Entire library disappeared

Fired up iTunes this evening, and suddenly, my entire library was gone. Same with playlists. I manually manage my music on my iPhone, and I can no longer do so without completely wiping out the current contents (says the phone is synced with another library).
How can I recover my library? All the song files are still in place...
Help!

Even if you don't have a Vaio, the same troubleshooting method applies.
Here is a poster that used SysInternals to find that Carbonite online backups were conflicting with itunes:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10604888#10604888
If it only happened once, though, it is going to be tough to figure out why it happened.
You'll have to rebuild your library, and from now on, make frequent backups of that important ITL file. Did you recently update itunes a new version? If so, you can use the ITL file from the day you updated. It will be missing any changes between now & then, but at least it's a start.

Similar Messages

HT1349 I updated my Itunes and my entire library disappeared including all my playlists. How do I fix this?

I updated my Itunes and my entire library disappeared including all my playlists. How do I fix this?

Are they really gone? Look in your Home > Music > iTunes folder and folders inside. Do you see media there? Also try to use Spotlight to search for things you know you have.
If you keep media on an external drive, are they there? If it is all there, try starting iTunes with the option key held down and guide to the external.
If really gone, use a backup of your drive to restore the iTunes folder.
If no backup and they are really gone, you can download some items from Apple again. You'll have to re-construct the library though as all the playlists, ratings, date added, and some other things will be gone.
Downloading past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore, and iTunes Store - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2519 - enabled with iTunes 10.3 and newer; not available in all countries; only apps, books (not audiobooks), music, and t.v. shows (not movies). Discontinued items not available. For items not included in the iCloud list, or locations or computer systems where iCloud is not (yet?) available, you only get one download per fee paid. Apple notes it is your responsibility to back up your purchases.

Entire library disappeared! Help!

hi
I opened up iTunes and played some music this morning. Left the computer on, touched nothing and I ve just come back to find the entire library empty, music, podcasts all empty. (The other user's library on this same computer is still there.)
all ideas and help gratefully received
thanks
andy

You mean the mp3 files are still there, but they don't show up in iTunes? This happened to me in v6.x over a year ago.
I never figured out what happened, but now I back up the iTunes files every week (scheduled).

My ENTIRE library disappeared - HELP!!

My son turned his Ipod on last night and all of his music was gone - all of it. The battery was charged, so it wasn't that. I tried to reload the music twice and both times I-tunes said it was updated and complete, yet when I turn it on it is still empty. Any ideas?

Donn, welcome to discussions! When iTunes indicates a successful sync, but there is no music on iPod, I think this link may be helpful.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93499

Help! all of my playlists have disappeared with my latest itunes upgrade.I have my entire library saved to my ipod...can I import everthing back into itunes from my ipod? Thanks much.

hello...all of my playlists have disappeared from my itunes with the latest upgrade I did, what a mess! My entire library and playlists are on my ipod. Is there any way I can import my ipod back into itunes?
Many thanks.

Post by Zevoneer: iPod media recovery options - http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6273675

Entire library has disappeared

My entire library of almost 5,000 songs has disappeared. The Itunes folder is also empty.
We recently ran an entire McAfee scan. Could this have anything to do with it?
I am in a complete panic. Please help.

im not in as bad a shape as u guys are in...
i have all my songs, but for some reason when i click on them to be played in my itunes library, i get the exclamation point next to it saying that the file has either been moved or deleted...
this is weird considering that none of my files have been moved or deleted, they are all in the same hard drive...
itunes might have a glitch

How do I get back 5.3 library disappeared after I loaded from android to Premier Element 12?

I recently upgraded to Premier Elements 12 and loaded my photo and videos from my android (Galaxy 4G Samsung) into the new program. After which when I went to my Lightroom 5.3 I found my entire library folders except one picture with a missing file statement, gone, disappeared. All gone but the one picture. The original files are still on my hard drive, but can I get them back with my Lightroom changes that haven't been saved? How do I do this? or are they all gone?

