After reinstalling Leopard, iTunes can't find my music on external drive!

I reinstalled and updated Leopard and now would like to have my music back in iTunes. I know where the library is supposed to be, according to the advanced settings in itunes, but when I use this setting, iTunes doesn't import my music library. How can I fix this?

I may have figured it out. The library folder was right but the associations were not. I went to file and add to library and pointed that back to my library on my external and all the associations are being rebuilt. I hope this works. The files are being added to iTunes as I type.
Just an FYI if someone else runs into this issue.

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ITunes can not find my music on external hard drive

Had to redo my hard drive; had all music on external hard drive; copied iTunes folder onto external hard drive. Now that my desktop hard drive is clean, and new iTunes downloaded, it can not find my music on the external drive which I have always used. Is there some setting I am missing, do I have to copy music onto CPU?

Hold the SHIFT key while launching iTunes. You will get the option to navigate to the iTunes folder on your external drive. In the iTunes folder point it to the iTunes Library.itl file.

After system crash itunes can't find my music

my system had to have windows re-installed due to a variety of problems. now i can't fin over 20GB of music. i have it on my iPod, but i can't see it on my computer. any suggestions?

hi Daniel!
we can get the music back from your ipod, but first let's try to see if we can find the music on your PC first. this resource might be useful:
Buegie, "Please help!!! Have lost all my tunes..." #1, 04:53pm Oct 26, 2005 CDT
love, b

Just upgraded to Leopard and iTunes won't find my music on external drive

I keep all my music, tv shows and movies on an external drobo that is connected to my airport extreme. I just opened iTunes and it is not seeing my music (at least not populating it) despite the location in preferences / advanced being the drobo. I have tried resetting it but nothing helps. I don't want to move the music onto the iMac I want to keep it on the drobo. What gives?

I may have figured it out. The library folder was right but the associations were not. I went to file and add to library and pointed that back to my library on my external and all the associations are being rebuilt. I hope this works. The files are being added to iTunes as I type.
Just an FYI if someone else runs into this issue.

ITunes keeps forgetting location of music on external drive

iTunes keeps forgetting the location of the music i have which are stored on an external drive. it remembers a handful of them but forgets the rest so i keep getting an exclamation when i want to play them. how can i make iTunes permanently remember these files????

ah sure that's what i have been doing. the drive is always on before iTunes but iTunes can never find my music without me actually finding them for it. the location in iTunes preferences is also pointing towards the drive so not sure why it can't find them!?

HT203288 Itunes can not find my music files. But I can with Windows . Lost over 8 hours trying to fix stupid itunes, Even removed it and reinstalled. Still nothing.

But I can using Windows.
Lost over 8 hours today. Still not working
Even deleted itunes and reinstalled.
My Music files are still there. But itunes can not find them.

Empty library or library full of broken links?
tt2

Bought new HD and now iTunes can't find my music

I just bought a new FW HD, WD My Passport. I copied all of my music from my old USB 2.0 HD to the new one and now iTunes can't find all the songs. It'll play probably 40 or 50 songs but the rest of them show the "!" next to the song name. Right now the only thing I can do to show iTunes where the songs are without having to rebuild my playlists is to manually point it to each individual song but since but that would mean pointing it to over 14,000 songs......... I DID go in to the preferences and changed the folder location to the new HD and it still won't find the files. But strangely enough, when I have the old HD plugged in, as well as the new one, it'll play everything just fine, checking the preferences shows that iTunes is pointed to the new folder but "Get Info" on individual tracks shows iTunes finding the file in the old HD, unplug old HD and files cannot be found. Why doesn't the **** program look where I want it to and what do I have to do to fix it? I know my description here isn't crystal clear so I'll gladly answer any question to help clear it up a little. ANY help is very much appreciated as I do not want to spend the next 3 weeks teaching iTunes one song at a time. Thank you.
Chris

For moving your iTunes library, I recommend this method...
Assuming you use the iTunes default settings where iTunes copied added items to your iTunes folder and organizes your library (meaning - everything is all self contained in the iTunes folder), then all you have to do is drag & drop your iTunes folder (not just the iTunes Music folder you find inside the iTunes folder) to the external drive and copy the entire thing.
If you want to test that it worked or would like to actually start using it from that location instead, use these instructions when you start iTunes to point it to the new location...
How to open an alternate iTunes Library file or create a new one
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304447
If you are just testing, then close iTunes after you verify it works, and restart iTunes again with the same instructions and point it back to your internal drive (original) location.
Back up your iTunes library by copying to an external hard drive
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307074
Patrick

Itunes can't find my music folder

I can't install Itunes....it downloads fine from the exe file but when i try to open itunes it gives me the error msg that it can't find My Music folder. I went to the support page and it told me that if i couldn't find My Music folder to create one in My documents and download/install Tweak UI. I did and followed all the steps except when it asks me to click on My computer, then special folder and can't find the My Music folder to move it. I am using Windows XP....Please help. Has anyone ever had this problems?

