Thanks to the power of the internet (and the people on it) I finally got my itunes Genius to work. Here’s what solved my problem:
Download Validator and run it on your “iTunes Music Library.xml” file in the iTunes folder. It tells you where the parser fails. Mine failed with weird characters in a few tracks. Validator tells you the line number but doesn’t let you look at the file, so you go to that line with an editor and find out which track is causing the problem, and fix it. I just had to edit the tags within iTunes.
After that I deleted the *.itdb files and turned Genius on again so Genius would re-scan from scratch, and then it worked! A happy ending.
If that didn’t work there’s a few other things you can try in the Apple Discussions.
YES! That was it. Their crappy return error didn’t tip me off at all. Thanks!
Ok, so all of this fixing the xml stuff I read is so vague. After I track down the error in the xml how do I know which freaking tag it is in itunes to fix. I got this:
/Users/briangossett/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music Library.xml…
:382276: parser error : Char 0xFFFE out of allowed range
Name￾åæ ææ¸âä¤âäææ°æ°âä¤æ¸âä°æ¼
^
:382276: parser error : internal error
Name￾åæ ææ¸âä¤âäææ°æ°âä¤æ¸âä°æ¼
^
:382276: parser error : Extra content at the end of the document
Name￾åæ ææ¸âä¤âäææ°æ°âä¤æ¸âä°æ¼
But I have no idea how to actually find that file with the bad tags.
This really helped!
Thank you!
In my case it was The Music from “You have to Burn the Rope”
For Windows, Validator can be a problem.
Instead, validate your XML file with the free trial of Stylus Studio 2008 XML Editor and select one of the MSXML parsers (ie. MSXML4.0 DOM Parser worked for me):
basic overview: http://www.stylusstudio.com/open_xsd_validation.html
download: http://www.stylusstudio.com/xml_download.html
Someone else mentioned Cooktop http://www.xmlcooktop.com/ but I haven’t tried that. It seems more complex than the stand alone Stylus Studio Editor at first glance.
I cannot say how right you are!!! These other people have failed to see your point. I am going to put a link on my blog back to you ok?
sure.
Plz i need help :s i get the same error msg, i have a pc, i downloaded Stylus Studio, but the problem i don’t know how to use it
can any1 tell me the exact steps plz? thnx :$
ok i figured this out idont know if it says it in this post but
if you are looking threw your music threw the albums and see a weird shape such as a square after a track name or album name THAT IS WHAT IS PREVENTING GENIUS FROM WORKING
APPLE DOES NOT SUPPORT THE CHARACTER FORMAT IN ONE OF YOUR SONG, ARTIST OR ALBUM TITLES
FIND WHERE YOU SEE A SQARE AFTER A ARTIST OR TRACK TITLE AND DELETE IT