Are you sure you are opening the correct catalog? Search for .lrcat files and if you find the right one double click it.
Do you have backup catalogs (you do, right)? Open your most recent backup catalog and see what you've got.
I don't know about Premier Elements 12 but I can't see how that would be related to loosing you LR catalog.

Entire Library gone after Keychain reset

I'm not exactly sure what happened here. I don't know what a keychain is but I think I may have inadvertently done something to reset it. I lost a lot of saved programs and my entire iTunes library (songs I paid for!) are all now gone. What did i do and how do I get my songs back?

Thanks for your reply Terence.
I couldn't get the Java chat in Facebook to work, so I figured I would update Java and my Safari to the latest versions. So I used Software Update and installed ONLY those two items.
I restarted and and it didn't help the chat issue, so I figured it was somekind of interuption in service at Facebook and moved on to do some photo editing in iPhoto almost immediately. It just says there are no Photos when I opened it.
I checked the package contents of my library, and all the photos are still there.
My Pictures folder has an alias that points to an external FireWird Hard drive for the Library because it's too big for my MacBook's HD. Same goes for my other iLife Apps. They all have aliases pointing to the external drive.
I decided to install Leopard on another volume and see what would happen.
I used the option to import my account from the newly updated boot volume to the reverted boot volume.
Sure enough all my photos were back, when booting to the boot volume that has the reverted Safari and Java.
Since then I have tried to delete the preferences for iPhoto, update iPhoto, update iLife Support, update Leopard to 10.5.8. Nothing corrects this problem.
Obviously neither the alias or the Library are corrupted because they both work fine when my account is imported to a system with the older software suite.
Having worked for Apple's own IT department, and owned dozens of models for decades, I have encountered stuff like this before many times, and yes it would not surprise me at all that someone has dropped a ball of some kind. As a loyal user of their products, you better believe I hold them to a higher standard than Windows, and I will absolutely make a stink about something as unacceptable as a whole library disappearing.
My data is all backed up, but I can just imaging someone who doesn't having this happen to them and causing a heart attack.

Entire Library gone after Safari update.

I recently updated Safari and Java. Now when I open iPhoto my entire library is zero photos.
If I boot up to a system drive running the old Safari, the library still works fine. What the **** is your problem Apple? Is there some reason I can't have a current browser AND keep my thousands of photos?
Message was edited by: Jamie Tucker

Thanks for your reply Terence.
I couldn't get the Java chat in Facebook to work, so I figured I would update Java and my Safari to the latest versions. So I used Software Update and installed ONLY those two items.
I restarted and and it didn't help the chat issue, so I figured it was somekind of interuption in service at Facebook and moved on to do some photo editing in iPhoto almost immediately. It just says there are no Photos when I opened it.
I checked the package contents of my library, and all the photos are still there.
My Pictures folder has an alias that points to an external FireWird Hard drive for the Library because it's too big for my MacBook's HD. Same goes for my other iLife Apps. They all have aliases pointing to the external drive.
I decided to install Leopard on another volume and see what would happen.
I used the option to import my account from the newly updated boot volume to the reverted boot volume.
Sure enough all my photos were back, when booting to the boot volume that has the reverted Safari and Java.
Since then I have tried to delete the preferences for iPhoto, update iPhoto, update iLife Support, update Leopard to 10.5.8. Nothing corrects this problem.
Obviously neither the alias or the Library are corrupted because they both work fine when my account is imported to a system with the older software suite.
Having worked for Apple's own IT department, and owned dozens of models for decades, I have encountered stuff like this before many times, and yes it would not surprise me at all that someone has dropped a ball of some kind. As a loyal user of their products, you better believe I hold them to a higher standard than Windows, and I will absolutely make a stink about something as unacceptable as a whole library disappearing.
My data is all backed up, but I can just imaging someone who doesn't having this happen to them and causing a heart attack.

