Hi folks,

Long, but please read - it's all relevant.

I'm relatively new to Yate, but I've been using it now for about 3 weeks enhancing what was already a fairly well organized iTunes library, and it's been great.

Just moments ago, I made a big mistake while editing metadata in iTunes directly. I was editing in iTunes because it only format-based edits, and only an [intended for] EP of 5 tracks. I was going for a shift selection from the top to bottom of the 5 tracks. This particular artist is in the Z's. I didn't realize that I had unwittingly selected all the way from A to the end of the EP I was working on.

I clicked stop quickly on the iTunes operation. It had edited about 300 tracks out of 5,257 - so it could definitely be worse.

Fields affected were Artist, Album, Album Artist, Genre, and Total Track Count. Song Name and Album Art makes it possible to identify individually, but this will take absolutely forever.

I set the Album Artist and Album temporarily to "MUSTFIX" to keep them grouped, then pulled them into Yate. I was able to recover *some* data by selecting the tracks ---> right-click ----> AcoustID ----> Fingerprint, Get Data, Import IDs ----> Match Tracks to Possibly Multiple Releases.

Unattended Metadata Lookups bombs every time I try it. Again, I just started using Yate, and I'm sure that there is scripting that could be done, or some other set of Actions with the right preferences, but I've just been going album by album pulling in data because. I don't know which of the tracks involved have already been fully tagged - probably the ones that AcoustID pulled in data on I'm guessing.

Any suggestions on a way to use Yate to help with my situation?

I've attached screenshots of what I run into when trying to use Unattended Metadata Lookups (these messages always pop up, dating back to the first day I purchased the software.) You'd think that this particular action would REALLY mean "UNATTENDED" (or work, for that matter)

I'm running version 3.16.2.2.

Thanks for getting back to me.

You're correct - I believe I was misusing the action (and quite frustrated in the moment [as I mentioned, I was in the Zs, so as you might imagine, I was almost done with what I was doing] - sorry if I came across a little harsh toward the end there). I had a feeling that the first prompt was less relevant than the second in that moment.

I'm also now remembering reading the text you quoted above a couple of weeks back on that action's documentation, as you mentioned. I'm guessing that, were there not a huge programming obstacle in the way, there WOULD be an ability to truly have unattended metadata lookups. As I've discovered while using the software, MusicBrainz & Discogs, being maintained by the public, aren't 100% consistent with regard to formatting, so I definitely have to make a lot of choices and deselect checkboxes here and there. No magic wands, but the software definitely enriches my metadata.

I have read time and time again that the "Keep iTunes Library Organized" feature is something to avoid. At this time, I do still have it set on. Mainly because in the past I have liked the fact that it will delete folders and sort of "clean up its mess" as you adjust metadata, but I think it's time to turn it off. It came in most convenient when I had iTunes Match, which I let expire last month. That subscription was a blessing and a cluster at the same time...lots of track quality upgrades, and while cloud services certainly come in handy, I really value my local data. But yeah, I had to delete M4P tracks and make innumerable other adjustments during that period [but it upgraded around 4,000 tracks to 256 from 160 or 192...], so the automated organization helped then at least.

I'm so sorry to tell you this, as I am unbelievably grateful that you worked on that action for me...I downloaded and imported it, then reviewed the individual components. I would happily send you the database export, but I was able to narrow it down to about 250 actual problem tracks, and after the AcoustID context menu action I mentioned [and after I made the post], I determined that I was able to get all but ~50 in a position to easily make a couple of edits.

Once it got down to 50, I said screw it I can do 50 manually...gosh I feel bad now. I didn't expect anyone to set out to personally assist in fixing my problem. Most forums I just get a vague, half-assed suggestion. 😛

I want to familiarize myself with the more advanced features and actions. (I've seen the sample actions page.) The YouTube videos are just introductory. Do you have any suggestions? Obviously there is documentation, but perhaps a suggestion on a learning exercise or two, or a different approach? I'm just worried that I'll get stuck in a rhythm of using the features I've figured out and not venture much further.

I'm glad you recovered your metadata 🙂

Yate can rename anything to anything. I'm not sure what you want to do. You sent me an 'after' but what was the text before?

ie. you want "Why Won't She (Call Me Back) [Lil Jon Remix]", but what does it look like before?

Ahh. Well any action would be text and pattern based. If the trigger is the word 'remix' and action could certainly be written to do the change. All changes would have to be after importing from MusicBrainz, Discogs and/or Beatport.

As you said, you can't trigger on a trailing ) as that happens quite often. However, you could trigger on the (.......remix) and change it to [..... remix]. Does that make sense? BTW actions can be run automatically after importing so t could be automated. Let me know if the previous stuff will work for you. I could write a tiny action to do it.

So preferably (xxx remix) would become [xxx Remix], and would always be the last text string in the Title field, where applicable.