Missing Song Info?

I'm having a lot of problems with iTunes. I'm trying to clean up my songs but something isn't right. For example, I move an Alice Cooper song to a different folder under "My Music." I know how to locate the song again, but when I move the song back to iTunes all my album info is gone and I have to re-enter all this info again. I have quite a few songs so I don't want to have to do this for every song I move. What I can't figure out is everything in the original song file is there and correct. But back in iTunes it gets erased. I must be doing something wrong. I need some help from someone that knows iTunes and all its quirks.
Also, some songs that I drag back to iTunes retain their information but most do not.

I'm moving my files around because my iTunes is a mess and so is my library. Years ago I downloaded some songs from Limewire, I learned my lesson there, but I have a ton of songs that have incorrect info. Also, my files seem to be all over the place. I wanted to put all my music files in one place so I could easily locate them and backup all my music. Long story short, I had about half my iTunes library cleaned organized and a couple of months ago my computer crashed. I was able to locate all my music but I was back at square one again with my library.
So basicly I'm trying to reorganize all my files and my library and at the same time back everything up so if something happens to my computer again I won't have to go back and fix all my music again. I'm not sure if that makes sense or not. I know there has to be an easier way, I just can't figure it out because I'm a newb.

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Transferring songs from one itunes account to another with song info.

I'm curious to know if this is possible. I download a lot of music at work under my boss's itunes account. I burn a cd and download it to my home computer, under my account. The songs play, but it's missing the info./grace note tag. What are my options, besides manually adding the info to each song? Is it possible to use my itunes account on my work computer? Thanks so much!!

Michaela A,
There is no direct way I know of in iTunes for coping your songs to an external device like a harddrive or memory and transfering to another PC. You have to do it in windows explorer. There is an artical on using your iPod to transfer music from a old PC to a new one. You can use these steps if you have an ipod or read them to get a general idea on what you need to do to transfer using your memory stick. If you use the stick you may not need to do some steps or alter others, but here a link to the artical
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300173
You may even set up a home network, like a wireless one. then you could transfer tons of things between them or use the share feature in iTUnes, so you could have all the music on one and access the music on the other laptop via the network

Mp3 tagging song info rename revert PROBLEM!!!

Hi guys,
I can see that there are loads of people who have the same problem as me. That is... that itunes is a mp3 tagging nightmare. The problem is simple. after editing song information in itunes. sometime later, itunes will happily revert or change the info back to the original file name or only display a portion of it. Im sure you guys know what im talking bout. Someone suggested that u edit the ID3 tags with an external program. However, what i dont understand is that, my itunes last time had no problem whatsoever displaying the correctly edited song information. Suddenly, now it decides to randomly change whatever it feels like. Also, it is extremely troublesome to externally edit the song info. The whole point of itunes is to make it convenient and simple to use. What is the point of having itunes only to have to use another program to edit the info??? I have seen numerous other threads with the same problem as me. What frustrates me is that... why is Apple not doing anything bout it? and why arent they posting any solutions or answers as to why their fantastic software is behaving like a spoilt kid. Why are there no answers. It is NOT a small program. I have about 10000 songs and countless CDs. You cannot imagine what a headache it is to have spent months and months of carefully and meticulously editing the song info in itunes to perfection, only to start it up one day and find that 5000 songs are incorrectly named.
For Apple, this is just simply unacceptable.

Hey guys, i got this from the WMP help file...
"Update my music files (WMA and MP3 files) by retrieving missing media information from the Internet
Specifies that the Player automatically obtain and update missing media information for music files that are added to or are in Media Library, if the information is available. By default, the music files in your My Music folder are added to Media Library.
The Player attempts to update any missing media information in your music files by sending data about the files to a database operated by WindowsMedia.com if this check box is selected and you perform any of the following actions:
Use Media Library for the first time after updating the Player
Add files to Media Library by searching your computer
Add files to monitored folders, such as My Music
For example, if you have music files that contain the artist name but not the album name, the Player adds the album name to the file after retrieving the information from the database.
The Player also adds album art to files and music folders in your My Music folder."
In light of this information, wouldnt it be fair to say that WMp will only rename the files if they are physically added by the user in WMP? If i am not using WMP to play my mp3s, then why would WMP still be tracking and altering the file names?

Missing Songs in iTunes Music folder.

