[gerG]

This does seem strange. Is there any chance that you and your friend both your ipods the same name? That would probably do it.

gerG

 

[Michael1980]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gerG This does seem strange. Is there any chance that you and your friend both your ipods the same name? That would probably do it. gerG

But my friend never had an iPod!
And no other iPod was ever connected to his computer.

 

[Michael1980]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr. X Sorry, but I am an Apple supporter, and have to defend... I have NEVER seen a case where the person is not asked if he/she would like to sync their iPod to a new library when plugging into a different computer. Either you skipped through the question (answering yes), or this was some strange fluke. I see that people have taken this opportunity to bash Apple's "ease of use" and say that iPods sucks. Come ON... No matter what the case, sorry to hear about your disaster...that IS a drag, and I'd be equally as frustrated!

I certainly did not miss a message telling me to change linked libraries.
I was looking for it, knowing the disaster might strike!
The thing is I could not cancel the update iPod message (by pressing the little "x") before it deleted my whole library.

 

[lal316l]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Michael1980 But my friend never had an iPod! And no other iPod was ever connected to his computer.

Doesn't matter if he doesn't have iPod, if he has iTunes with songs in the library, those are the things you'll be getting if you accidentally synced. iTunes doesn't care if you have songs already in your iPod, it'll just delete whatevers on it and sync with the current library. That's why I don't use iTunes. Use Winamp with the iPod ML plugin, it works alot better.

 

[steel102]

same thing happened to me a couple months ago. I tried using a hard-drive recovery program, but didn't really work. Hope you have all your music stored on another computer.

 

[Michael1980]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lal316l Doesn't matter if he doesn't have iPod, if he has iTunes with songs in the library, those are the things you'll be getting if you accidentally synced. iTunes doesn't care if you have songs already in your iPod, it'll just delete whatevers on it and sync with the current library. That's why I don't use iTunes. Use Winamp with the iPod ML plugin, it works alot better.

iTunes HAS to warn you that the iPod is linked to another library.
Apparently sometimes it doesn't.

 

[Michael1980]

Quote:

Originally Posted by steel102 same thing happened to me a couple months ago. I tried using a hard-drive recovery program, but didn't really work. Hope you have all your music stored on another computer.

It is not the songs I am worried about (I have them on my computer), but the effort it took me to rate 300 songs on there. You know how difficult it is to properly rate songs and my whole library is built around ratings.

 

[lal316l]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Michael1980 It is not the songs I am worried about (I have them on my computer), but the effort it took me to rate 300 songs on there. You know how difficult it is to properly rate songs and my whole library is built around ratings.

If you rated your songs on iTunes, the ratings should still be there once you sync up on your computer. If you did the ratings on your iPod...can't help you there because you cant get files off your iPod into iTunes. In other words, you can get songs into iPod with iTunes but you can't get songs from your iPod to your iTunes, tricky aint it?

 

[alfo]

I found this episode disturbing. I connect my ipod to 3 different computers for recharging all the time (at home, at work and my notebook) and was worried something like this might happen, so I spent a couple of hours trying to understand how the whole thing works and see if I could replicate your problem.

First of all, the ipod name is not used for identification. Your library is identified by a numerical id which is random, afaik, even on the same machine.
I always tought that what is used id the entry:
<key>Library Persistent ID</key><string>FA4A9BCC2578642C</string>
in your "itunes music library.xml" file, but I'm not sure about it.

Your Ipod settings are stored on the Ipod actually, so it doesn't matter if you connect your ipod to another computer.

Another thing I noticed is that on the dialog that warns you that the ipod is linked to a different library there's a checkmark "don't ask me again", which troubled me... could that be it? So after a backup I connected the ipod to a computer with an empty library, got the dreaded warning and after selecting "don't ask me again" I clicked yes. All my ipod's music was shortly gone as expected. I then tried to connect the ipod to the pc with the true collection, but the ipod didn't sync. It was greyed out like when you click no, so I suppose that when you select the "don't ask me" option it will always store no as an answer and will simply not ask anymore.
A strange thing: it seems that you get the "don't ask" option only if you have the ipod with disk use disabled. If I turn on the disk use option the check box is not there. But I didn't test this too much.

I'm still puzzled about your problem. I could not find a way to replicate it. The only logical explaination I could not rule out with my testing is that your friend's itunes and yours had the same random id, which is very unlikely but still possible. Or it might more likely be a bug. I'd report what happened to apple, if it's a bug it would be good for everyone if apple knew about it and fixed it.

 

[gerG]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Michael1980 But my friend never had an iPod! And no other iPod was ever connected to his computer.

ok, now this is even more strange. If I plug an ipod into a machine without the ipod software installed, itunes ignores it. I have a feeling that your ipod and your friends laptop had a previous relationship.


gerG

 

[Jahn]

i never ever plug my ipod into another comp until i make certain the itunes is on manual, not automatic update. because without warning that stuff happens - yes, it sucks.

 

[Michael1980]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gerG ok, now this is even more strange. If I plug an ipod into a machine without the ipod software installed, itunes ignores it. I have a feeling that your ipod and your friends laptop had a previous relationship. gerG

No, I am 100% sure that no iPod has ever been connected to my friends laptop.

-----------

I still don't understand what happened. The only explanation I could think is that:

The windows usernames could be the same ("user" in both cases).
Some of the playlists names are the same (You know like "Rock" and "Most played").

I just plugged in the iPod into my laptop and the it just appeared there with no messages about libraries. It did not sync because I selected the "manual mode" on my friends laptop.

I am now looking into XML and iTunes database to see what it happening.

 

[rauer]

Crap. That sounds just like something the notorious Sony SonicStage would do - and earlier I've read how the iTunes is a great software?!?!?

 

[Blitzula]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lal316l If you rated your songs on iTunes, the ratings should still be there once you sync up on your computer. If you did the ratings on your iPod...can't help you there because you cant get files off your iPod into iTunes. In other words, you can get songs into iPod with iTunes but you can't get songs from your iPod to your iTunes, tricky aint it?

If you rate a song on the Ipod, it will update Itunes at the next sync. Assuming one didn't accidentally sync with another pc.