Exclamation mark and the message "itunes could not find your song file

Question

Hi everyone. I've tried doing a search but couldn't find this exact problem. I hope i'm not about to annoy everyone with a question that has been asked a thousand times before.
my problem is that every now A/some song file(s).that are already in my itunes library and played fine and synced with iphones ipod app fine. well sometimes I get this little exclamation mark on A/some song(s) in the library and the message "itunes could not find your song file would you like to locate it" and when i do and it always seems to be in what itunes find box locates first anyway.......( I'm paraphrasing...........i forget exactly what it says)........the funny thing is when i try and locate the files for itunes they are exactly where they are supposed to be........ and i've been able to put the mp3 back into the itunes library in the past, but now a certain mp3 will not show up in itunes library or play. like i said I can locate it fine, i've never renamed any folders or mp3's. other mp3's in this folder play fine , but i've had exclamation marks on some of them in the past, it seems that i know of 2 folders in my music folder that always have this problem with the mp3's in them at ramdom .
does anyone know why itunes is doing this?................it happens sometimes with downloaded music and sometimes with ripped music................sometimes a single track and sometimes just a few single tracks .........it's begining to become slighty annoying........
any help would be most appreciated.

Answer 1

Helpful but i was reading some posts and threads about consolidate library and it seems that if the song is not in the itunes library it will not consolidate it.i've had songs in the library that i deleted from the library and i remember getting a message when i do that action if i would like to delete it from the music folder as well ( in other words trash it completly from harddrive or do i just want to delete the song from the library and still keep it in the music folder but i guess those actions have little effect if you didn't have the song in itunes music folder,, but another folder. except for the part that it will remove the song from the library. if there was a way to consolidate your music folder(s) into the itunes folder that would be cool. and still leave your itunes library with out those songs you didn't want in there, but wanted to leave in the music folder.