I recently found that I have missing files in my iTunes music folder. The missing songs seem to be random. For instance, Abby Road is missing tracks 3 and 6. My music folder is on my main hard drive and I also have a Time Capsule backup.
When I look for the songs in my backup disk, I find I have to go back as far as 4 months to restore some of them and I just now found a song that was there yesterday but gone today. This leads me to believe that a few songs are randomly being deleted every day. Anyone else with this problem?
I'm using iTunes 10.1 but apparently I've been having this problem for at least 4 months now so I believe it was an earlier version when it started happening.

redcore,
I got an answer from AppleCare on this one and it seems to be working as I have not noticed any more lost songs. The first person I talked to had never heard of this but his boss had and told me I needed to create a new iTunes music folder. This is a bit of a pain, but not as bad as going through TimeMachine to replace all the random, missing files (that part took a while).
You have to Option-click (hold option while you click) on the iTunes icon and then click "Create new library". Name it something different from your old one and then drag all your old content into the new library. You will have to do this with the music, apps, movies, etc. Also, keep in mind you will have to export all your playlist info to the new iTunes as well. I didn't export them all so I'm not sure how, or if, you can do them all at the same time. I did File/Library/Export Playlist in the old iTunes... Than had to do File/Library/Import Playlist when in the new iTunes I had created.
Hope this helps

Missing track info

Hello readers,
I made a mix cd for my friend on itunes and when she tried to import the cd onto her itunes all of the track info was missing.
Is there anyway to keep the song info when making a mix cd?
If there is not; If she re-types all the info manually will the info be on the cd if she were to lend it to another friend?
I apologize if that sounds choppy, it is late.
Thanks for reading my questions, if you have any input feel free to respond.

Hello there,
It might be the case that you need to burn an MP3 CD (instead of just an audio CD) if you want to keep all the track info.
Hope this helps

Apple update ruined my playlists, they are no longer on my ipod and playlist i didnt have are. how can I get mine back. And i am missing songs that appear in itunes but not on the ipod?

apple update erased my playlists, they are no longer showing on my iTunes. I am missing songs that do appear in iTunes and should be on the ipod but are not, and new playlists that I didn't have are now where mine should be. Any suggestions as to getting "MY" ipod back?

- Reset the iOS device. Nothing will be lost
Reset iOS device: Hold down the On/Off button and the Home button at the same time for at
least ten seconds, until the Apple logo appears.
- Unsync/delete all music and resync
To delete all music go to Settings>General>Usage>Storage>Music>Tap edit in upper right and then tap the minus sign by All Music
- Reset all settings
Go to Settings > General > Reset and tap Reset All Settings.
All your preferences and settings are reset. Information (such as contacts and calendars) and media (such as songs and videos) aren’t affected.
- Restore from backup. See:
iOS: Back up and restore your iOS device with iCloud or iTunes
- Restore to factory settings/new iOS device.

I have missing songs that i purchased on my old iphone. they are not in my purchased folder. but in itunes store when i look the song up, it has the purchased logo next to it.... but no way to download it

i have missing songs that i purchased on my old iphone. they are not in my purchased folder. but in itunes store when i look the song up, it has the purchased logo next to it.... but no way to download it

If the songs are still on your ipod, make sure autosync is disabled in iTunes on your computer, connect and right click on it in the device list, then choose "transfer purchases" to copy all bought media and apps from your ipod to your computer.
If the songs are not on your computer and got deleted from your ipod as well, you can't get them back, unless you have a backup of your iTunes library as part of your computer backup.

4 of the songs on a recently purchased album do not appear on my computer. I bought the album on my phone, and all of the songs are accounted for there, but on my computer it shows as an incomplete album and ITunes wants me to buy the missing songs?

I recently purchased Slipknot's ".5: The Gray Chapter" on my phone via an ITunes gift card worth $15 dollars. The album did have some trouble downloading because of a bad signal, and a good number of songs "could not be downloaded at this time". To download the missing songs, I had to go into ITunes store>more>purchased>music>all songs and click download on the few that didn't. This fixed that problem, and now the entire album is on my phone, but when the album transferred over to my computer, 4 of the songs still did not appear. Not only that, it says that they have not been purchased. The ITunes card I used only has a dollor left on it, so I know it registered the purchase. The 10th, 14th, 15th, and 16th tracks still have $1.29 next to them, and ITunes is showing the album as an incomplete.

We are having this same issue. We have over 200 songs that are now missing and only our most recent ones show up in our ITunes library. Fortunately we have one phone that still has all of our music still in tact. This phone is no longer one I will be using as I upgraded to the Iphone 6, and only the most recent purchased songs remain. The rest are no where to be found and the iTunes store shows that I would need to re-purchase. Not sure what to do as when I tried to sync my last phone, all the songs were gone.

