People who have iTunes 7.6 installed in its standard location would never see this issue because it does handle the upgrade issues you’re talking about. Just not when the applications have moved.
Even if I hadn’t organized my library, I would have still seen the error.
Part of this post and the last one is to call out these error messages, and how little Apple is doing to actually (1) practically identify what the problem is, and (2) suggest a remedy to fix things.
In this case, the error could have suggested running Software Update before closing down iTunes. Better yet – it could have run Software Update itself. It clearly tells me, “You need a newer version of iTunes for this.” I think they should be able to point me in the right direction.
Well I’m saying you’re kind of misidentifying the problem to begin with, and assuming that some things are broken that are not.
The problem is that applications moved out of their standard locations were not recognized correctly by the Leopard installer.
I don’t think I’m misstating the problem – I’ve stated what happened (iTunes didn’t work as I thought it would), you are stating why (I moved my applications out of their “standard locations”).
But I fail to see why you think it’s the consumer’s responsibility to have a clear grasp as to why an error happens. Responding to user frustration with, “You just don’t get the problem,” when they write a blog post to help others avoid the same complications seems to miss the point entirely.
Furthermore, you seem to imply that just because I organized my applications, the errors I get afterwards are somehow irrelevant because I put myself in that error state. Usability is as much about getting users out of their error state as it is keeping them from getting there, and my last comment laid out some perfectly legitimate points about what Apple was (and wasn’t) doing with their error messages.