Damaged library & restoring

I got the 'library may be damaged' message; I've followed the advice I found here, but can't get my playlists back. I think most of my music is there, but I can't tell for sure, and I see no sign of my apps.
When I sync my iPod Touch, will what's in iTunes automatically copy to my iPod, or vice versa? If the former, is there anything I can do to avoid that?
Thanks,
Peggy

I followed the instructions in HT1589 and got my playlists back, as they were 9Sep09.
This is certainly less than perfect, but basically what I'm missing now is app info after that date. I don't buy much music, so I think that's OK. Apps and iTunesU dls are free to dl again, and they're still on my hard drive anyway.

Similar Messages

  • How can I fix a (damaged) library file?

    I just upgraded to itunes 5 last week. I opened itunes yesterday and it said my library file had been damaged so it renamed it with (damaged)and gave me a new library file without any of my custom playlists, etc... I lost a playlist thats really special to me, is there any way for me to repair my .xml library. I've tried renaming the (damaged) library to the regular library and itunes finds it and says its damaged... Also, I don't think all of the songs in my music folder are showing up. I own alot of CDs and it's going to be a huge pain to go through my 6400 songs and make sure every album is showing up in my .xml file..
    Does anyone know a way to fix/debug my damaged .xml library?

    Liz hello,
    for your info....
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    iTunes 4. - 4.8
    /Users/username/Music/iTunes/iTunes 4 Music Library
    /Users/username/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music Library.xml
    iTunes 4.9 - 5.x
    /Users/username/Music/iTunes/iTunes Library
    /Users/username/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music Library.xml
    iTunes 4 Music Library/iTunes Library
    This file is a database of the songs in your library and the playlists you've created. Some song-specific data is saved in this file. If you delete the file, iTunes creates a new, empty copy when you open the application, but any playlists, song ratings, comments, or other information you created is lost. The iTunes 4 Music Library/iTunes Library file is only used by iTunes.
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  • How to recover damaged library?

    I have been using iTunes since 4.8 and now using 5.0. Occasionally my library would corrupt for no reason. I wonder what is the best way to recover the damaged library, so I won't have to reload my iPod shuffle again and again. Thanks!

    I had this happen to me yesterday. I had my iTunes 5 running for a few days without a restart. I rebooted the computer, then started iTunes. I have a very large library, and so the "Importing songs" progress box came up and was reimporting all my songs for some reason. When it got to the end, I got the Windows XP there was an error would you like to send a report to Microsoft screen. I said no. Then an iTunes error that said the library was corrupt and backed up to a file called ituneslibrary(damaged).itl. I don't know if that helps. This is the first time this has happened to me. I don't know why iTunes tried to reimport my entire library again. Peculiar.
    Todd.

  • Help, damaged library every time itunes opens...

    Ok, so this happens a lot, every single time i load itunes i get the damaged library message, usually it goes on to re analysing everything to the same volume, podcast subscriptions gone etc, but today i loaded itunes and there were only 8 songs listed.
    ive tried re installing numerous times, nothing seems to help... the problem always re occurs
    I keep all my music files on a seperate HD installed inside my machine, its called drive F. itunes is installed on the machines original HD along with all other software. but i had this problem even before i installed and put all my music files onto this hard drive.
    Can anyone offer any advice this is very frustrating!

    Hi,
    I hav exactly the same problem. Didn't find a solution yet. YOu? It started when I ticked 'use volume check' when buring a cd. I unchecked it, no result. I reinstalled iTunes, no effect.

  • Damaged library - Recovered - Lost 1000 songs !

    I have Itunes 10.3.1.55, didn't upgrade to the last version yet. The day before it happened, I sync my ipod and ipad fine. I had 7900 songs in itunes, on a Network Drive...everything was perfect. Now the day after, I reopened Itunes and for unknown reasons, it Was saying that I had a damaged library, Itunes opened with no songs in it !? I went to my Itunes library and found out it has renamed my old library to "Itunes Library (Damaged).itl" and other files like Extras and Genius and xml...all ending with "(Damaged)" at the end of their name.
    I restarted Itunes by holding the Shift key so it asked me for a library. I selected the damaged one and it started reimporting everything in Itunes. I was relieved. After hours of extensive work, it told me the library was damaged...so now I got Itunes right, my playlist seem ok but more than 1000 songs are missing in Itunes !? It created a new "Itunes Library (Damaged) 1.itl" with a significant small size compare to the old one. So now I have "itunes library (damaged).itl" at 1,425 kb, "itunes library (damaged) 1.itl" at 232 kb and "itunes library.itl" at 425 kb. Not sure on the sequence of the events too, I guess I would have to look at files' date&time.
    1. should I try to reopen the damage library ? The largest one ? The smallest one ? Will it morelikely empty the current one before reimporting another ?
    2. if not, how could I reimport all my songs (1000 missing) that are still on my drive ? Do I have to identify the missing ones one by one ?
    Thanks in advance,
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    Buegie has a post on that
    http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=1745081&#1745081