I am trying to load my library on the new computer but it will not let me import. the shared library disappears when i shut the original computer off.

I am trying to load my library on the new computer but it will not let me import. when i shut off the old computer the shared library disappears.

Yeah... that's exactly the way it is supposed to work. Sharing the library does not move it anywhere.
To move the library to the new computer, copy the entire iTunes folder from the old computer to the new computer.

Your Music Saved Albums library disappearing

Recently I've been using the "saved album" section found under the Your Music tab but have had all the albums I saved disappear even the albums that were ticked for offline play. I press the save album button which would save the album under the "saved album" section, in addition the artist of the album would also appear under "saved artist." I would go on and continue saving albums and ticking some of them for offline play, but after a couple of days I noticed the entire library under saved albums and artist disappeared, and as for the saved playlists they were not affected by this erasing. So I believed it to be a one-time occurrence and re-saved my favorite albums and re-ticked some for offline play, but after a week my saved albums were erased again including the ones I ticked for offline play, and like last time saved playlist was not affected, I even regained the storage space I used up to save the offline play albums. This is the problem I'm having with the Spotify app on my IPhone 5s, I would appreciate any advice and solutions to fix this issue, thank you.

I had exactly the same problem. spotify version is 1.5.0.2728 my iPhone OS version is 6.1.6 (model is iPhone 3GS)
It appeared brutally in the middle of using the app. I was navigating through the interface and all of the sudden all my saved albums were not there any more.
Sounds like a critical bug to me.
The only workaround I found was to uninstall the app and reinstall it, with the hassle of resynchronizing all my library.
But after restore, there is indeed another issue :
For every saved album which contained a song which was included in one of my playlist, the album comes back duplicated : one version with only the songs contained in my playlists, and the other version with the full album. Spotify app should detect duplicates !
So I guess you guys have to fix two bugs :-)
Could you tell us if you're working on it ? Do you have a bug tracker ? It's kind of annoying and yes we pay for using spotify.

Library disappeared, everything gone

Just opened itunes and my entire library is gone! I hadnv'e installed any new software, no changes or updates (windows 7, 64 bit)...
hours and hours of music and audio books... all my purchased audiobooks and music, hours of favorite podcasts... gone, the library is empty
isn't there an itunes library stored on my hard drive?
can I restore it from there?
I also have a copy of my hard drive on a separate hard drive (Acronis, mirror image of hard drive)
can I restore it from there?
I've been losing "files" for a couple years now, the loss accelerating... ("9,0000 missing files") and unable to find them as the process used to work
easier to delete the audiobook and re-copy it, but it all takes so much time, the concept of building a library fails when I have to rebuild it perpetually
what is going on?
since the last "remodel" of itunes, I've had nothing but problems... and it isn't my computer, everything else is working fine
I don't have the tech skills to be contantly dealing with the problems (or the time)
and from the posts I read, I'm not the only one.... is there some comflict with windows?
though two friends who have macs are having the same problems
are they going to fix these issues?

