HELP! "Original File Could Not Be Found" iTunes 7 UPGRADE

I have upgraded to iTunes 7 and now it is asking me to search for every single song in my library. We are talking about over 3k songs. I don't have the time, or want to think about doing this manually. Isn't there a fix to delete a file and then ask iTunes to re-search your files to import the library? None of the music files are missing. They are all still there in the music folder. Thanks for the help.
Kevin

Since this problem seems to be ongoing, I wonder if pooling some information might get us closer to a solution. Here are my observations; please refute or confirm based on your experience:
1. In every case, if one song on an album can't be found, then every song on that album can't be found.
2. In my case, not every album is affected, but after trying numerous fixes (none successful) the same albums are consistently not found.
3. Some have indicated that music added their library after a certain date is the music that cannot be found. That is not my observation. Sorting my library by Date Added or Date Modified does not show any pattern in my case.
4. I believe the most (but not all) albums which cannot be found also have problems with the album artwork, but I can't tell if that is a symptom or a cause.
Whether the artwork can be seen or not is not consistent. Sometimes iTune's browser window shows the album art, but if you 'Get Info' for any track on the affected album, no artwork is displayed in the get info panes. At various other stages of troubleshooting, the browser does not show the album art either, but then at some later stage, the art reappears in the browser (but never in the get info tabs).
Many, but not all, of the affected albums have art which I have added, using one of two Apple Scripts: a. Fetch Art (v1.2 - http://members.cox.net/afriesen3//fetchart/index.html), or, b. Find Album Artwork with Google (http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/scripts11.php?page=1#findalbumartwork).
Most of the 2000 songs in my library were ripped from my collection of CDs, some were purchased from the iTunes store, and a few are mp3 downloads or ripped from vinyl LPs. Many of my CDs are from obscure artists which are not available from the iTunes store, so album artwork was not available from Apple.
Of the 23 albums (or partial albums) I have purchased from the iTunes Store, 9 will play and 14 won't. Of the 9 that will play, the album artwork is visible in both the browser and 'get info' tabs. Of the 14 'bad' albums (which have songs that cannot be found), the artwork is visible in the browser, at first, but NOT in the 'get info' tabs. After looking at get info, on the 'bad' albums the album art often (but not always) disappears from the browser, and re-launching iTunes will sometimes (but not always) cause the 'bad' album art to reappear in the browser (but never in the get info panes).
Sorry for the long post, but maybe with more data, a pattern will emerge that may point to a solution.
Quicksilver G4, was 867MHz, now 1.47 GHz (FastMac CPU) Mac OS X (10.4.8) 1 GB RAM, SeriTek 1S2 SATA PCI card, Adaptec 2930CU SCSI card

Similar Messages

On itunes everytime I try and play a track the warning 'the song could not be played because the original files could not be found' please can anyone help me? Thanks

Hi. I have been having problems with my PC and recently removed a lot of rubbish to clear it somewhat. I dont know if that is relavant however on top of that I have just received my replacement iPad2 which i had a proble with and thought I would just tidy up my tunes before sycing. The problem is that everytime I click to play a track in iTunes on my PC, whilst the track is showing on my itunes, it comes up with a warning 'the song cannot be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to find it'. I have tried clicking 'locate', but all that appears is 'music Library' 4 different dates. Help i am very confused, can any shed any light on this
Thank you

Sounds like you have somehow moved your itunes music library to a different location to where iTunes thinks they should be. Your music should be in a folder called "iTunes Media>Music". If they are located there, try going into iTunes, right clicking on one of the songs and then "get info". When the box pops up, on the first screen it should give a location line where it thinks the music is located. If it is differen't to where you music is stored, try and match it up to the location line that was in the "get info" box.

I recently reset my computer and copy my music from an external hard drive to my itunes library. When I click on a song to play i get an error message that says " the song could not be used because the original file could not be found". need help

I recently reset my computer and copy my music from an external hard drive to my itunes library. When I click on a song to play i get an error message that says " the song could not be used because the original file could not be found". But when I have my external hard drive plug in the song will play with no problem. What do I need to do to play my music without having the external harddrive plug in ???????? Please help

Because the location for each song in your library is on your hard drive. If the hard drive isn't there, how can iTunes play it?
You'll have to move/copy the music from your hard drive to your computer's hard drive.
Basically, EASIEST way to do all this, if you don't care about your play counts, etc...
-Delete EVERYTHING from iTunes, so that your library is now empty.
-Go to "Advanced" inside of the "Preferences" window, found in the "Edit" drop-down. You can also access Preferences by pressing Ctrl+, (Press Ctrl and the comma key)
-Change your iTunes Media Folder Location to something simple, but on your computer. I use C:/iTunes. Make sure "Keep iTunes Media Folder Organized" and "Copy files to...." are both checked. You can close Preferences now.
-Now, drag and drop your music from your hard drive into your iTunes library. iTunes will automatically add the music to your library, as you would expect, and also creates a copy of each file to place into that iTunes Media Folder you just created.
Shouldn't have any more problems...

