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Fixing broken iTunes Automator workflows in iTunes 10

If you depend on Automator workflows for managing music or other tasks in iTunes, the upgrade to version 10 may have come as a bit of a cold shock. Macworld pointed out that most available workflows for iTunes simply would not load with iTunes 10; a frustrating circumstance, to be sure.

Fortunately, the problem turns out not to be that complicated; Automator's version checking thinks that iTunes 10.0 is a lower version than 9.0, because the versions are sorting alphabetically instead of numerically (oof!). Macfixit points to a workaround: opening up the Info.plist files inside the packages for the dysfunctional workflows and manually changing the version threshold. It's not ideal, but if you have critical Automator functionality that would otherwise keep you on iTunes 9, it's worth a try.

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iTunes AppleScript

If you depend on Automator workflows for managing music or other tasks in iTunes, the upgrade to version 10 may have come as a bit of a...
 

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ronarredondo

I can't believe Apple is taking so long to put out another update to fix this. I have so many automator scripts that don't work. They need to fix this!

October 11 2010 at 4:38 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Luke Perman

There is also a playlist bug when using genre selection in smart playlists... Had to update and reset playlist settings a few times to get them to display properly.

September 05 2010 at 6:33 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
David Ramsay

As a professional software tester myself, this is a very common defect.

Even Micro$ft do it.

The natural method is to sort alphabetically since doing it properly is actually a large chunk of code as the field needs to be analysed and interpreted.

The human brain can do this easily but you try to write down how you would parse a text string which contains alphanumerics and work out what the content is actually supposed to be.

The easy solution would have been to pad the 9.0 as 09.0 and then it would be OK but then someone would trim leading zeros and wham back where you started.

September 05 2010 at 4:43 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to David Ramsay's comment
cycomachead

Yeah, makes me wonder if it be a bit longer to get fixed. It seems like it probably affects most of Automator rather than something with iTunes. Of course, Apple does have all the sort code written for this since 10.6 Finder was written. (Which is honestly one of the single best 10.6 features, even now…)

September 05 2010 at 11:55 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
johnt

I guess they never wrote an automated test for that. Does Apple use test-driven development at all?

September 04 2010 at 11:46 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
bruins316

I'm Using the second sort column in the new itunes and its not displaying all of my cover art. I have cover art for every album but it only displays the majority of them in the bottom left hand corner after i click the song

September 04 2010 at 10:59 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Kyle Kowalsky

Bowtie isn't working on iTunes 10. Any suggestions?

September 04 2010 at 8:39 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Kesey

Amazing. You'd think they'd have better Regression Test Plans in place for a product like iTunes.

September 03 2010 at 7:46 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
bmw

Firefly (mt-daapd) support is also broken.

September 03 2010 at 6:31 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Scott

I'm having a problem with Home Sharing where, regardless of my settings regarding passwords or limited playlists, every thing is shared and no password is required. This only happens when both computers are running iTunes 10. The passwords and limits work when the client computer is iTunes 9. Anyone else having this problem, or do I have some other setting overriding this stuff?

September 03 2010 at 4:51 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
tony d

Is bug this effecting AppleScripts too?

September 03 2010 at 4:33 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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