I finally found a solution here: http://forums.techarena.in/windows-xp-support/983948.htm
it's stupid, you have to hold down the shift key while you open iTunes (don't just hold it while you click, keep holding it until iTunes actually shows the library dialog).

Itunes can't find my music from old file

Although my music is available on my ipad and phone, Itunes can't find and play my music on my laptop. WTH?

+changed the location of the music folder to E: iTunes Music.+
All this does is make future additions go to that new place.
When you move things around outside of itunes, it loses the path, as you've found.
Can you move everything back and use the Consolidate Library command to move it to the new location?
Here is a good article from iLounge on what you need to understand about the process.
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/moving-your-itunes-library-to -a-new-hard-drive

ITunes can't find my music after reinstalling iTunes 10.5

Hi All!
I thought I'd post this to help out others that may be having the same problem.
Background: After doing a System Restore on my Dell (Windows XP) I couldn't use iTunes because a "system folder is missing".
So I uninstalled iTunes (first copying all my music to an external hard drive just in case) and then installed iTunes 10.5 (32 bit I think). All that went smoothly, but when I opened iTunes every song had an exclamation mark next to it. After reading through a number of other posts I came up with the following solution.
First I used Windows Explorer to see if my music was still in the iTunes folder (My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Media\Music) which it was. All the album folders with all the songs in each.
Next, in iTunes, I clicked Edit>Preferances>Advanced, and it showed the path to the folder location
(C:\Documents and Settings\RedEft\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Media),
but since it didn't "see" my songs I thought it didn't recognize my "Music" folder, so I edited the path by adding "Music" to the end.
Like so: C:\Documents and Settings\RedEft\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Media\Music
iTunes then chugged along for a few minutes and recognized about 1/3 of my music.
So I clicked on a song that still had an exclamation mark next to it and the pop-up window said "The song 'xxxxx xx xxxx' could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?" I clicked on locate and found the song, then I did it for one more song and a pop-up asked something like "Would you like to locate more music?" I clicked the yes option, and to my surprise it found almost ALL the rest.
Victory!!!
Now I'm just missing one album and one song from another album.
Where, oh where, could they be? I'm hoping they're on my external hard drive and I'll just have to do a copy and paste.
Hope this helps someone.
Peace
RedEft

I would recommend you put everything including th eiTune slibrary files into the iTunes folder on the external.
This way, you will not have any issues when moving th eHD anywhere else. The entire library will be on it.
Quit iTunes.
Copy the entire /Music/iTunes/ from yoru internal to the external.
Move your current iTunes media folder on the external into the /iTunes/ folder you just copied to the external.
Hold Option and launch iTunes.
Select Choose library and select the iTunes folder on the external.
Now you can plug in the external to another/new computer and launch iTunes holding option as above and everything will be there.

I'm new to audio books. After buying on iTunes can't find or play the book/file on my ios7

I can't find my audio book after purchasing using iOS 7. I understand with old iOS it was located in music app under More. Have tried buying again but no joy. Can't see it in my purchased section either........

Same problem.After 30 min figured it out.
For me:
hooked up iphone 5 to imac
Updated ios7
updated itunes
downloaded audible.com app and signed in/registered
went to books tab on iphone while still plugged in
manual dowload selected audiobooks on syn audiobooks.
sync and dowload onto iphone
turned off iphone
restarted
audiobooks were under more in music icon on iphone.
Rather long and silly-but worked.Just had to now redownload all my music as it erased music.
Seems you can not manually sync music,and audio books-its one or the other.When you click on,the other goes off.Just had to do it sequentially.What made apple a great company seems to be slowly eroding.