There are about 8 songs in a playlist on itunes that are listed in the playlist but cannot be transferred to my ipod because it states: "..the original file could not be found." When I try to locate the song I get a list of the different music librar

There are about 8 songs on a playlist that are listed in the playlist library but when I try to transfer them to the playlist, it states that they can't be transferred because the original file could not be found. Then it asks, do you want to locate the file but when I try that I get a few libraries but am not sure how to locate the particular songs. Some of the songs were purchased and some were transferred from a CD. I have seen the same question asked on the help page but haven't found an answer.
Thanks.

Hi dones49,
It sounds like your issue here is that iTunes can not find the files for some of the songs you have brought into it. This happens occasionally even if the songs have not been moved from the location that iTunes places them on import or purchase. When you try to use the song, iTunes prompts you to find the file, as you have seen.
To find the file, use the information in this article to navigate through the iTunes media folders -
Locate and organize your iTunes files
If you are still unable to locate the files, you may need to download them from the iTunes store again, or rip them from your CDs. See this article for assistance with downloading your past purchases -
Download past purchases
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Brett L

After installing iTunes 10.5 update i get the following message when trying to play any song in my Library "The song could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?" how do i fix this??

I have an iPod Classic and work on Windows 7.
i recently installed iTunes 10.5 update and since then i cannot play any of the songs in the Library - i get the following message
"The song could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?"
what happened to all my songs (almost 2000) How can i get them back into my music library?
Please help - i do not want to spend another week downloading all my cd's onto my computer !!!!!

Try my script FindTracks. Select a few of the missing files to start with then run the script. Choose No at the first prompt so that you can check how it works track by track, then confirm or edit the location of the media folder where your files are. Once you are happy with how it behaves let it process larger numbers of tracks automatically.
tt2

ITunes tells me "Could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?" I can locate it and all my other music, but can only open one song at a time. How do I set it to open all my music whenever I want it?

iTunes tells me my song selection: "Could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?" I can locate it and all my other music, but can only open one song at a time. How do I set it to open all my music whenever I want?
Message was edited by: Woildbill

I just spent several hours dealing with this when switching to a new PC. It was extremely frustrating as I knew my files were on my external HD but no matter how many times I copied my old iTunes folder over the files were still missing...because dummy me had forgotten to "unhide folders" on my new PC and my old files were actually stored in a hidden folder created long long ago.
This is how I did it on Windows 7 with iTunes 10
1. Look in iTunes Advanced Preferences to see where iTunes is saving files. (Edit, Preferences, Advanced)
Example: C:/Users/Woildbill/My Music/iTunes/Music
2. Ensure you are able to see hidden files - Control Panel, Folder Option, View, Show Hidden Files
3. Use Your Computer's Search Function to Locate the Missing File (Start, Search, type name of song - I started my search in "My Music" folder but be sure to expand to entire Computer if not found right away)
4. In Search Results, right-click found folder and select properties. This will tell you where the file is actually stored.
5. Use Windows Explorer (right-click start) to navigate to the location of the file. It is likley your other missing files are in the same location.
6. In Windows Explorer, copy the newly located files to the iTumes location from Step 1 and everything should work again.
Hope this helps!

I can't listen to at least 100 of my songs on itunes. When I try it gives me a message that it can't play that song because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it? What do I do?

When I try to listen to certain songs a message pops up that the original file could not be found. Do you want to locate file? I don't know how this happened and I don't know what to do. I have tried repairing Itunes and also uninstallng and reinstalling. I have restarted my computer and even done some troubleshooting. When I tried hooking my ipod up to my computer to see if that would help I got a message that said "At least 100 songs could not be transferred, including "You found me."" I have no such song in my itunes. Can itunes get a virus?
Does anyone have any ideas what I can do? I'm at a loss and would really like my itunes to be back to normal.

I was not complete clear.
Since you never changed the settings in the advanced section of iTunes preferecnes, you have to chech that your music is really in the location setted in the folders reported in the advanced section. If not you have 2 ways: reset the position of this folders or in the actual disk organisation or in the pointing on the preferences.
If you press the reset button you just give to itunes its default setting as for the position of the music files: probably this will be a good choice if you have never changed any default preference.
But before I would check the folders and see if the songs are really there
In my iTune I have this, and I believe it is the default.
Users/YOURHOMEFOLDERNAME/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music

Recently bought a new computer and all my music appears in iTunes as well as on my computer in a saved folder. When I try to play the music in iTunes I get an error that reads"the song could not be used because the original file could not be found."

Recently bought a new computer and all my music appears in iTunes as well as on my computer in a saved folder. When I try to play the music in iTunes I get an error that reads"the song could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?" Hope you can help me solve this issue.
Thanks,
Shellyboo

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

When selecting a song to play in iTunes, I get an error message indicating the song could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it. I have no idea where to look since the library hold all my files.

