Tuneup is a slick software package that helps you clean up your music collection.  It will clean up your music files by adding missing data (composers, genre, albums, etc.), add missing album art, and obtain lyrics for songs that are playing.  In short, the idea is just what I need to clean up my collection.

The program works by attaching itself to either Windows Media Player or iTunes.  Although I have iTunes installed, I only use it to transfer songs to my iPod, and not for managing music.  So I opted to install it alongside Windows Media Player.  The installation went without a hitch.  It was when I began to use it that I ran into trouble.

Apparently, there are some bugs when working with WMP.  I am using WMP12, the latest version (I checked, and there are no updates available, so I am definitely on the current version).  To start with, I went through the short tutorial that is provided.  I began by letting Tuneup search my music collection and come up with a list of “dirty” files (files that need some corrections or that have missing data).  These files were neatly placed into a special playlist that was created right in WMP.  Next, the help files said that I simply needed to right click on the files and send them to Tuneup.  First of all, if you highlight all of the files in the created playlist of dirty files, and right-click, there is no option for sending the file anywhere.  Getting out of the playlist, I then tried right clicking on a file in the library.  Now it gave me an option to send the file to Tuneup.  When I did that, however, it just resulting in WMP playing the song.  Nothing went to Tuneup.  Since drag-and-drop is, apparently, not available when working with WMP, I couldn’t see any other way to get my “dirty” files to Tuneup to let it work on them and perform a cleanup operation.

Frustrated, I went to both Google, and to the tech support website for Tuneup.  I found an entry in the forum from January, 2012, where someone else had exactly the same issue as I had.  There was no workaround or solution offered.  The only comment was that it was a known problem and that they were “working on it.”  I could find no update, even though the original post was a year old.

Time to check on how good their tech support is.  Once on their tech support site, it was easy to find a problem submission form.  I filled it out and sent the request in.  I did that around noon today.  I’ll update this report when I receive a response.  So far the software is a bust, but I know a lot of people are happy with it, so I hope to find out what’s happening on my system and get it fixed.  Mistake number one:  I bought the software without trying it first (they do have a trial version).  Now, if it doesn’t work, I’ll have to struggle to get my PayPal account reimbursed.

Update:  10:25 p.m.

I received an email back from tech support.  It was a very quick response, as I think any reply from tech support in under 48 hours is good service.  The technician wrote that there is a known problem between Tuneup and some bluetooth software.  He recommended that I uninstall widcomm, if I have it.  I checked, and widcomm is the software that is used for my bluetooth device on that system.  Unfortunately, I don’t want to uninstall it, as that could cause issues (I use a bluetooth mouse and keyboard).  I politely declined to do so and asked for a refund.

Update:  2/2/13 8:45 a.m.

The refund was quick and efficient.  One thing I can say for Tuneup is that they have excellent tech support.  Before I uninstalled it, I did try it with iTunes and it worked flawlessly.  My problem is that I don’t use iTunes for all of my music and so Tuneup only operated on the copies of the music in the iTunes folder, and not on the original music stored in my “regular” music folder.  So I couldn’t retain it for use, as its use would have been limited only to that music which I have chosen to put in iTunes for transport to my iPod Touch.  Since that is not, by any means, my entire music collection, that method wouldn’t work for me.  But it did work as advertised within iTunes.  It was easy to use and relatively fast, given the small subset of my music that I have in iTunes.

I did ask them to let me know if/when they get the problem ironed out with WMP and the bluetooth drivers.  Given how they responded to my tech support issues, I have no doubt that I will, at some point in the future, get an email from them.  When that happens, I’ll give it another try.