Help with iTunes "the song could not be used because original could not be found"
Please help!! I just recently got my pc laptop back from being worked on and the hard drive had to be replaced. Tonight I had to download iTunes and now all my purchased music (which in in the 1,000's) gives me a message when I try to play it,
"the song could not be used because the original file could not be found." I'm really frustrated since this music was purchased why can't I play it this is ridiculous! I've had numerous problems with iTunes before but I have to say this really is the worst. I realize these songs are still on my iPhone but I have really nice built in speakers and I like to listen to music while in my office right from my pc. Any advice would be helpful, I'm at my wits end. Please advise!!
Please help!! I just recently got my pc laptop back from being worked on and the hard drive had to be replaced. Tonight I had to download iTunes and now all my purchased music (which in in the 1,000's) gives me a message when I try to play it,
"the song could not be used because the original file could not be found." I'm really frustrated since this music was purchased why can't I play it this is ridiculous! I've had numerous problems with iTunes before but I have to say this really is the worst. I realize these songs are still on my iPhone but I have really nice built in speakers and I like to listen to music while in my office right from my pc. Any advice would be helpful, I'm at my wits end. Please advise!!
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Syncronizing my 3gs with itunes the sync does not finish because itunes always crash and stuck and i can not sync my device, i dont no whats wrong because the itunes even can not acess itunes store, still loading waiting for itunes store and nothing.I tryed reinstall itunes but just waste of time.
My itunes is update, iphone 3gs 4.3.4, system is windows vista home premium.
Please help me.I also have the Mcaffe security centre so on the face of it we have very similar situations and I had not problems.
You asked what I meant about saving the installer on your PC.
When you go to the iTunes download page:
http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/
And click on download, you should be offered the choice of running the installer or saving it. You need to click on save and then choose a folder on you PC where you want it saved. But I think you already did that.
After the installer file - iTunessetup.exe - is save on your computer, you double click on it to run it.
It's very odd that the installer fails at different stages. usually when the installation fails, it is at a specific stage and usually generates an error message.
I am afraid I am mystified. Have you had any other problems with your PC which might suggest a general problem not specific to iTunes?
The only other suggestion I have is to download a fresh copy of the installer - in case it got corrupted. You could also try using "run as administrator" to run the installer. It should be an option if you right click on the installer file.
The other thing it might be worth trying is to install it from another account, but you would need to create another administrator account if you don't a;ready have one. Or if you have another account that is not an admin account, you can temporarily promote it from the control panel>>User accounts. -
Why do I get an error message when I try to sync my IPAD with ITunes? Message reads Cannot be used because Apple Mobile Device Service has not been started.
AMDS for Windows
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1567 -
Error: [songname] was not copied to iPod because the song can not be found
I know that from my searches, this topic has been touched on but I am unable to locate a solution. So my apologies in advanced if asked and answered.
When updating, iTunes tells me that some songs cannot be copied because they cannot be found. However, the songs are clearly in the iTunes folder. I also have a backup copy of my entire library and adding them back from that library does not work either.
Here is what I have discovered about these files: some are songs that were in an album by themself and then the rest of the album was added later. Some of the songs are in the format of .mp3 and some are in the format of .m4a. None of the affected songs are purchased from iTunes; none of my purchased music is problematic.
This problem seems to be growing. At first it was just one song, then it grew to 48 and then to 59. The songs play just fine in iTunes, but cannot be copied to the iPod. I checked the properties of the songs, and none of them are read-only. There should not be a problem with permissions on this computer as I am the administrator and gave myself full priveleges on installation.
Clearly there is something wrong with these songs that prevents their being copied. Does anyone have any idea what is going on?
At the risk of getting flamed, please don't respond just to gripe about Apple, etc. I am looking for solutions, not commiseration.
Thanks in advance!Replying to my own post since I don't see how to edit.
I have some more information that may help if someone can determine the significance.
I EXPORTED one of the playlists that contains 2 of the above described problem songs. I converted the text file to a table and then noted that in the last column (column 27) that there is a PATH to the song. All other songs do not have this in the path. The path does not refer to the current location of the file, either.
The first song that this happened to does not appear on any playlists so I did not discover this.
