Prevent iTunes from seeing MP3 song files as videos

Jul 19, '05 08:08:00AM

Contributed by: barryjaylevine

The iTunes 4.9 update includes some code that may make MP3s created in apps other than iTunes appear to be QuickTime movies. If this is the case, then album art may not be added and the normal MP3 data will also not appear in the listing for the song. This is due to incorrect type and creator codes for the file(s) in question. More specifically, if the files have a type of MPEG, then iTunes thinks they're video files.

iTunes' MP3 files are given a type of MPG3 and a creator code of hook (note that these are case-sensitive). So if you have MP3 files which appear in your iTunes library listing as QuickTime movies, use a utility like DropCT (or a hundred others) to change their type and creator codes. Then launch iTunes, sort by kind, do a Show Info on the first QuickTime file in the list, and press Command-right arrow (or click Next) repeatedly until you move through all of the 'bad' files. As you move through them, they will magically be corrected as iTunes loads the file and realizes they are now 'good' files.

Note that you may, instead of the above process, do a "convert to MP3," which will give the newly-created files the proper type and creator codes. However, this may yield a lower quality file due to transcoding.

[robg adds: If you have the Developer Tools installed, you can use SetFile to change the type and creator codes. I tested this hint with an MP3 without any type/creator information, and it worked just fine. So it's just those files which have been tagged with MPEG that will cause issues ... but I don't know which apps might be doing this.]

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