Issue with GarageBand loops

[jdyck]

Hey,

I’ve DMG’d my iLife08 install disk and created a Choices.xml file to install iLife08 and the GarageBand and iDVD extras. Everything seems to install fine (I can browse to /Library/Audio/AppleLoops/ and see all the loop files), but when I go into GarageBand and look at the loops, they are all greyed out, and if I click on one of them it gives me an option to download them (which doesn’t work) or install them from CD.

However, if I follow Apple’s tech note (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2443) and quit GarageBand, delete the search index in /Library/Audio/Apple Loops Index/, restart GarageBand and then drag the /Library/Audio/Apple Loops folder into the loops browser, it all appears and works fine… However, I can’t very well do that with 3000 laptops.

Anyone else experience this and have a solution?

[knowmad]

1) not yet (seen this issue)
2) can I have a copy of your installer choices file? Mine is being….. recalcitrant…..

when I get mine working I will test and give my input, in the mean time… deleting the search index could be easily scripted…. technically so could the rest of it…
apple script is pretty easy for this.
knowmad

[Patrick Fergus]

Strange. Strange because Apple has to include GarageBand and the loops on OEM hard drives and it works there.

Does it work if you install Garageband onto the startup disk? Perhaps a postflight that’s gone awry?

What about if you examine the Garageband package (or possibly the loops package, if its separate) with a tool like Pacifist and see what the package is installing into /Library/Audio/?

The two indexes in /Library/Audio/Apple Loops Index on my (personal, OEM hard drive OS load) computer have creation dates of 12/22/2005 and 12/26/2005. The computer wasn’t even [i]manufactured[/i] then (13-inch Mid 2007 MacBook). Something magical is happening involving the package installation.

– Patrick

[jdyck]

Two things

First, here is the contents of my InstallerChoices.xml file for iLife 08 (the mpkg is copied from a standalone iLife08 DVD)… Assuming I have it right, I’m simply forcing the installer to choose ALL the iDVD and GarageBand install choices (by default the iDVD Extra themes and GarageBand Extra content is not installed)

[code]
iDVD
GarageBand
[/code]

Second, I’ve done some more digging into the GarageBand ExtraContent pkg installer (embedded into the iLife08.mpkg). There is a postflight installer, and a perl script called addRegistryItemLoops which looks like it edits some plist files to index Apple loops… I’m not any kind of perl expert so I’m fumbling through it, but I think at least I’m barking up the right tree…

[Patrick Fergus]

One other quick thought–grab an OEM (out of the box, if you have one) machine and log in. Create a non-admin account (I’m assuming your users [i]aren’t[/i] admins), log in as that user, and see if a non-admin can get Garageband’s loops working. If it works, your odds of getting it to work with the OEM perl script should be pretty good.

– Patrick

[jdyck]

It’s a bit of a hack, but I think I may have gotten it figured out…

I’ve essentially condense what I could figure out of the perl script (which had lots of error checking and abstraction to be useable by any Loop installer) into this very quick (read kinda hacky) script which deletes the indexes in /Library/Audio/Apple Loop Index/ and then calls the ALPIndex command buried in the installer for GarageBand…
[code]#! /bin/sh

Indexer=”/Library/Receipts/GarageBand_Loops.pkg/Contents/Resources/ALPIndex.app/Contents/MacOS/ALPIndex”

rm -rf /Library/Audio/Apple\ Loops\ Index/*
$Indexer “/Library/Audio/Apple Loops/Apple/iLife Sound Effects/”
$Indexer “/Library/Audio/Apple Loops/Apple/Apple Loops for GarageBand/”[/code]
If I run this as a script on an affected machine it seems to fix the problem, I’ve added it to my build train as a script that only runs on first startup (deletes itself after). Will find out in the next few days if that works as a fix or not.

[christern]

[QUOTE][u]Quote by: jdyck[/u][p]It’s a bit of a hack, but I think I may have gotten it figured out…
If I run this as a script on an affected machine it seems to fix the problem, I’ve added it to my build train as a script that only runs on first startup (deletes itself after). Will find out in the next few days if that works as a fix or not.[/p][/QUOTE]

BIG thanks, it works

/christer

[jdyck]

I’ve been on site at some schools so haven’t had the chance to try it in my builds yet, but encouraging to hear it’s working for you. Always good to know my solution helped someone else out too :).

[scr]

Thanks for your work on this one, GarageBand loops drive me crazy. I also install 4 Jam Packs and Soundtrack Loops but its just a matter of adding the extra locations to your script.

The one question I have is I am happy to run this as a on-boot launchd script, but because I have to reindex 6 different directories it takes a long time and the script continues running even after I login. Is there some way to configure a on-boot script so that the machine waits until the script is finished before displaying the loginwindow?

[Patrick Fergus]

There may be a way to delay the loginwindow–I don’t know. But, you can put a message in the loginwindow*, a la this old hint:

[url]http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20020921074429845[/url]

and have your installer package:

– Install
– Change (or delete) the message
– Disable itself from running again
– Restart the computer

That’s what we’re doing with our automatic binding, time zone-setting, and AppleTalk-enabling (among others) first startup packages. You know you’re ready to go when the login window is presented [i]without[/i] the warning message.

– Patrick

*I’d suggest a variant on this message:

[url]http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/article09-100[/url]

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