Audio CDs not showing up in iTunes because of Firewall settings; No way to turn off CDDB-access function

If your Mac is behind a corporate firewall and is therefore unable to access the CDDB database (which iTunes attempts to connect to whenever there is an active Internet connection and a valid audio CD is inserted), you may experience an issue where the CD itself does not show up in iTunes.

MacFixIt reader Thomas Holmberg writes:

"When I insert an Audio CD on my Dual 2.0 GHz Power Mac G5 tower, it will mount on the desktop as 'Audio CD' just fine. Then iTunes obviously sees it as an Audio CD and tries to contact the Internet database to get the CD and track names. This fails dues to my corporate firewall network settings. So then the CD never shows up in the iTunes list so that I could play it."

"Restarts, quitting iTunes, ejecting the CD, and repairing permissions have no effect."

You can get around this problem, and play the CD in question by dragging the disc icon over the iTunes icon in the Dock. This will allow this disc to play, but it will still not show up in the iTunes interface.

Unfortunately, Apple does not provide any mechanism for turning off automatic access of the CDDB database. Your only options are to block the network traffic using a utility like Little Snitch (which will also result in the CD not appearing in iTunes), or disconnecting from your network before inserting a CD.

Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.

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