ITunes can't find my music after Move2Mac

Just moved all my files from my old PC to a new iMac using Move2Mac software
The music files (about 2,300 tracks)all came over and are stored in same folder/file structure as I had it in my PC, but iTunes on the iMac isn't showing any of it in the library, all I have is 2 music files which I transferred earlier via the network.
I tried 'Consolidate Library' thinking that would enable iTunes to find the songs but nothing appeared to be happening, so I went into one of the music folders and clicked on the song to make sure the music was actually there
Now when I put the mouse over the iTunes window it shows the rainbow coloured wheel that shows it is doing something (this has been going on for 12 hours now)I can still use other applications on the mac, but i can't even close iTunes down
Any ideas?
VR

I would recommend you put everything including th eiTune slibrary files into the iTunes folder on the external.
This way, you will not have any issues when moving th eHD anywhere else. The entire library will be on it.
Quit iTunes.
Copy the entire /Music/iTunes/ from yoru internal to the external.
Move your current iTunes media folder on the external into the /iTunes/ folder you just copied to the external.
Hold Option and launch iTunes.
Select Choose library and select the iTunes folder on the external.
Now you can plug in the external to another/new computer and launch iTunes holding option as above and everything will be there.

My itunes can't find the music on my external hard drive.

My itunes was working fine using my external hard drive. Then I played a song that was not part of that music folder. Now itunes says it can't find any of the songs that are listed. The little evil exclamation point pops up. How can I reconnect to the hard drive without having to start all over?

Thanks for the clarification of check vs click. I guess once I saw the word "double" I stopped reading. I ended up "reloading" the drive to itunes. The interesting thing is that itunes isn't setting the location for the external drive. It is set for a folder under "my music" The actual songs aren't there, but the folders are there. When i put my external drive music to a new itunes library, i did so without copying the songs. So about 100 gig of music is in a folder that is really only about 300mb. I noticed before i restarted that the location was this folder. When i opened it, it was empty. After redoing everthing all of the songs are on the folder. I probably should have just changed it to go to the external drive like you suggested. Just for fun i changed the location to the external and bypassed that small folder. It worked great. It only took about 2 minutes to update, and it works great. I thought i had to use that stupid little folder. Thanks for all of your help!!

I've moved my music folder and now iTunes can't "find" my music

I recently moved my iTunes folder of music (46 gigs) from an external drive back to my iMac's internal drive. The music files are all on my iMac now (in the music folder), and I've changed the preferences in order to map iTunes to the new location. But when I attempt to play most of the songs, iTunes will give me a message saying the song could not be found, and I have to manually locate each song in order for iTunes to play it.
There seems to be no commonality to the problem either. For the "compilation" albums, I can kinda understand why I would have to do this. But I'm having to do it for single songs, full and partial albums, and even iTunes-purchased songs.
1) Why is this happening?
2) Is there a way to batch-process this requirement to map ALL the songs for iTunes so I don't have to do it for every other song file in my 46-gig folder?
3) Once I finally do "find" all the files for iTunes, will I face the same problem when I move my music back to another external drive in the future?
Thanks in advance for any advice.

I see. For your future benefit, here is the "canned" response I usually post for people trying to move their library to an external drive...
Assuming you use the iTunes default settings where iTunes copied added items to your iTunes folder and organizes your library (meaning - everything is all self contained in the iTunes folder), then all you have to do is drag & drop your iTunes folder (not just the iTunes Music folder you find inside the iTunes folder) to the external drive and copy the entire thing.
If you want to test that it worked or would like to actually start using it from that location instead, use these instructions when you start iTunes to point it to the new location...
How to open an alternate iTunes Library file or create a new one
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1589
If you are just testing to make sure a backup copy works and still want to use the internal location, then close iTunes after you verify it works, and restart iTunes again with the same instructions and point it back to your internal drive (original) location. Otherwise you are all set to use the library from the external location.
Additional info...
Back up your iTunes library by copying to an external hard drive
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307074
Cheers,
Patrick

File://localhost/ Issue Itunes Can't Find My Music.

I recently upgraded my old hard drive on my computer so after removing the old one and turning it into an external hard drive I have issues with Itunes finding my music files. The files are always in file://localhost/c:/.... is there anyway to get rid of the file://localhost/ because the rest of the directory is correct.

+changed the location of the music folder to E: iTunes Music.+
All this does is make future additions go to that new place.
When you move things around outside of itunes, it loses the path, as you've found.
Can you move everything back and use the Consolidate Library command to move it to the new location?
Here is a good article from iLounge on what you need to understand about the process.
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/moving-your-itunes-library-to -a-new-hard-drive

After reinstalling Leopard, iTunes can't find my music on external drive!

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