Attention iTunes Users!

[bobinchicago]

Mac news sites concur that a bug-fix version of iTunes is likely to appear fairly soon. Whether Apple's revision of the protocol is a) considered a bug and b) fixed remains to be seen, of course. Aside from a brief mention on Macintouch, I haven't seen a single mention of the DAAP issue on any Mac site.

But there is a compelling reason to upgrade to 7.0. This update finally eliminates the annoying mini-gaps between songs. These gaps previously made live albums and records with songs that transition into each other virtually un-listenable on the ipod. Finally, a true and usable update, although many will say this should have never been a problem in the first place. Many other mp3 players have for some time solved the mini-gap issue. It took Apple quite some time to wake up!

Now I've got a fair number of classical releases and hundreds of live recordings in my collection, but the way Apple implemented this is absolutely not a feature and it's a dealbreaker that will prevent me from installing any iTunes 7.x until it's fixed. There's a checkbox in songs' info boxes to flag songs that should be played as part of a gapless sequence, which is exactly as it should be, but beyond that, iTunes analyzes the entire library (more than 12,500 files in my case) to decide whether other tracks should, in some unknown algorithm's opinion, be gapless. Aside from classical and live recordings, I hate gapless play with a passion (I've digitized scores of LPs and worked hard to preserve the gaps, often 10-15 seconds, between those tracks, as the artist intended the album to be heard) and absolutely do not want an algorithm deciding it should be forced on me.

[echelon9]

I half expect that Apple is planning to fix the bug in the next iTunes update and that's why Roku can't commit to a specific timeframe.

The iTunes DAAP protocol changes that have caused issues with any 3rd party software trying to _access_ an iTunes 7.0 host are not a bug. It was quite clearly a conscious decision by Apple to change the client validation system.

To understand this, you will probably want to read along, while looking at the traffic that flows between two legitimate iTunes hosts when connecting to share. An example of this can be found here. DAAP is loosely based of HTTP, so should be pretty easy to understand.

Whenever a DAAP client (such as Roku) attempts to connect to an iTunes server, to see and browse the list of music, it is required to send a 'Client-DAAP-Validation' header after a certain point. Now this might look like gibberish to most eyes, but it a combination of hashes. Importantly, it is based on some variable properties of each request, ie you can't just keep squirting back the same hash for every request. If you do not have the correct hash, you will receive a '403 Forbidden' and no further information will be sent to you from the iTunes you are trying to connect to.

PREVIOUSLY:

The method used to calculate the hash for version up to 6.0.5 has been well documented for some time, see libOpenDAAP.
This worked well, and hasn't changed for quite some time. Every third party client which connects to an iTunes =< 6.0.5 has used this same method of calculating the MD5 hash.

iTUNES 7.0:

The release of iTunes 7.0 saw a change in the required 'Client-DAAP-Validation'. To connect to an iTunes 7.0 server, you need to be able to generate a new valid 'Client-DAAP-Validation' hash.

Thus, old versions of iTunes 6, Roku, Banshee, OurTunes ... any 3rd party DAAP client is currently unable to connect to iTunes 7.0

Interestingly, Apple did include the ability to generate OLD hashes in iTunes 7.0. Thus it could be argued this was a forced update intention, as more and more people migrate to iTunes 7.0, the less people you can play music from if you remain on 6.0, although others can still play yours.

There is current work into reversing the new 'Client-DAAP-Validation' hash, and progress has been made already. For instance, it now appears to be a combination of a static string, a MD5 hash, followed by another static string, followed by a different MD5 hash and a SHA-1 hash.

For further details of these hash methods, see:

MD5
SHA-1

The likely reason Roku cannot provide a definate timeframe is that 1) Apple is not willing to provide the details of 'Client-DAAP-Validation' to even licensees, and 2) there is no way of knowing how long it might take to work out the method used by iTunes 7.0 to generate this new hash.

[grommet]

bobinchicago, I think you misunderstand the "gapless" feature in iTunes. It analyzes the file to eliminate the gap introduced by the lossy encoding method. (For example, for LAME MP3 content... it uses the special enc_delay & enc_padding info in the header.) It does not remove intentional silence. If it does, it's a bug.

Also, the "gapless" checkbox is actually only there to prevent crossfading on the particular track/album... so if the user has enabled crossfading as a playback option in iTunes, the gapless albums continue to play correctly.

[mikepa]

As a software engineer who used to be involved with working with OEM partners, I don’t understand why any reverse engineering is necessary. Either you are licensed to use the protocol and any updates would be documented or you aren’t and you get nothing. What exactly is Roku licensing from the scumbags at Apple?