Can no longer edit song info

I just blindly upgraded my iTunes to 11.2.2 (3) and find that I can no longer edit any information on songs. This is not acceptable. Not only can I not enter missing song writing credits, I can't even tell it to sort by a performer's last name instead of first. I tried going to the actual file location to see if I can change permissions, but it won't let me - it simply says I only have read permission. This is true even for files I ripped from my own LPs, or from CDs I own, not just iTunes Store purchases.
Every time I upgrade I lose capability. I'm about to stop doing it. Anyone have a workaround?

Something tells me that this is a new installation on a new Vista machine correct?
I don't believe version before 7.1 will work on Vista. Its most likely a permission issue on Vista.

I've imported several CDs that are "collections", with songs by various artists. Only a PORTION of the song info appears in iTunes, and, when a song is "clicked-on" to play it, a message appears that the "song could not be found". Any ideas ?

The CDs are imported into the "iTunes Media" folder, under "Compilations". Each CD has a folder, with the name of the CD. However, EACH SONG in the folder is assigned a sequential number as a prefix before the song's name. For example "2-1 Sunshine of Your Love." This prefix, I believe, prevents the song from being imported into the iTunes library. The song's name appears in the iTunes library (with the number prefix), BUT no other song info (artist, CD name, time, etc.) shows in the iTunes library. I am NOT designating these CD's as "complilations", but somehow, iTunes is arbitrarily assigning them to this "Compilations" folder, and then assigning sequential numbers to each song. I am confused. (My only remedy is to MANUALLY remove the prefix number from each song in the CD folder, within the COMPILATIONS folder, then "re-import" it into iTunes. Cumbersome.) Thanks in advance for any opinion, tips or guidance.

The numeric prefixes in filenames are probably the optional disc number, followed by the track number. iTunes will pick up the Compilation flag from the Gracenote CDDB database if you ripped the tracks with iTunes, or the flag may have been set earlier if these are existing tracks you have imported into a new library. The iTunes naming convention is <Artist>\<Album>\[<D#>-]<T##> <Name>.<Ext> where Album Artist is used instead of Artist if not blank, and Compliations is used instead of Artist when Part of a compilation is true. Empty Artist or Album values are replaced with Unknown Artist or Unknown Album respectively. With Windows, file and folder names are limited to 40 characters. If more than one file is added with the same details subsequent tracks get suffixes to separate them.
If iTunes can't find a file that usually means that it has been moved after it was added to the library. Select a single broken track and press CTRL+I to Get Info. Look on the summary tab at the location that iTunes expects to find the file. Where is it really? Post back both paths and I might be able to figure out what has happened, and suggest a fix.
tt2

HT3819 Bought new iMac & moved (or thought so) music from old PC to new Mac. Now several hundred songs are orphaned on old PC; , I can "see" them with both machines turned on & iTunes open. "Missing" songs show in iMac Shared folder. How do I move & retir

Bought new iMac & moved (or thought I had) all of my music from the old PC to the new iMac. Have discovered several hundred songs are orphaned on old PC; I can "see" them with both machines turned on & iTunes open. "Missing" songs show in iMac itunes Shared folder. How do I move them all so I can then & retire the old PC?

From things you are saying, such as "shared folder" and having both machines on, it doesn't sound to me like you truly moved the whole iTunes collection.
iTunes: How to move [or copy] your music to a new computer [or another drive] - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
do not confuse moving your whole folder and library with moving just media files as in
iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449
Quick answer if you let iTunes manage your music: Copy the entire iTunes folder (and in doing so all its subfolders and files) intact to the other drive. Start iTunes with the option key held down and guide it to the new location of the library.
Macworld - How to transfer iTunes libraries between PC and Mac - http://www.macworld.com/article/46248/2005/08/shiftitunes.html

(!) How to locate the original file for missing songs?

