iTunes has 'lost' most of my songs

A

andrefrancis

... yes it's really me!
I discovered today that iTunes was not playing most of my selected songs. When I double-click (most of) them, I get a message saying:

'The song blah blah blah could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?' and at the same time the grey exclamation mark appears to the left of the song.

Obviously I cannot go searching individually for some 2000 songs!

They are still in their folders, seemingly where they always used to be ... and when I double-click them there ... like magic ... they start playing ... and, yes, the song is reincarnated (without a grey exc mark). Lo ... it's a miracle!

What's happened?

Three new things have occured on/with my Mac (a G4 digital audio 466mhz upgraded to 1ghz running 10.3.8).

1. I added a new internal 200gb drive - it only reads 128gb of it :( - and an external 250gb.
2. I cloned (using CCC) my working drive to both the new internal and the new external drives. I am now running from the new internal and have wiped the previous internal (120gb) and have now cloned to that. (No ... I am not a clone freak ... well ... I suppose I am really ... I just like to feel secure)
3. I recently purchased an iPod and downloaded to it from iTunes.

Would any of this account for my iTunes problem?

If you have read this far ... thank you, and I hope you can help.

If you haven't read this far ... well ... I'm just talkin' to myself ... chewin' on an empty Bud' can ...
 
Your iTunes "forgot" where your songs are. Go to preferences/advanced and there you can change your iTunes Music location.
 
Same thing happened to me i woz importing ipod music files and then axedently quiting it erased the ipod libary, just delete the libary and reboot it :)
 
Natobasso said:
Your iTunes "forgot" where your songs are. Go to preferences/advanced and there you can change your iTunes Music location.
Click to expand...

Where do I change the location to? The songs are still where they always where!
 
CJ MAC OSX IPOD said:
Same thing happened to me i woz importing ipod music files and then axedently quiting it erased the ipod libary, just delete the libary and reboot it :)
Click to expand...

The ipod is fine ... it has all my music on ... but now I'm frightened to plug it in to iTunes, in case it has most of the songs deleted.

No ... it is iTunes that has lost most of the links.

How can I relink to all my songs easily?
 
Well first, make sure that the current library setting is where you have your files ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music. If not, change it to that or maybe try changing it to something else briefly then change it back to what it was. Worst case, move all your music out and import it again.

It sounds like your iTunes Library xml file got corrupted.
 
I wonder if anyone knows if I can download all the songs from my iPod into iTunes?

This would certainly solve my problem!
 
The "simple" way would be to just drag your entire music library folder onto the iTunes window. It'll then re-add all the songs it's "lost". The big, big problems with this are that A) it your old "dead" tracks will still be there. B) Your new live tracks will not be in your old playlists, and C) Your new live tracks won't retain your old rating/play count data. Bleh.

It sounds to me like the directory your music is in has somehow changed. Have you changed your hard disk's name? Or are there now two disks with the SAME name? Of so, quit iTunes, rename the appropriate volumes so it's the same as it used to be, then reload iTunes and see if it works. If it DOES work, then you should be able to change your names back while iTunes is loaded and have it retain its links to the files. Whenever you're moving or renaming mp3s, or any of the folders they lie in, be sure iTunes is loaded so it can keep track of all the goings-on.

To get a better idea how the path of your music library might have changed, open the file "~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music Library.xml" in a text editor, and search for one of the "missing" track names. You'll find the complete path iTunes is using in there (e.g., "file://localhost/Users/your_name_here/Music/iTunes/iTunes%20Music/song.mp3").

Keep in mind that the file paths here don't always reflect the latest data iTunes has. I think iTunes uses the "iTunes 4 Music Library" for most of its work, and sometimes it takes some quitting/reloading/playing to get the xml file to update.

Hope this helps.
 
Thanks Mikuro ...

I have now reconstituted my whole iTunes library by first deleting everything from the library and then copying back all music folders I want ... and this has now worked OK.

Yes ... I have to redo my play lists and I have lost around half of my original songs ... but the play lists needed reorganising for the iPod anyway and a lot of the original songs were rubbish and needed removing.

I have noted your point about having iTunes open when moving folders or adding/renaming disks etc.

Thanks again
 
Hi guys

I am having exactly the same problem. Did you manage to fix this?

My library is now in an external hard drive and iTunes knows where it is, but is asking me to locate random tracks, lots of them, throughout my library. It will take hours to match them up.

Could I ask for a more explicit piece of advice; should I move my iTunes Music folder back to the internal hard drive and then out again to the external hard drive, or what? and should I ask iTunes to move it via preferences, rater than just sliding the folder from one to the other?

Any help gratefully received. Am very nervous about the iPod option as iPod needs a small update as well.

many thanks
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top