Help needed - song files cannot be found

Hey guys,
Due to low space on my computer, all of my music files and folders are located on an external HD.
Recently, without thinking too much about the consequences, I have decided to make some order out of the mess I had on this external HD and I moved all of the music folders I had into one organized folder. a few days after, I tried to listen to some music using the iTunes and all of the songs were missing to iTunes due to the change I have made..a big Oops...
Otherwise than locating each song all over (a task that will definitely take days or weeks), how can I overcome this error and make iTunes "scan" in some way by itself the external HD and find the new locations for ALL of my songs?
(Of course, the basic assumption is that I don't remember all of the previous names and locations of the folders in the previous status, therefore, I cannot "undo" this situation...)
Thanks a lot!
Joe

Alex,
Are these the newly purchased songs, or songs you moved to a new computer? Do they have ! next to them? Double click on one as if to play it in iTunes, if that ! comes up and a dialogue window to tell you that iTunes cannot locate the file, you will get the option to search for it.
If you do that and iTunes still cannot locate it, it's my guess that something went amiss when you moved them to your new computer.
You said you "moved the iTunes files", but did that include your iTunes music folder?
And Alex, it's always best when posting to include details of your computer system.

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Help! needed original file cannot be found

I move the whole iTunes files to a new computer. I can see all the songs. I purchase a new songs and connect my ipod mini to add to my ipod. I am getting "song could not be used because original file cannot be found" error message. What is wrong?
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Alex,
Are these the newly purchased songs, or songs you moved to a new computer? Do they have ! next to them? Double click on one as if to play it in iTunes, if that ! comes up and a dialogue window to tell you that iTunes cannot locate the file, you will get the option to search for it.
If you do that and iTunes still cannot locate it, it's my guess that something went amiss when you moved them to your new computer.
You said you "moved the iTunes files", but did that include your iTunes music folder?
And Alex, it's always best when posting to include details of your computer system.

Oringinal song files cannot be found

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My music library seems corrupted. Nearly every song (431 albums) displays "the song ... could not be used because the original file cannot be found". Is there any way to correct this? Please help, thanks, Kelly

Almost my entire itunes music library seems corrupted. Nearly every song (431 albums) displys "the song ... cannot be used because the original file cannot be found". Is there any way to correct this? Please help!
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kelly61

Select one of the songs in question and right click, then select "Get Info". On the main dialog page you should see where iTunes thinks the file resides. Then use Windows Explorer to see if the file is actually there. If not, find out where your music is stored.If there is not a correlation between iTunes and reality, go into iTunes and delete all of the files which are not found. Then, in iTunes, select File->Add Folder to Library and select where the music is stored. iTunes will re-add all of the music into your library.

The song... Could not be used because the original file cannot be found....Any suggestions?

I just got a new computer and I transfered all of my old music via an external hard drive to the new one. All the music showed up in itunes fine so I deleted the old files. Then I went to sync my iphone I got an error that said "The song... Could not be used because the original file cannot be found. Please help, this has happed to about 500 songs!

You'll need to help iTunes locate the files for you then reacquaint your library with your files. Here are some articles that can help you:
No content shows up in iTunes after updating
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1967
This article may also be helpful:
Instructions for finding missing music and video downloads
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1408

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I doubt that your music files are gone. Do a spotlight search and look for The Cure. What likely happened is that for whatever reason, your iTunes lost track of the location of your songs.. which happens on occasion.
What you need to do is go to the folder where your music library is - where the song files are - and check to see if they are there. If so, then go into your iTunes preferences and in the 'Advanced' pane put in the location of the folder where it says 'iTunes Media folder location'. iTunes should then be able to 'see' the songs again.
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I uninstalled itunes completely, restarted my laptop and then reinstalled itunes again. Unfortunatley it is still not working. Please help, I need to sync my phone!!!
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If you are having issues with the library.itl file in iTunes, you may find the following articles helpful:
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http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1660
Apple Support: Removing and reinstalling iTunes and other software components for Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1923
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OK - Looks like your iTunes is working and has the songs you expect in it. No need to uninstall iTunes.
Are the Playlists on the iPod only, or are they in iTunes only, or are they on both? Are they populated with the songs you expect?
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Do you have the original photos that are on the iPod? We will have to Restore the iPod and all data on it will be erased. As you have all the necessary music on iTunes, all we would be concerned about are the photos. Or anything else you haven’t mentioned.
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After you install the Updater to your PC, reboot your computer.
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Post back if you have any questions. Especially if you are unsure of anything before you perform any additional processes.

