Can't play libray 'could not be used b/c the original file can't be found"

Dell Inspiron 9300 Windows XP
When I try to play the songs In my library I get an error message saying " could not be used because the original file could notbe found. Would you like to locate it?" This is the same for both my uploaded and purchased music. This happened all of a sudden and I don't know why. I did not remove any music files from my computer. Can anyone help me please?
Dell Inspiron 9300 Windows XP
Dell Inspiron 9300 Windows XP

You get exclamation marks or dead tracks because iTunes can’t find the file. This can happen for a number of reasons:
The song file or a folder in its path was renamed
The song file or the folder it is in has been moved
The song file has been deleted
The device containing the song files e.g. external drive is not accessible.
So, did you move or delete anything? Do you have any other software that might move things - such as another music player reorganising your files?
You can use Windows Explorer to try and locate the music files, also look in the recycle bin.
Windows search can also look for music files.
Don't allow your iPod to synchronise as this may delete files from your iPod and you may need it to recover your music if the files really have gone from your HD.

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Itunes can't play the file because the original file can not be found

There is many things wrong with that message and I don't know why.
I had around 30 songs off an album on my computer
I put the album on Itunes
I edited them and then they played fine
I put them on my ipod and then deleted them off coz i wanted to put something else on
but i found out I had more space to put the other 30 songs I had from before back on so I went to the album
when I wanted to play a song it said "Itunes Can't play the file because the original file can not be found"
1) The original file was on my computer, in the exact place where I left it last time when Itunes played it
2) I did not change the file path name
3) I did not change the folder path name
4) The songs aren't corrupted
5) They play fine on other programs
I deleted them all off and took them on again and they played fine but whey did they keep stuffing up before?

The "missing file" thing 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 say no when asked 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. I can provide a step by step guide if you give me the two paths.
In some cases iTunes may be able to repair itself if you go through the same steps and locate the lost track. It may then offer to attempt to automatically fix other broken links. 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

HT201210 could not be updated because of the firmware file is not compatible (how to resolve this problem or ios 6 could not be used on iphone4?)

could not be updated because of the firmware file is not compatible (how to resolve this problem or ios 6 could not be used on iphone4?)

Do you have iTunes 10.6.3?
If not, update iTunes first then try again.

"The movie could not be sent to QT, because a file couldn't be found"

When I try to export a 2 1/2 min. iMovie video I made today in pretty much any format, I get the following:
"The movie could not be sent to QuickTime, because a file couldn't be found.
Please make sure that your project disk has write permission, and that you ahve enough disk space. This error can also be caused by some third-party iMovie HD plugins" then tells me what to do if I have said plug-ins. I have no plugins for iMovie.
The flash drive I'm attempting to save to has almost 80mb of available space. Also, something /does/ get saved on my drive, but the (Windows) computer I try to transfer it to won't recognize it and my MacBook's QuickTime refuses to play it.
What is going on?

Welcome to iMovie Discussions.
iMovie - and other Mac programs - prefer (..or need!..) to have any discs, or other devices on which you're saving movie files, to be formatted as 'Mac OS Extended'.
That's different from the (generally) FAT32 format which Windows PCs use. And although Macs can read Windows-formatted discs - so your MacBook can read what's on your Windows-formatted flash disc - Windows machines generally cannot read Mac-formatted discs, so, er, you'd have a problem or two if you want to use any Mac-formatted device with a Windows machine!
Your flash drive - and anything else on which you've saved your 2.5 minute iMovie video - would need to be formatted as 'Mac OS Extended' if you want to use it for iMovie editing ..but you should be able to store a 'self-contained' QuickTime movie on it perfectly well in its PC-formatted state, and that movie should play in Windows when you plug it into a Windows machine if you have the latest Windows version of QuickTime on the Windows PC.
So maybe you exported your iMovie to QuickTime, onto the flash disc, but not as a self-contained movie. If it IS self-contained, then the complete movie would be there, and it's pretty much guaranteed to play. But if you didn't tick the 'self-contained' check-box, then all that gets saved is a very small file (called a "reference file") with a set of "pointers" to what's in the original iMovie project. In other words, you've saved only the details of how to play the movie, without actually saving the actual video file(s), which remain on your MacBook, instead of being on the flash disc.

