ITunes 8.2 released, but! is desasterous! stay away!

  • From: "Chris Gilland" <clgilland07@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 05:02:45 -0400

Hello ladies and gentlemen.

I would like to express my dismay of the new ITunes 8.2 that just came out yesterday morning. Yesterday being Tuesday morning, around 1AM Eastern Time.

Let me start by saying one thing up front: this is *not!* a way to bash Apple Inc. by any! means. I think that Freedom Scientific and for that mind GW Micro, and Apple all 3! have done just! a fantastic! job at making this formally completely! inaccessible program almost 98% of the way speech friendly. Basically, first let me explain to you my situation, then I'll explain secondly how to fix it, if you're in the same boat as myself.

I heard from the Mac Visionaries list that ITunes had been updated to 8.2, both on the Macintosh as well as on the windows side of things. So, using jaws, I went and updated.

Well, all was going fine, until I had to use the list view tonight: control shift num row 4. See, I am more a person who prefers the grid view. I am not gonna discuss at this point my reasons for this as that is beyond the scope of this e-mail, however, the point is: I prefer grid over list. Well, the grid reads just fine, but, as for the list view: it's now a mess, and I do not make light of the word mess, either. If you hit the home key with the pc cursor to go to the top of the list, you will hear something like: Not selected: Name: followed by the name of the first track in the list table outline. Now, in 8.1! if you down arrowed, you'd here name: then the name of the next track in the list which now is selected. It's also important for me to document that you would not hear jfw say: not selected, either. Well, in 8.2, you would hear not selected: followed by the exact same track you were just on, which is the first track in the list, not the one below it. So. needless to say: jfw isn't focussing at all correctly in the list. Neither is window eyes 7.01, but that's o t for this list and is neither here nor there, but just be aware: w e does the same thing. Enough said on that note.

So, are you where I am? you've installed, and gotten this issue and can't go back easily? Apple's made it not? exactly obvious how to downgrade, and regretfully, it's not quite as easy as just going to add/remove programs and killing ITunes and reinstalling. Below, I will tell you step by step what to do to get back up on 8.1.

Firstly:  you all may wanna write to apple at:

accessibility@xxxxxxxxx

This department is fully aware of jaws, and w e, as well as voiceover, all 3. You may just politely wanna lettem know the issue, as the more people who report this, the more likely Apple'll be to fix it.

1.  Open control panel.
2.  scroll to Apple Updater and remove it.
3. Scroll to Apple Mobile Device Support and remove it, even if yu don't have an IPod or an IPhone, still, dooit!

3.  OK, now scroll to ITunes itself, and remove it.

4.  Finally, I want yu to scroll for me, to Quicktime and remove it.

5. OK, now the next thing I want you to do is go to your My Documents folder. Trust me on this.

6. OK, now, please go into your my music folder. Even if that is not where your itunes music library resides, hear me out on this please. You gotta? trust me with this.

7. ok, there are gonna be a few files in here. I don't recall the extention, but one of them will be called itunes library, one will be itunes genious, possibly, you may or may not have that file, and another called itunes library.xml. once you hit enter on the my music folder in my documents, don't go to itunes\itunes music. I want you to only go one level deep. So my documents\itunes. Don't go any? further deep. the files you need will be right? there.

8. Delete all those files mentioned above. I'd just shift delete 'em, as they're not gonna do you a bitta good. I'll explain why that is here in a second, but for now: hear me out on this.

9. Now, reinstall 8.1. If you didn't keep the installer, not to worry. Contact me off list at:

cgilland1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I do have it and would be happy to send space it to you.

10.  Now that you're installed, do? not? pannick!
I know, I know, Your music is gone! calm down, calm down! Relax, it's ok. I'm not done yet. just Hear me out please. What the deal is: is, remember when I had you delete those files? The reason that I had you to do so, is because believe it or not, the way that ITunes 8.2 manages the library is kind a different from how 8.1 did so. I don't know in what way exactly, but I suspect, it's got something to do with the back end way that ITunes connects it's procedure calls to the database. So, that is why I said those files would do you no good. Basically, when you upgraded to 8.2, ITunes automatically converted them to the new ITunes format. Regretfully, converting them back isn't something Apple has implemented, which I think is sad, but whatever. So, now, in ITunes, all you gotta do is go alt+F to the file menu, then hit D for add folder. go to the folder containning all your music, and re-import it. I know it's a pain in the arse, but it'll work, trust me. Don't worry about your preferences. We didn't remove the preferences page table file so unless you started deleting things I didn't instruct you to delete, at which point if you did, that's your own falt, for not listenning, not mine. LOL! you should be fine. Now, having said that. Any old play lists you created? Um, I am sorry. They're gone. You'll have to redo 'em. There is no way I know of around that. But all your audio books should be back, all your podcasts should be back, etc. You might have to reconfigure the settings on your IPhone or IPod, but that's really no big deal.

Now there is one more thing I want you to do until word gets out that 8.2 has been fixed. This'll just safe guard you so that ITunes won't try and automatically force you to update.

1. In ITunes, hit control+Comma to go to the preferences. ok, now tab and shift tab until you reach your tab controls, like general, playback, etc.

2. ok, make sure that you are on the general tab. ok, once there, I want you to shift tab for me, 3? times.That will land you on a check box that says automatically check for updates. For now? hit space bar, and uncheck that.

3.  Tab to OK, and hit the enter key. Not? the space bar.  The, enter! key.

4.  Alt F4 outta ITunes? and re? open it.

5. OK, in ITunes, now, hit control? insert, V as in version. You should hear something like: ITunes version 8.1.1.10. If you heard this, then, you're all up and runnin! If you still hear 8.2 point something, then be sure you ran the correct version installer, and go back through these steps again.

Thank you.

Chris.
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