The rest of the songs got "lost" after I added some old playlists back to my Library that I had exported. In one particular playlist two of the songs had the wrong path in the Location column, and neither was found. However, the rest of the songs had a blank field in that column and were found just fine. So.... I think I may be onto something, for all those who have this problem. However, the only way to actually do this without a supercomputer would be to make a playlist of all the not-copy-able songs, export the playlist and carefully look for that path data.
I would love to hear if anyone has tried this for this problem. I don't want to keep replying to my own posts, but I honestly think I cracked this "bug". The problem appears to be that the data in the database gets errors in it during the moving/addition of a song from another place on the system, regardless of the settings in iTunes. In my case, I consolidated my library, allowed iTunes to organize my music and I am a fanatic about spelling and so forth for song titles and related information.
--CRN -
Error message-song couldn't be used because original file couldn't be found
Had to reinstall itunes onto my laptop and all my music appear automatically in the library with all old playlists, which was great. But now most of my songs show an error message - 'The song could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?' - I located the correct file for some songs, but even still the next time I open my itunes the same error message appears and to play a song I have to locate it every time I want to play it.
Please help!
Thank you,Here's what I did. Went to the iTunes preferences. Selected Advanced. Then made sure the iTunes music folder was correct. Unchecked copy files to iTunes folder when adding songs to library. Clicked OK. Clicked on the file menu scrolled down to select add to library. I then went to where on my hard drive my iTunes mp3s are kept. I selected the first groups folder (AH-a) and shift clicked and scrolled down to my last groups folder (ZZTOP) So all groups were selected. Then I clicked on Choose. So my entire library was now added back into iTunes and will now play back. However everytrack was now duplicated. One track that would play and one track that wouln't .
I then went to this website http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/scripts01.php
and downloaded, installed and ran Super Remove Dead Track
v 2.0. My library originally contained 7700 songs. So duplicated it was over 14,000. It took approx. a couple of hours for the script to delete the dead duplicates
and my library was back to normal. -
Help with saving the songs on my ipod after i format my computer
hi there
how can i save the songs on my ipod once i foramt my computer and itunes doesnt recognize any songs (cuz it will all be gone)
how do i keep the songs without itunes deleting them right away?otherwise you could just go into My Computer
Except that the files are hidden, and even more to the point, you'll have no way to get back your playlists and ratings. All of which yamipod will do for you with no problem. Why do things the hard way when there is so easy a solution?
12" PB, Mac Mini (x2), G3 iMac (x3), G4 iMac, G5 iMac, Centris 610, SE30, Mac+ Mac OS X (10.4.4) 3G iPod, iPod shuffle, iPod nano -
when trying to backup and sync my ipad and iphone to itunes it does not appear in the upper right hand corner under devices for me to click on
In that same window - the one where you see your backups - click on the box at the bottom that say -Prevent iPods, iPhones and iPads form syncing automatically. Then click OK and quit iTunes.
Connect your iPad to the computer and launch iTunes. Right click on the iPad name on the left side under the devices heading and select - Restore from backup. A window will pop up from which you can select any of the backups that you have for the iPad. Select the backup that you want to restore from and then go agreed and restore the iPad. Sync with iTunes when you are done.
Remember that when you restore from a backup - you restore everything in that backup to the iPad. You cannot selectively restore content. It is all or none. -
The iTunes library says I do not own them and they can not be found on my iPod. But I can still see and play the songs on the ipod. But when I try to sync them they do not appear.
It is not possible to sync music directly between an iPod and an iPhone. The music must be in an iTunes library and that must be used to sync the music to each device.
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Error " song can't be used because original file can not be found"
Our computer was about to crash, so we backed up our iTunes library to disc like it suggested. However, once we imported the library back to the new computer, iTunes will no longer play the songs without the disc in! It says the "original file can not be found" unless the disc is in. How do we get the "originals" off the disc and back onto the computer so I don't have to carry the disc everywhere?? I can't seem to find any help on any of the help sights about this problem. I tried using iTunes Folder Watch like another post suggested and it didn't work. I still need the disc to play the songs.
Roberta hello,
The remedy is very easy...