song could not be used because original file could not be found. Would you like to locate?
I got this message when I last tried to synch my ipod. The message said there were 100 files which could not be found.   Actually more than 100 songs show the exclamation mark that says the file can not be found.
Previous posts on this issue suggest the underlying file has been changed or moved out from the ITunes organisation. Well the last time I synched my ipod on Lion a few days ago it was fine. On Sunday I wiped my hard drive, carried out the upgrade to Mountain Lion as a clean install, and used Migration Assistant to bring my user data over. After that I ran cclean and disk utility permissions and disk verification. Then this happened.
I migrated my iTunes Library to an external hard drive six months ago. That was disconnected during the upgrade so I am not sure why the files can’t be found now.    Anyway, I want to recover the missing files . I could not find them by name, album or artist on the external drive. So I thought I would find them in Time Machine backup #1. I couldn’t!. Nor could I find missing songs on my alternate Time Machine backup #2. Both Time Machine backups are set to include the external drive. Songs recognised in iTunes are visible in the backups, but not the ones that are missing.
I have a third backup volume which was a clone of the Lion setup before I did the upgrade, but I can’t access this or Mac for a few days.
I did have some permissions failures after the 10.7.4 upgrade which resulted in creating 2 new standard user accounts. Maybe I’v e got some files across these users? But in that case I’d have seen problems before the upgrade?   I notice a fair number of these are compilations imported from CD about 4 years ago. Bu tnot all.
(1). Is there a smart way to list all the files that are missing?
I can scroll through all of ITunes Music to see where there are exclamation marks. I’d like to only list these missing songs.
(2). How can I locate the missing media files?
- a search on Name / Album / Artist hasn’t found them in live drives or on TM backups. I’ve still got the missing songs on my iPod, however.
Once I can answer these questions with your help I’ll know what would be the best way to try to recover, and to work out what went wrong. I’m shocked that I can’t find them in backup.   Eventually I can restore audio from original source. If they were photos that went missing from library and backups then I would have no way to get back!
(3) could this happen in iPhoto? (shiver)

Thanks for taking the time to look at my problem. Shared is empty and I didn't back it up - I only transferred the standard and Admin users to the clean install of Mountain Lion.
But I got some valuable insight into how the iTunes library is set up from your article on split Libraries. I'd like to see it in the Tips for iTunes for Mac.   My Itunes library was set up in pre-Itunes 8 structure, and as I'd moved it to an external drive it didn't get migrated to the new structure in recent upgrades, perhaps?
I found your article extremely useful : https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3991. That gave me the means to restore the missing files more quickly than getting the original CDs out and re-importing them to iTunes.
So I've now restored the missing files and started the backups rolling ....
I still don't understand how they went missing. However the best backup was the Ipod itself.

When syncing my iTunes to my iPad from the laptop, I get a list of missing songs; they are in the library, but not in the music folder on my HD. In particular, I uploaded 3 CDs at the same time, all are in my library - but two are missing from the folder.

When syncing my iTunes to my iPad from the laptop, I get a list of missing songs; they are in the library, but not in the music folder on my HD. In particular, I uploaded 3 CDs at the same time, all are in my library, and all synced to the iPad - but the music from two of them are missing from the music folder. Questions are (a) where might they have gone? and (b) is there a way of "reverse loading" them back to my hard drive from the iPad? Thanks in advance!

Hi dones49,
It sounds like your issue here is that iTunes can not find the files for some of the songs you have brought into it. This happens occasionally even if the songs have not been moved from the location that iTunes places them on import or purchase. When you try to use the song, iTunes prompts you to find the file, as you have seen.
To find the file, use the information in this article to navigate through the iTunes media folders -
Locate and organize your iTunes files
If you are still unable to locate the files, you may need to download them from the iTunes store again, or rip them from your CDs. See this article for assistance with downloading your past purchases -
Download past purchases
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Brett L

I would like to take a iTunes play list and put it on a USB drive for my car radio to stay in my car. Is there a way to do this through iTunes so you have all the song info and there's no number in front of the name of the song? Is there a program?

I would like to take a iTunes play list and put it on a USB drive for my car radio to stay in my car. Is there a way to do this through iTunes so you have all the song info and there's no number in front of the name of the song? Is there a program?

iTunes only syncs to Apple devices.
Assuming the media is not DRM protected, any of the media can be dragged and dropped from iTunes onto other drives (external, flash, etc) as the user chooses.

My ipod 4th gen gets wiped clean of music anytime I sync. it then only redownloads some of the music in the library and wont upload missing songs. They show on the ipod grayed out. How do I get this to stop? re-uploading takes 4 hours.

my ipod 4th gen gets wiped clean of music anytime I sync. it then only redownloads some of the music in the library and wont upload missing songs. They show on the ipod grayed out. How do I get this to stop? re-uploading takes 4 hours and is never completed. I only get some of the 6000+ songs I have. This started when I updated to IOS5 i think.

Try:
- Reset the iOS device. Nothing will be lost
Reset iOS device: Hold down the On/Off button and the Home button at the same time for at
least ten seconds, until the Apple logo appears.
- Unsync all music and resync
- Reset all settings
Go to Settings > General > Reset and tap Reset All Settings.
All your preferences and settings are reset. Information (such as contacts and calendars) and media (such as songs and videos) aren’t affected.
- Restore from backup. See:
iOS: How to back up
- Restore to factory settings/new iOS device.

Missing Song Info?

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