[mikepa]

Well, after 24 hours no answer on the firefly question I posted so I looked into it myself. From what I gather firefly does not use any data from the itunes library and hence does not use the itunes playlists. And no I don’t want to export my playlists from itunes – you can’t export smartllists and keep them updated anyway. I bought my Soundbridges because they use the itunes library as is, so why would I want to throw all that data away?

[RokuMike]

mikepa, that's not correct. Firefly reads the iTunes XML file and imports the playlist data. It also augments any data it was not able to read from song tags with the song data contained in the XML.

Folks, we are not able to comment on the terms of our Apple license. Its terms are confidential and proprietary, as is the nature of any ongoing communication between the two companies. I'm sorry that the information we've been able to give so far (that we're working on supporting iTunes 7, and hope to have support for it as soon as possible) is not satisfactory to some, but it's the only information we can give. We understand that this is frustrating, and appreciate your patience.

Further discussion of the matter, and particularly any discussion of reverse-engineering the protocol should be taken to another venue.

[mikepa]

Well I must admit I didn’t ponder firefly for too long, but it didn’t find any of my playlists when I tried it. Perhaps this is because my music store is not in mymusic?

How do I get firefly to find my itunes playlist?

[SykeStudiO]

I'm a simple soul ... I like iTunes and Soundbridge and it works well for me. I didn't upgrade to 7.0 yet, but now find that I can't download music from the iTunes online library without it!

This is currently just a nuisance and maybe I can buy CDs and load them into iTunes (Apple's loss [get it!]).

It's no more fair to blame Roku for this than it would be to blame Ford because Shell stopped supplying gas ... However, I just want to do it all simply as I did before - so Roku, please get things in synch again soon.

John

[SykeStudiO]

hey, maybe I could upgrade my non-server PC to 7.0 and download to it, then copy to my v6.0 server PC.

Is that a good option?

John

[andyg]

Well I must admit I didn’t ponder firefly for too long, but it didn’t find any of my playlists when I tried it. Perhaps this is because my music store is not in mymusic?

How do I get firefly to find my itunes playlist?

On a mac, you need to point firefly to your /username/Music/iTunes folder and then it will find your playlists (ie. where the .xml file is). Not sure about on a windows box but probably something similar. The point is to find the .xml file & point firefly to that location (as well as the physical location of your music store) & in the config file ensure that 'process m3u files' is set to yes.

that should see you right...

[mikepa]

If I point fireflr to my playlist it finds the playlist, but not the music and vice-versa .... (The music is not in the same place as the library) How do I tell firefly where both are?

[andyg]

in the config file you can add a music directory - that's what you need to do. Set yourself up so you have firefly looking at both the .xml file in your default music location & also your actual music store wherever that is. And remember to save the config file once you've made the changes.

This is the case on the mac, but I'm not a pc person so can only assume that it would work similarly...

[mikepa]

Magic, thanks Andyg!

For other newbies, I used the Web Adminstration feature on the server tab of the Firefly interface to get to the configuration file and added a music folder showing firefly where the music files were in addition to the first entry pointing to the itunes library. The two "Music Files" entries are:

C:\Documents and Settings\Mike Palmer\My Documents\My Music\iTunes
D:\My Music

(Assuming you music files are on teh D: drive in the \My Music directory)

[tatek]

I bought my computer do do some work for me, not me to do some work for him. O.k. in many many discussions, i found out, that most windows users will be unhappy, if anything works;-) But i dont want to do ANYTHING, only cause apple changes something, or roku does not.

I bought Mac's cause they are easy and simple. I bought Roku cause it says it works with iTunes easy and simple. Now it will do not. But thats not my fault! Why must i install any software on all of my computers, to do anything they should do without?
O.K. for windows users maybe it is quite usual to do the work because their soft- or hardware products won't. But not for me. I dont use windows, cause i don't want to become a computer professional. And i will listen music without any ambitions of beeing a firefly-, slim- or something else -professional.

Just take a look at this forum. Many "tricks and tips about how to get your playlist..., or rating...., or resources of servers...." and stuff like that! I bought a product, not a course of instruction.

As someone described, if roku says it works with iTunes, they have to offer a solution. I'm not interested in how THEY will do this. I'm not interested in doing their job, i have paid for. If they will say we will offer a solution in about xxx days/weeks/month, everyone including myself can make the decision to install anything to get a wokaround untill it's done. But i don't have to, cause only roku will not.

so long, tatek

[M@rk]

The Soundbridge did work with iTunes until iTunes changed.

It's quite simple really - you either wait without music until Roku sort it out for you or you do something about it yourself.

The official statement is the one at the top of the thread, I'm afraid. We don't have a firm date at this point, for a number of reasons that I can't get into here.

It won't be only days.

Ranting isn't going to get your music playing!