Open the iTunes folder and select the iTunes Library file and type command -D
this will make another copy for safe keeping, if anything goes wrong you can always return this copy ... leave the duplicate file where it is.
Start iTunes in the normal way and open the preferences > advanced > general tab... set NOT to copy files when adding to library and DO keep iTunes Music folder organized.... OK your changes.
From the file menu select 'add to library' and choose the iTunes Music folder.
After iTunes has checked and made any adjustments needed have a look and see if any problems still exist ... come and let me know Roberta ... TP
iMac 800MHz PowerPC G4 17 Flat Screen. G4 iBook. Mac OS X (10.4.3) -
"File could not be used because original file cannot be found." Locate File?
Everytime I try to play a song on iTunes, I get a message that says "The song cannot be played because the original file cannot be found. Would you like to locate it?" I also cannot add songs to playlists, or pretty much do anything. The only songs that will play are ones I recently purchased from the iTunes store. I also have 2 libraries setup on my computer. The original library is fine, its the second one that is a problem. Should I just go back to one library? or how can fix the problem?
This happens if the file is no longer where iTunes expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, or that the drive it lives on has had a change of drive letter. It is also possible that iTunes has changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout,or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place.
Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Ctrl-I to get info, then cancel when asked to try to locate the track. Look on the summary tab for the location that iTunes thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drive(s). Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, or a drive letter has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions.
Alternatively, as long as you can find a location holding the missing files, then you should be able to use my FindTracks script to reconnect them to iTunes .
tt2 -
Song can't be used because original file couldn't be found...
I have already uninstalled and reinstalled the latest version of iTunes. Every song in the library is proceeded with an exclamation point. So I right click on a song, choose Get Info, and above message appears. There's no path listed for the original file. I've checked the preferences in iTunes & the path appears to be correct. How do I correct this? Nothing is updating to my Ipod correctly either.
HP Windows XPHere's what I did. Went to the iTunes preferences. Selected Advanced. Then made sure the iTunes music folder was correct. Unchecked copy files to iTunes folder when adding songs to library. Clicked OK. Clicked on the file menu scrolled down to select add to library. I then went to where on my hard drive my iTunes mp3s are kept. I selected the first groups folder (AH-a) and shift clicked and scrolled down to my last groups folder (ZZTOP) So all groups were selected. Then I clicked on Choose. So my entire library was now added back into iTunes and will now play back. However everytrack was now duplicated. One track that would play and one track that wouln't .
I then went to this website http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/scripts01.php
and downloaded, installed and ran Super Remove Dead Track
v 2.0. My library originally contained 7700 songs. So duplicated it was over 14,000. It took approx. a couple of hours for the script to delete the dead duplicates
and my library was back to normal. -
Old aptv is no longer syncing purchased movies and tv shows with my computer. well it syncs, but does not record the movie/tv on the computer hd. Is this a matter of obselesence of is there something I can do to restore the backup?
I disabled all my computer's firewalls and sure enough, IT WORKED!! My iPod is updated and just now finishing restoring! Thank you SOOOO SOOO much. : D
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iOS 6.0 was available this week, so I updated my iPhone 4S. At first it showed a long yellow (other bar) of 10GB, then took the entire day to update my photos (about 20,000 of them. So I tried restoring the phone and the message on iTunes was that I had restored from a different phone. Now I cannot get my phone number to show up on the summary page of iTunes. It says n/a.
And it restores from a backup in June. And those are locked. Any ideas how to get back up to date?
Thanks,Never mind. It updated itself...
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I am having trouble with itunes, my songs are not playing, why?
hi is an one there?
Try this,
Close your iTunes,
Go to command Prompt -
(Win 7/Vista) - START/ALL PROGRAMS/ACCESSORIES, right mouse click "Command Prompt", choose "Run as Administrator".
(Win XP SP2 & above) - START/ALL PROGRAMS/ACCESSORIES/Command Prompt
In the "Command Prompt" screen, type in
netsh winsock reset
Hit "ENTER" key
Restart your computer.
Now launch your iTunes and see if it is working now. -
Ive searched this error message and tried to remedy, with no luck.
Yes, with no luck ... But I'm not exactly a computer tech. I searched with spotlight with no results.
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