mistressofmuses (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mistressofmuses) wrote2023-11-19 08:13 pm
mistressofmuses) wrote2023-11-19 08:13 pm
Entry tags:
Annoying!
I hate when one very short diversion turns into hours of profound frustration, haha.
"Hey, while I'm waiting for something else, I'll watch that one random AMV that I was thinking about after catching a snippet of the song playing in a store."
"Huh, why can't my computer find that file...?" [five minutes later] "Looks like that whole folder is just... missing. Welp, at least I have my old laptop close to hand, so I should be able to get those without much trouble. Better check which files are for sure missing, though." [five more minutes of skipping through the video files to see which ones are missing.]
Easy enough to find those files once I dig the old laptop out. Takes between five and ten minutes to copy them onto a thumb drive. No big deal.
"Well, while I have my old laptop out, I should try to do that DRM removal that I've been putting off."
You see, foolishly, I had a period in my late teens where I decided to do the ~responsible~ thing and legally purchase music from the artists I most liked from itunes in order to support said artists. It's a drop in the bucket compared to the absolute fucktons of music I got elsewhere, or even just had on CD, but I periodically got itunes gift cards, so that was how I used them. Of course, that means all those files were DRM'd at the time.
There are a few tools that can be used to strip the DRM and convert those files to mp3s, but they all require an older version of itunes than I had on my old laptop, which meant I needed to uninstall itunes and reinstall that older version, which I just didn't want to mess with.
But this time I did it! Got the appropriate stuff downloaded, uninstalled the newer version, installed the old one.
"The itunes library can't be loaded because the file for it was created using a newer version of the program."
*sigh*
[a quick google search] Thank you, 12 year old tech blog post, for explaining how I can rename the files to trick an old version into working.
And it works! The library now loads.
...except in a twist I should have seen coming, it now wants me to log back into my apple account... which is something I can't do. I can't remember my password, and I apparently can't remember the security questions that I set up when I was 15. I also can't get into the yahoo email that the account is tied to for the same reasons. (I SWEAR I KNOW MY FAVORITE AUTHOR, BUT IT DISAGREES.)
I tried anyway, but as feared, it won't convert the files if I'm not logged into an account with permission to play the songs. Which I now can't do on *any* of my devices.
Very, very vague hope that I could try to do it on my college laptop if I could find it, since if I'm still logged in on that computer, then it's old enough I wouldn't need to install a new version... I know I have it somewhere, but it isn't where I last saw it, and a twenty-minute search of the closet didn't reveal it. No idea if I could get it to work anyway - the battery was completely shot to the point it would instantly shut down when not plugged in, and last time I turned it on a few years ago, the screen was also borked in a couple places.
After the fruitless search for the OLDER laptop, I did transfer the missing video files over to my newer laptop, which was comparatively painless... except that I had to manually help itunes find each. and. every. file. out of the 175 or so. Which was quick enough, but still very tedious and annoying. (Sure, I could have batch added them as *new* tracks, but then it would still mark all the old ones as missing, plus it would break any of the playlists that have those files in them.)
Then, because I was annoyed, I spent almost an hour trying to guess the security questions and/or passwords to both my apple account and my old yahoo email, but to no avail, as usual. I keep hoping that somehow it'll work *this* time.
So now I'm back to needing to either repurchase or sail the internet high seas to get functional copies of music that I already fucking bought. (A common complaint! The reason DRM is shit!) But I'm still annoyed!
...and I didn't even watch the AMV that I wanted to watch in the first place.
I laugh so as not to cry, because this is what my brain feels like all the time.
"Hey, while I'm waiting for something else, I'll watch that one random AMV that I was thinking about after catching a snippet of the song playing in a store."
"Huh, why can't my computer find that file...?" [five minutes later] "Looks like that whole folder is just... missing. Welp, at least I have my old laptop close to hand, so I should be able to get those without much trouble. Better check which files are for sure missing, though." [five more minutes of skipping through the video files to see which ones are missing.]
Easy enough to find those files once I dig the old laptop out. Takes between five and ten minutes to copy them onto a thumb drive. No big deal.
"Well, while I have my old laptop out, I should try to do that DRM removal that I've been putting off."
You see, foolishly, I had a period in my late teens where I decided to do the ~responsible~ thing and legally purchase music from the artists I most liked from itunes in order to support said artists. It's a drop in the bucket compared to the absolute fucktons of music I got elsewhere, or even just had on CD, but I periodically got itunes gift cards, so that was how I used them. Of course, that means all those files were DRM'd at the time.
There are a few tools that can be used to strip the DRM and convert those files to mp3s, but they all require an older version of itunes than I had on my old laptop, which meant I needed to uninstall itunes and reinstall that older version, which I just didn't want to mess with.
But this time I did it! Got the appropriate stuff downloaded, uninstalled the newer version, installed the old one.
"The itunes library can't be loaded because the file for it was created using a newer version of the program."
*sigh*
[a quick google search] Thank you, 12 year old tech blog post, for explaining how I can rename the files to trick an old version into working.
And it works! The library now loads.
...except in a twist I should have seen coming, it now wants me to log back into my apple account... which is something I can't do. I can't remember my password, and I apparently can't remember the security questions that I set up when I was 15. I also can't get into the yahoo email that the account is tied to for the same reasons. (I SWEAR I KNOW MY FAVORITE AUTHOR, BUT IT DISAGREES.)
I tried anyway, but as feared, it won't convert the files if I'm not logged into an account with permission to play the songs. Which I now can't do on *any* of my devices.
Very, very vague hope that I could try to do it on my college laptop if I could find it, since if I'm still logged in on that computer, then it's old enough I wouldn't need to install a new version... I know I have it somewhere, but it isn't where I last saw it, and a twenty-minute search of the closet didn't reveal it. No idea if I could get it to work anyway - the battery was completely shot to the point it would instantly shut down when not plugged in, and last time I turned it on a few years ago, the screen was also borked in a couple places.
After the fruitless search for the OLDER laptop, I did transfer the missing video files over to my newer laptop, which was comparatively painless... except that I had to manually help itunes find each. and. every. file. out of the 175 or so. Which was quick enough, but still very tedious and annoying. (Sure, I could have batch added them as *new* tracks, but then it would still mark all the old ones as missing, plus it would break any of the playlists that have those files in them.)
Then, because I was annoyed, I spent almost an hour trying to guess the security questions and/or passwords to both my apple account and my old yahoo email, but to no avail, as usual. I keep hoping that somehow it'll work *this* time.
So now I'm back to needing to either repurchase or sail the internet high seas to get functional copies of music that I already fucking bought. (A common complaint! The reason DRM is shit!) But I'm still annoyed!
...and I didn't even watch the AMV that I wanted to watch in the first place.
I laugh so as not to cry, because this is what my brain feels like all the time.
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So many formatting / DRM / other problems.
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I don't think I have any way to verify this account - even if I DO get the password/security question correct, I'm afraid the account has been flagged.
The DRM (and inability to get logged in to play it) is definitely the most frustrating issue that I've had. I know a lot of the stuff is allegedly DRM-free now, but I'm annoyed at myself for ever trying to do it ~the right way~ before, ha. Should have stuck to piracy.
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