After "Organize Library" 1/2 are Unknown Artist/Album

What could go wrong letting iTunes Organize my library?
I had all my songs in one place in folders labeled with Artist names.
After Organizing, 1/2 my files are under unknown artist and unknown album.
In iTunes "Get Info" all these songs show Encoded With = Unknown.
The artist and album fields are blank.
In explorer properties, all these songs have artist and album names.
They also show Encoded by = iTunes v7.1.1.5
Since the Artist, Album, and Encoding info is attached to the actual song files, can I get iTunes to look at that info?
I have tried to Organize several other times but iTunes doesn't pick up the information it missed the first time.
I know I can manually spend a week imputing the artist and album info but the Encoded With field would still be incorrect.
Could it cause problems later on?
Is there a way to take the songs out of the library and bring them back in?

See Backup your iTunes for Windows library with SyncToy before you start. That way if you eliminate too much data you can recover the files in their current state.
Try MediaMonkey. Select a test file, then use Tools > Advanced Tag Management > Clear ID3v1 Tags or Clean ID3v2 Tags. Then try playing the track in iTunes. See which, if either, causes iTunes to see the correct data.
Assuming your library had the correct data for these tracks before you updated it another possible approach would be to temporarily connect to a recent database in the Previous iTunes Libraries folder, export metadata using my script ExportImport, then switch back to the main library and import the data.
tt2

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ITunes Reorganized My Music to Unknown Artist / Album

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How can I recover the data so that all of my info exists? This is literally thousands of songs.

maybe try deleting those songs and copying them back on with itunes settings changed - edit > preferences > store > automatically download missing album artwork

Why are all of my artists/albums/playlists in random order after using iTunes Match?

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I have a script called ExportImport for this task, but it only runs in Windows.
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"Unknown Artist" comes up on iPhone music library for some albums even though they have an artist in iTunes, Also some artwork not showing on iPhone even though the artwork for the album is on the iTunes library on my iMac

Trying to copy full albums onto my iphone 5s, some (About 25%) albums have "unknown artist" where the artist should be, even though they have the correct artist names in Itunes on my MBP.
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http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=embedart
http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/scriptcount.php
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All Tracks Now Unknown Artist - Can I Reverse This And Restore All Artists

Got a new PC one year ago. Had 350 CD's and decided to go digital with iTunes. Bought two external USB drives. One to use one for backup. Was using iTunes very happily up to one week ago. External HD one crashed. Not a problem have an EXACT COPY that was put back in the box a year ago after ripping all CD's to ext HD one and making ext HD two an EXACT COPY. Well, I plug in the ext HD two and OBVIOUSLY I had something checked wrong. iTunes in it's infinite wisdom decides that it doesn't care about my songs belonging to specific CD's, in some cases on CD per artist in others several different CD's per artist. So, now I still have all my songs BUT if I want to listen to a specific CD in either straight or random mode I CAN NOT | because ALL OF MY 4,000+ songs are all in the same folder called UNKNOWN ARTIST. I am in tears. It is nice to have the tracks but I don't know the names of most of them I listened to the CD's and knew the songs as being on a certain CD. Now all that information appears lost. AHH ! The one saving grace I may have is that I still have a copy of the original iTunes Library.itl and iTunes Music Library.xml THE ONES THAT WERE MADE THE SAME WEEK A YEAR AGO WHEN I FIRST RIPPED ALL MY CD'S !!! I can't re rip as I gave the CD's away since I didn't need them anymore. Might there be a way to restore the ARTIST AND CD data to each song without my having to buy all the CD's again and re-rip everything again OR having to look everything up and go into each songs info page and re-enter all the information ? PLEASE HELP ! Thanks.

You can do a factory restore and then restore from a backup after you've upgraded. I just did this with my mom's iPad, but you had to have either an iTunes backup or iCloud backup to do the restore. If you don't have the backup, could be that a lot of your apps and music are still available, but your settings are lost. Your most recent 1000 pics or so would still be in photostream, so you'd want to rescue them back to your recent pictures folder. Your mail, contacts, reminders, notes, are all already probably in icloud or another cloud provider for those services, just need to reenter your login information. If you do secure backups, a lot of the setup is restored, without backup, you'd need to log back in to those services like twitter, facebook, etc to see your info there.

Organize iTunes file list by Directory Structure instead of artist/album?

Hello, I have searched for different audio players for os x which might have this feature but so far have had no luck. What I'm looking for is a feature similar to that of foobar2000 for win32 where I can organize my music by directory structure without the iTunes automatic organization by artist/album. Is there a way I can accomplish this in iTunes with some sort of xml config or hidden options? Thanks.

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Itunes library no longer sticks to highlighted artist/album

this has happened only after the recent update. not sure if this makes sense but here goes... if i want to listen to a particular artist/album, i highlight it on the main library window. while listening to the artist/album, i usually browse the other windows/playlists/etc. when i switch back to the library, the artist/album is no longer highlighted and my entire itunes library is displayed. bug or new "feature"?