I keep getting exclamation marks on my playlist on itunes, but this is only for the songs downloaded on my phone. I can't play any songs on my phone, only on the original itunes library. Whats going on??

but this is only for the songs downloaded on my phone. I can't play any songs on my phone, only on the original itunes library. Whats going on??

The iPod backup that iTunes makes does not inlcuded synced media like apps and music. Thes those iTunes are not restored to the iPod unless they are in the iTunes library.
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.

How can I relocate songs from my Itunes? Itunes tells me that the original files can not be found! can someone help?

How can I relocate songs from my Itunes? Itunes tells me that the original files can not be found! can someone help?

punzete wrote:
I can't do it that way. I erase these songs from the iTunes Library, but when I sycronize the iPhone, all these songs are copied again to the Library. Isn't there any way to stop that? Everything I buy on iTunes Store through my iPhone cannot be erased from the iPhone?
WHY can't you do it the way 100 million people do it?

HT1399 My songs can't be played because the original files can't be found. What can I do?

I can't play my songs on my computer because the original files can't be found. I can, however, play them on my ipod. I tried to re-download my purchases but itunes won't allow me to do so. What can I do to retrieve my music files on my computer?

If you still have the 'pointers' to the tracks on your computer's iTunes (even if the files themselves aren't on there) then it won't let you re-download them as it assumes that they are still there - if you delete the 'pointers' then you should be able to copy your Apple purchases back from the iPod via File > Transfer Purchases, and depending on which country that you are in you might also be able to re-download them for free. For music bought from other sources or copied from CDs you will either need to copy them back onto your computer from a backup, or you need to get a third-party program that can copy them off the iPod

HT1390 I rented a movie and it shows up in my iTunes "Rented" section, but when I click to play it, it gives me an error message saying the movie can't be played because the original file can't be found. Please help!

I rented a movie and it shows up in my iTunes "Rented" section, but when I click to play it, it gives me an error message saying the movie can't be played because the original file can't be found. Please help!

Never mind I fixed it. Just in case anyone else has this problem, after you reinstall iTunes you have to delete all your old music, and if you have iTunes match all the songs you have saved on itunes match will display and you just have to download them to your Macbook.

I dropped my external hard drive which contained my iTunes library and it is no longer readable. I attempted to upload my library from iPod and while all the songs appear to be in iTunes I get a message telling me that the original file can't be located.

I dropped my external hard drive that contained my iTues library and the disk is no longer readable. I figured I would simply transfer my music back from my iPod to my MacBook Pro and it loks like it worked. All the songs are there, but I receive a message that the original file can't be found when I try to play anything. ANy help would be greatly appreciated.

A Couple of questions..
Is the location shown under preferences/Advanced/General still showing the correct location?
Is the check boxes under this checked or unchecked?

Upgraded to 8.02, many songs in library won't play: "Song could not be used

A few days ago, I took the 8.02.20 update to iTUNES on my PC with Windows XP, I have latest service pack, yada yada.
After the iTunes upgrade, I noticed that many of my songs in my itunes library won't play when I click on them.
I get the icon of the exclamation point in a circle to the left of the song name, and the message says:
"song XXX could not be used because the original file could not be found." Would you like to locate it?"
I never moved any of my songs, and the songs that it says could not be found ARE indeed on my computer, and I can use the Windows file explorer to find the song and play it.
Back to iTunes, I decide to answer yes to the error, and "find the song" by manually meandering over to the song through the file browser window which iTunes pops up, I get to the file, and it then plays in iTunes.
My question is, how did iTunes "forget" where the songs are, and why did it forget most of them, but yet leave many others ok. I never moved nay files or anything.
Is there a way to make it recompile the library?

Probably not every one, but you will have to do it several times. Right click on the name of the song, show in window's explorer and when it can't it should give you a dialogue to find the song.
Once it finds one it'll offer to find more and you can locate stuff that way.