  • I have a damaged library file, and a few questions?

    My laptop shut down instantly because of a charger/battery problem and when I started itunes up again I got the message (importing itunes music library.xml) I thought it was going to double my library so I clicked stop and when itunes opened only half of my collection was there and all playlists/smart playlists are gone.
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    I still have the Itunes database file - (iTunes Library (Damaged) (date modified 15/01/2012 12:02). But there is no exact file called (itunes music library.xml)
    I do have a some sort of document with that name listed as an XML Document (date modified 15/01/2012 13:55) (about 2 hours after the problem occurred) but it just opens a webpage. I can also open it in a notepad etc.. and it brings up loads of encoding detail.
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    It would also be great if I can get back the smart playlists and date added, but this is the least important.
    I'm in the middle of a slow process of transferring the itunes folder to my old laptop to see how it looks before I make any changes here, but I'm not sure how many songs I had exactly, do you think there would be any reason songs got deleted because of this? There are no songs in my itunes collection stored in folders other than the itunes folder.
    You are saving my life if you can help me here.
    Thanks.

    Empty/corrupt library after upgrade/crash
    Hopefully it's not been too long since you last upgraded iTunes, in fact if you get an empty/incomplete library immediately after upgrading then with the following steps youshouldn't lose a thing or need to do any further housekeeping. In the Previous iTunes Libraries folder should be a number of dated iTunes Library files. Take the most recent of these and copy it into the iTunes folder. Rename iTunes Library.itl as iTunes Library (Corrupt).itl and then rename the restored file as iTunes Library.itl. Start iTunes. Should all be good, bar any recent additions to or deletions from your library.
    See iTunes Folder Watch for a tool to catch up with any changes since the backup file was created.
    When you get it all working make a backup!
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  • ITunes 8.0 - damaged library (.itl) file

    Help!
    Last night I downloaded iTunes 8 (8.0.1 I believe). The first time I opened iTunes, it created two library database (.itl) files. One is now called "iTunes Library (damaged)" and the other is "iTunes Library." The damaged file seeems to be unusable. I guarantee all of my music is legit.
    What I find is that iTunes now only contains a third of my music. All of my music is still on my PC, and my iPod is fine (though it still has the old data as I don't want to sync it until I hopefully restore my library). It's only the .itl file which is somehow corrupted or missing data.
    The question? How do I restore my library? Can I get it from the iPod? I have spend years categorizing my music and I have 4,000 songs. Recreating the genres, ratings etc. would take days.
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    Andrew.

    If it keeps happening, it will probably happen when you go back to v7.
    Check your security software - something is preventing itunes from saving the ITL/XML library files properly.
    Norton is a very bad culprit for itunes upgrades on not saving previous settings that allow itunes.
    Other typical reasons for the ITL/XML not saving properly are
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    2) Vista permissions have gone wonky and you no longer have full control over your music folder & its subfolders

  • ITunes damaged library leads to thousands of missing songs

    Ok, so my itunes library decided that it wanted to become damaged, then when I go to rebuild the library, it only imported about 500 songs of the close to 2 thousand before. So I went into my external drive where I keep the song files, and discovered that almost all of them were missing. I even checked in the trash with no luck. Any ideas how I could find these, or somehow the restore huge investment of my library?
    Thank You Very Much!

    http://www.prosofteng.com/ is one piece of software (not free, none of them are), but you can Google. They all search a drive for deleted files and try to recover them (to a different drive, of course).
    For rebuilding the library, it was basically just re importing all of the songs
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    It is very important you don't write to the eHD from now on, or you could easily overwrite the areas where your music files still are.