See this post. *******Will do******** my conversation inserted in *****************
Hopefully you have a copy of the last working library database in your mirror image that you can restore, otherwise there may be a .tmp or .itl file that you can restore.
It is worth noting the mirroring tool could potentially be the cause of the problem, particularly if you don't also use AVG or have been suffering these symptoms for some time.********** I use AVG, have never a problem before, no problems with anything exdcept WMP (that also is a common problem currently) and did not do a backup/copy right before this happened (weeks ago). Acronis has never caused any kind of problem with any other files or folders... I see a comment about an AVG patch to solve the problem? AVG caused the problem?
turingtest2 London, UK
Re: All the content from my iTunes library has disappeared
Apr 6, 2013 12:28 AM (in response to jmacdougall17)
You're welcome. AVG issued a patch yesterday which should stop it happening again.
tt2
not that there is not a first time for anything, but the decay of itunes functions seems to predominate pattern.*******
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 you shouldn't lose a thing or need to do any further housekeeping. Note that in iTunes 11 an "empty" library may show your past purchases with links to stream or download them.
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.
****** firtst hitch, when I click on the dates of previous libraries, the current library opens... sorry to admit, I don't have the background to read this as a step-by-step, I found the "previoius library, what to do I do with it and why does it open the current empty when I click on it to see what is in it, or is it supposed to?**************************************************
Alternatively, depending on exactly when and why the library went missing, there may be a more recent .tmp file in the main iTunes folder that can be copied and renamed asiTunes Library.itl to restore the library to an earlier state. Look for a recent .tmp file that is similar in size to the .itl files in the Previous iTunes Libraries folder. If it has happened repeatedly you may want the earliest such file generated since the last iTunes upgrade.
If applicable, 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!
Should you be in the unfortunate position where you are no longer able to access your original library, or a backup of it, then see Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device.
I've noticed more of these missing library posts of late and a common factor to most since I started asking is AVG Anti-Virus. It seems in some cases it might be at least part of the reason why the library file disappears. Try excluding the iTunes folder from any AV scanning process.
tt2

IPhoto library disappears mid-transfer

I was trying to copy my entire library to an external hard drive to make room on my laptop. However, mid-transfer, my computer froze, and stopped copying.
When I restarted everything, the librabry was lost. iPhoto tells me that I do not have an existing library and asked if I would like to look for it or create a new one. I went searching for it, but it has completely disappeared. It is neither on the computer's internal drive or the external drive I was trying to transfer to.
Is there any way to retrieve those photos?

Welcome to the Apple Discussions. Download and run Find File to search for a file titled Library6.iPhoto. If you find one on your boot drive that should be your library. '
Did you look in your Pictures folder? That's the default location for the iPhoto library. If you find the library launch iPhoto with the Option key selected and select the library in the subsequent window. You might have to use the Other Library button to navigate to and select the library.
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 versions) 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. There are versions that are compatible with iPhoto 5, 6, 7 and 8 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.
NOTE: The new rebuild option in iPhoto 09 (v. 8.0.2), Rebuild the iPhoto Library Database from automatic backup" makes this tip obsolete.

Itunes loses library . I updated to 10.3.1.55 and i open Itunes and my entire library is gone

Itunes loses library . I updated to 10.3.1.55 and i open Itunes and my entire library is gone, put all the music back in itunes then next time i open it the library is gone again.I am using window 7 and after a few weeks of this it is driving me crazy.PLEASE HELP

I am afraid troubleshooting this is difficult if it is intermittent. That is why I suggested making copies of iTunes library.itl and iTunes Library.xml then you can restore these copies if the lirbary disappears. Then you only lose data since you copied them.
You can check for plugins by running iTunes>>Help>>Run Diagnostics. You don't need any of the check boxes ticked. Any plug ins will be shown.
Also you can run iTunes in "safe mode" by holding ctrl shift while starting iTunes. This runs iTunes without plug ins.
Think about other software that uses iTunes data - instant messaging that shows what's playing, and anything that might use the iTunes library.
If the problem occurs every time, you can use MSConfig to look for conflicts, but that is not feasible for an intermittent problem.
I would not expect to see a "saving library" message when closing iTunes, that does suggest that something may be slowing it down.
Are you using the default set up- for iTunes, that is everything on your c: drive or are you using an external drive or network drive?

I have lost my MAC entire library all music, books, and podcasts, two years worth my name is Selma and I need my library back I hope you will be able to help me

I have lost my MAC entire library all of the music,book, and podcasts, this not good consider I don't know to get all two year worth products. Selma
< Edited by Host >

You can get your music, apps and ibooks back. Follow these instructions:
Downloading past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore, and iTunes Store, http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2519

Entire library disappeared

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