The song could not be used because the original file couldn't be found

About a week or two ago I loaded up my iTunes to find that most of my music could not be played. Upon clicking on the songs I got the message "The song '__' could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?" This was weird because none of my music was missing from my computer and it was in the same file location that it has been in all along. I went into the preferences and noticed that the iTunes media file location was different and I changed it back to what it was before. This helped with about half of the files but I still have about 1500 that I will have to "locate" in order to play. This is a solution, but unfortunately it is very time consuming. Does anyone have a solution that could ultimately fix this and save me the time?
Thanks,
Stunray
Message was edited by: Stunray

*Adding new items/removing orphans*
Try iTunes Folder Watch or iTunes Library Updater. Folder Watch is much faster on the adding files front, can be set to run in the background and includes a useful exclusion feature, however it’s really slow at removing orphans. iTLU is better for this although doing it manually after looking at a list of proposed removals generated by Folder Watch is probably faster still. iTLU can also be set to update iTunes when you've used 3rd party tools to change tag info.
tt2

Library not playing songs because the original file can't be found.

My iTunes is having problems. I download new music and then later that night my library shows up, but says:
The song "insert name here" could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?
I have roughly 1400 songs and instead of locating each one individually is there something that I could do to make this process go much quicker and more efficiently? Can it also be done without messing up my song count and last time played?
Any help would be much appreciated.

Well, I got it fixed...
1 I found the nearest Apple Store. I think you can get to a list via Apple.com/retail
2 Made an online appointment with the GENIUS BAR folks at the store.
3 They went into Edit, Preferences, Advanced, and checked "Keep itunes music folder organized" and "Copy files to itunes music folder when adding to library" and "use itunes as the default player for audio files"
after a few other gyrations that I could not keep up with, my music library looked normal and i will only have to reload a few numbers that did not find there way back into the library. Some of the gyrations were deleting the duplications that occured in the fix process.
When I returned home, I duplicated the process on my other computer and it seems to WORK... now, AMAZING that TWO computers developed the SAME problem on the SAME day when BOTH had worked perfectly before hmmm?
GOOD LUCK, EVERYBODY!!!
It would sell a a lot more ipods if apple had a better online support program, but the real people at the store were fantastic...
Mike

My songs won't play because the original file can't be found. Please help.

I cannot play any of the songs in my iTunes. Whenever I try to play a song an error message pops up. It reads, "The song could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?" I have to search for the song on my hard drive in order for it to play. This process works but it would be very timely and tedious to go through each one of my 5300 songs to get them to play. Is there a faster way of doing this? Please help. Thanks.

The "missing file" thing 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 say no when asked 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. I can provide a step by step guide if you give me the two paths.
In some cases iTunes may be able to repair itself if you go through the same steps and locate the lost track. It may then offer to attempt to automatically fix other broken links. 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

TS1362 songs disappear from my library and it says the original file can not be found

for some reason the songs that i have on my library say they are there but when i go to play the song it says the orignial file can not be found and asks me to locate it. when i go to do that i cant find the file. what do i do?

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

HT201272 the original file can't be found (TV episode)

I am getting this error message on my PC when attempting to watch a Downton Abbey episode I bought with the season's pass:
The TV show "Episode 4 (Original UK Version)" could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?
I've spent two or three hours on this problem. I googled it. I searched the Apple support pages. I followed several different suggestions. I found where all the other files for this TV series live. Episode 4 is listed there, but when I attempt to open it, I get the error message, and the file is marked with an exclamation point. I checked my trash bin. It wasn't there. I tried to download it again, but the Apple store tells me it IS downloaded. I can watch all the other episodes. This latest one, Episode 4, just won't let me in.
I posted this problem a couple of days ago, and can't figure out how to get back to that discussion and see if anyone can help me.
I am not impressed. I want my money back. I will never buy an iTunes product again if I don't get this episode to work. There are other ways to download media. You are not the only game in town. Downton Abbey is a continuing story. Missing an episode is the same as if you took one of my books, yanked 50 pages out of the middle of it, and told me, "here, read this." Seriously annoying.

Have you deleted the music tracks from your computer or moved where they are stored on it ? Do you have a copy of your library on a backup ?
If you are in a country where you can re-download music, and if they are still in the store, then you might be able to re-download them via the Purchased link under Quicklinks on the right-hand side of the iTunes store home page on your computer's iTunes. If they appear in there but without the cloud symbol next to them for re-downloading then try deleting one of them from your library first (where you are getting the 'unable to locate' message) and it should then get the cloud symbol next to it for re-downloading (iTunes will see that entry in your library and assume that you still have it somewhere and that it therefore doesn't need re-downloading), and if that works do the same for the others.

Can't play libray 'could not be used b/c the original file can't be found"

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