  • "Damaged" library unable to transfer to new Mac

    Hi,
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    Depending on the nature of the damage you might have to harvest the full sized files from the library to import into a new iPhoto 7 library. First download and run BatChmod on the iPhoto Library folder with the settings shown here, putting your administrator login name in the owner section and Staff in the group section. You can either type in the path to the folder or just drag the folder into that field. Now try to open it with iPhoto.
    If that doesn't work download and run iPhoto Library Manager to rebuild the library as follows:
    Using iPhoto Library Manager to Rebuild Your iPhoto Library
    1 -Download iPhoto Library Manager and launch.
    2 -Click on the Add Library button, navigate to your User/Pictures folder and select your iPhoto Library folder.
    3 - Now that the library is listed in the left hand pane of iPLM, click on your library and go to the File->Rebuild Library menu option
    4 - In the next window name the new library and select the location you want it to be placed.
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    Note: It may take some time to create the new library if you have a lot of photos. Report back on how long it took and how many photos you have in the library so we can give other users an idea of how long it may take.
    Now try opening the newly created library with iPhoto 7. If that fails you can try the following:
    1 - launch iPhoto 7 with the Option key depressed and, when asked, select Create Library.
    2 - drag the iPhoto 2 Library folder into the open iPhoto window.
    This will import the original and modified files as new files. However, you will end up with many, many Events which you'll probably want to consolidate. You can do that by making Smart Albums by Month or by Year, select all of the photos is those smart ablums and creating a new Event (Roll in a former life).
    When you get the new library up and running you may want to cull out the modified files (which will look like duplicates) with Duplicate Annihilator. Be sure to make a backup copy of the library before running it in case the outcome is not what you wanted.
    TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto (iPhoto.Library for iPhoto 5 and earlier) database file and keep it current. If problems crop up where iPhoto suddenly can't see any photos or thinks there are no photos in the library, replacing the working Library6.iPhoto file with the backup will often get the library back. By keeping it current I mean backup after each import and/or any serious editing or work on books, slideshows, calendars, cards, etc. That insures that if a problem pops up and you do need to replace the database file, you'll retain all those efforts. It doesn't take long to make the backup and it's good insurance.
    I've created an Automator workflow application (requires Tiger or later), iPhoto dB File Backup, that will copy the selected Library6.iPhoto file from your iPhoto Library folder to the Pictures folder, replacing any previous version of it. It's compatible with iPhoto 6 and 7 libraries and Tiger and Leopard. Just put the application in the Dock and click on it whenever you want to backup the dB file. iPhoto does not have to be closed to run the application, just idle. You can download it at Toad's Cellar. Be sure to read the Read Me pdf file.
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  • Damaged Library File

    Last week I opened my Itunes to find a progress bar pop up and tell me it's importing my itunes music library.xml, this takes a few seconds then a new box pops up with:
    'The file itunes library does not appear to be a valid itunes library file. Itunes has attempted to recover your Itunes library and renamed this file itunes library (damaged).itl' I click OK then itunes starts up with only 10GB of music as oppose to the 20GB I have before this happened. I have tried renaming the damaged file but without any success. All my music is still on my HD but not only some is in my Itunes Library.
    Any suggestions to get this fixed would be great, thanks.

    +"I tried both your suggestions but without any luck or success."+
    Not sure I understand. The first option takes the non-corrupt XML file and attempts to rebuild your complete Library.
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    --- Click OK to save that setting
    -- In iTunes: Edit==>Preferences==>’Advanced’ tab.
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    ---- Also, that the ‘Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library’ box is unchecked
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    IMPORTANT:
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    Also note: 'Deleting and Restoring' the song references will reset the Play Count, Ratings, Date Added, Last Played, Ratings, and EQ attributes (there may be a few others). It will remove all song references from any Static Playlists you have. Also, any Smart Playlists that depend on any of the aforementioned attributes will be impacted. This may be a small price to pay to recover your Library -- or not.... You can ‘Export’ your Playlists to an XML file for ‘Importing’ after the refresh. This can restore your static playlists. The export only saves the song info, not the underlying music files. Of course, exporting your playlists is to be done before you delete any song references within iTunes.
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    2 - Browse to your main iTunes folder and select it
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  • Damaged Library..AGAIN?

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    Is it a laptop? If so, I think you should go to an Apple Store ask a genius to help you!

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