Noticed this also.
Not sure if it's either.
Sometiumes programmers put features in applications which are not documented or are not required.
If this is the case, it's neither a feature or a bug. It's just not there.
Tell Apple here -> iTunes application feedback

[Solution] No audio with AirPlay on startup (untitled, unknown artist, unknown album)

I have the problem of airplay not playing audio on startup.
While apple TV is in standby mode, if I connect my iPod touch or iTunes to
apple TV using airplay, no audio will come out from my TV nor speakers.
Music information displayed on TV will be untitled, unknown artist, unknown album
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I bet everyone's apple TV have same problem if you updated your upple TV to latest version.
I contacted apple support regarding this problem.
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They told me that their apple TV has same problem exactly as I told them.
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Only 4 people total reported this probem to apple support including myself.
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Here's the link.
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Not sure if this is related but I am going to post a response for similar problems that might help other folks. When my Airplay came through with no sound, I went to Settings, General, then Restart (at the very bottom). Then waited a few seconds for the tv to reset itself. Airplay streamed with sound after that.
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Unknown artist and folder issue/itunes mac

So, for some reason, some albums imported to itunes get sorted in "unknown artist/unknown album" folder on the harddrive. I mean, in itunes they are where they're supposed to, but they dont show up under the right artist folder in Finder/harddrive.
Is there any way to fix this?
I ask, because sometimes I try and be clever and do backup, but I just realised that there are hours worth of music that I havent backupped, cause it's hidden in some unknow folder.
Help?

AnrBjötk wrote:
So, for some reason, some albums imported to itunes get sorted in "unknown artist/unknown album" folder on the harddrive. I mean, in itunes they are where they're supposed to, but they dont show up under the right artist folder in Finder/harddrive.
When the tracks are added to iTunes, iTunes will file them according to how the files are tagged.
I ask, because sometimes I try and be clever and do backup, but I just realised that there are hours worth of music that I havent backupped, cause it's hidden in some unknow folder.
Help?
Keep your library consolidated, and make sure to back up the entire iTunes folder.

Problem after consolidating library

Hi,
I've changed the location of my iTunes music, as described in this link:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449
After I consolidated the library, I compared the size of the iTunes folder in both locations and there is a difference of 50 GB.
So what went wrong?
Thanks in advance.

Use this. It works great...
-> iTunes Track CPR v1.3
"This script attempts to locate the files of so-called "dead tracks"--iTunes tracks designated with (!)--that you assume are not actually missing but are still located in the iTunes Music folder in their "iTunes File Order" (Music -> Artist -> Album -> file.xxx). Any correct files found will be added to iTunes and will replace the "dead track" in each playlist it appears in (except Smart Playlists). Most tag data will also be rescued. Tracks whose files cannot be located will be ignored. Additionally, a text file report is generated that lists successfully resuscitated tracks and the tracks which couldn't be revived. Not a perfect solution! Read Me should be read thoroughly. iTunes 4.1 or better"

HT1382 how do I organize iTunes in Album folders, rather than artist/album.

The way iTunes organizes my music is not very organized for me. I would like to organize all songs from an album into a single folder, rather than having the album folders present with artists folder. Is there any way I can change the way iTunes organizes the songs in my media library?
I tried to see if I can export a playlilst that is organized by Albums rathre than artists, but there seems to be no options.

iTunes has exactly one way to organize, and that is by artist/album.
If that is not what you prefer, then go into Preferences > Advanced, and make sure that "Keep..." and "Copy..." are both not checked. Then, for any new songs you plan to add to iTunes, put them in whatever folder you want them to be, and iTunes will be reference their current location, and will not move or change anything.
BTW, changing those settings will give you the correct handling of new additions, but will not change anything that is already in the library. Also, it does not affect any future items purchased from the iTunes Store.

Importing cd as unknown artist

When i'm importing a cd where itunes does not recognize song title and album name, it automatically places it in a folder "unknown artist" in my itunes folder on my hard drive. I go in and manually label it and organize it in my itunes folder then pop into my itunes as a new playlist only to find that itunes automatically reorganizes it again as an "unknown artist" in my folder.
How unbelievably annoying. How can I prevent this from happening?

Rather than trying to alter the information outside of iTunes manually, you need to make the adjustments from within iTunes.
Highlight the 'Unknown Album' in iTunes libraries Album pane, then do a 'Get Info', that's Command and the I key together. You will get a warning about editing information for multiple items, just click yes. Now you can fill in the Artist, Album, Composer, Genre etc. When you have finished click OK. Now you need to click on each track individually and input the relevant info there like track name for each track. Now when you look inside your itunes folder the files should no longer reside in an unknown album folder but a folder with the albums name, which may well be inside a folder with the artist name. If you select Compilation, you will find it in a folder called Compilations then artist then album name.
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After "Organize Library" 1/2 are Unknown Artist/Album

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