"The required file cannot be found" Help

This comes up when i'm syncing my ipod on itunes. It works for a while until this error comes up. it says 'The ipod cannot be synced. the required file cannot be found' itunes works on a different ipod with the same songs but it doesn't work for the other one. The other one is iPod (20 GB Click Wheel) and its new. I had a warranty and i got a new one but its the same version. Help please!

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The Song Could Not be used because the original file Cannot be found!!!!!

Hello,
I have my music on a separate hard drive and all of a sudden some songs randomly cannot be found. There does not seem to be a pattern to this. Everything is set up correctly but yet I have to manually go and find songs. I've tried everything I can think of but yet im still missing files. The files are there and I dont want to have to this individually each time.
If anyone has any ideas I'd love to know them
Itunes 8.02 (2.0)
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Okay, this may be more info than you need, b/c I was having playlist and "!" problems simultaneously...
I only just now had my Mac Genius appointment tonight, but yes, all seems finally fixed. Here is what I learned. They had been experiencing a lot of appointments related to this recently, and if you have all your music on an external drive as it seems most of us do, you greatly increase your odds of having this issue. They didn't reveal WHY iTunes is so crappy at seeing/remembering where you've put stuff. I had lost all my playlists, AND couldn't get iTunes to find/read my music. It was an either/or fix, meaning they couldn't seem to fix these issues together. The long fix was this:
(1) (a) Import "previous library" to get your playlists (under Music / iTunes / select the most recently dated iTunes database file; this lived on my local computer's drive, which may or may not be the best place for it -- if your computer dies, you lose your playlists if you haven't been backing them up); this should open your old playlists in iTunes; (b) export each individual playlist to save them
(2) THEN hold down "option" as you open iTunes; this will prompt you to "select library"; navigate to direct it to open your actual music files (more than likely on your external hard drive if you're like me experiencing this problem).
(3) File/Library/Import Library for each of your previously saved playlists
In other words, I couldn't have my old playlists AND my music. Even another Mac genius agreed on this fix, and that he'd manually directed his computer to find each of 5,000 tracks individually, in order to have the playlists AND the music. (Does this make sense?) The second Mac Genius that I worked with somehow magically went under File/Library/Consolidate Library to be able to marry these two things w/o having to back up my playlists (avoiding steps 1b and 3 as described above). He seemed surprised that this really worked and that we didn't have to do everything described above. So if you can figure out how he did the "consolidate library" thing, then GREAT (none of the other Mac Geniuses knew about how to do this, and I don't know how he did it either)... but if not, maybe try the 1-2-3 steps above... or just go see your local Mac Genius I am finally sooooo pleased this issue has been resolved, but it took 3 diff. appointments.

I'm finding that songs that I have imported to Itunes are suddenly showing with "Exclamation" marks and Itunes tells me that the original file cannot be found. When I tell it to locate the file, it can't do it.

I'm finding that songs that I have imported into Itunes and played before are suddenly showing an"Exclamation" mark and Itunes tells me that the original file cannot be found. When I tell it to locate the file, it can't do it. I went to the Itunes help for locating files, but that still won't do it. It seems that somehow they are getting deleted, but not by me that I know of.
Can anyone help me?

Maybe you rename it. Somehow the path to the songs have changed if not deleted.
In Finder go to "Macintosh/Users/username/music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music" that's where all your songs located so if those songs are not there you get an exclamation mark. You can delete those entries in iTunes and re-import again.

I have thousands of songs dowloaded from my cds and purchased from itunes that will not play. It states the file cannot be found. What happened to them and where are they?

I have thousands of songs dowloaded from my cds and purchased from itunes that will not play. It says file cannot be found. What happened and where are they?

When songs cannot be found, it's either because they have been moved from the original location that you told iTunes, renamed or deleted.
So have you:
renamed songs?
moved them to a different loaction on your computer since you imported them into itunes?
deleted them since you imported them?
stored you iTunes library on an external drive? If so, that drive needs to be on and ready every time before you start iTunes.
... or is another programme renaming or even moving them, such as Windows Media Player? (It has been known to if you let it.) Did you previously use Windows Media Player?

Help needed - song files cannot be found

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