When selecting a song to play from iTunes library, I continually get an error message indicating the original file could not be found. Then asks, would you like to locate it? Does anyone know how to fix this? I'm not even able to play the songs I purchased due to this error message. Any ideas how to remedy this problem?
Thanks

It would help to have more background about your iTunes collection such as if you keep it on an external drive, or if you have moved or renamed anything recently. iTunes is very sensitive to you renaming or moving files or folders involved with your media. iTunes only keeps a reference to where a media file is located and then goes to look for it when you try to play it. If you have changed things since it was added to itunes then it's like me sending you to look for a friend in my addressbook but that friend has moved.
The other possibility is your computer is starting to lose files. Again, the computer uses a reference database to tell it where on the drive to look for a file. If that database gets corrupt then it starts losing files. Use Dsk Utility's first aid to verify your hard drive.

I recently transferred my itunes library to an external hard drive. Now I get the error message 'the original file could not be found. Could you like to locate it' when i try to open songs. My iPod syncs ok.

I recently tranferred my iTunes library to an external hard drive. Now I cannot open songs and get the error message ' The song "***" could not not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it'. This applies to all 9742 songs!!. My iPod still syncs ok, but I can't play songs on the PC. Can anyone please help.

It would help to have more background about your iTunes collection such as if you keep it on an external drive, or if you have moved or renamed anything recently. iTunes is very sensitive to you renaming or moving files or folders involved with your media. iTunes only keeps a reference to where a media file is located and then goes to look for it when you try to play it. If you have changed things since it was added to itunes then it's like me sending you to look for a friend in my addressbook but that friend has moved.
The other possibility is your computer is starting to lose files. Again, the computer uses a reference database to tell it where on the drive to look for a file. If that database gets corrupt then it starts losing files. Use Dsk Utility's first aid to verify your hard drive.

I have a new computer that downloaded all of my playlist. but i cannot play all songs. i get a error that say "the song could not be used because the original file could not be found. would you like to locate it? but it does not help to resolve.

i installed itunes to my new computer and transfered all my playlist from the older computer. the software came with the new computer hp link up. the problem
comes in where i want to play a certain song on a playlist and this error pops up "the song could not be used because the original file could not be found.
would you like to locate it? which is of no help.
is there a solution to this problem?

The file path for these songs IS NOT correct per your iTunes Library file.
See: http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=listmias for an Applescript to locate these files for re-adding.

HT2953 i-tunes could not be used because the original file could not be found.could not locate.this error occurs on most of my songs in my library and will not play even though they are in my i-pod and play with no trouble.can anyone please help?

i-tunes could not be used because the original file could not be found.could not locate.this error occurs on most of my songs in my library and will not play even though they are in my i-pod and play with no trouble.can anyone please help?

I was not complete clear.
Since you never changed the settings in the advanced section of iTunes preferecnes, you have to chech that your music is really in the location setted in the folders reported in the advanced section. If not you have 2 ways: reset the position of this folders or in the actual disk organisation or in the pointing on the preferences.
If you press the reset button you just give to itunes its default setting as for the position of the music files: probably this will be a good choice if you have never changed any default preference.
But before I would check the folders and see if the songs are really there
In my iTune I have this, and I believe it is the default.
Users/YOURHOMEFOLDERNAME/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music

My iTunes account sayscould not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it? whenever i click on a song and i didn't move the songs anywhere. I don't know if i saved them to my hard drive so i can't find any songs

I downloaded something that was told to me to get to put some of my itunes songs onto my android phone. I think it synced my account, though. Whenever i click on a song an exclamation point comes up and something pops up and says "could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?" and i don't remember ever backing up my songs (this computer is fairly new) and now none of my songs come up. I have no idea what to do but ive spent hundreds of dollars on this account purchasing from the itunes store. Please help me!

Tunes works through a database file which has a list of your tracks. When you click on a track it looks up in the database which file it needs to play, then plays the file. If something breaks this link then you get ! The two main ways to get ! are to move a file from where iTunes expects it to be, or to delete it altogether. I don't know which has happened in your case. You can try using Spotlight to find a file for the one referred to in a broken link. If the files have been moved then they need to be moved back. If they were deleted completely you will have to restore them from a backup or download them again from the iTunes Store and rebuild your library.

"original file could not be found" help needed please

Hello and help...please
i have a new laptop, so i saved my itunes music library to an external drive to transfer it to the new machine. I uploaded to itunes with the simple 'add folder' option and all my songs appeared in itunes everything is great i thought.
However, every single song i click on to play comes up with
"the song "insert title here" could not be used because the original file could not be found. would you like to locate it?"
I have searched long and hard through the itunes help etc and found nothing.
can anyone help me? please?
many thanks for taking the time
phill

for windows version, you have to check the "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" in preference pane. then every time you add songs to your library iTunes will copy the original files to your iTunes library folder so you don't have to worry about the original files missing or moved.

Recently got a new computer and installed itunes from external drive - all music shows up in the library, however when i click on a song i receive this message "the song could not be used because the original file could not be found". What do i do?

I recently got a new computer and installed itunes from which had been saved onto an external drive - all music shows up in the library, however when I click on a song I receive this message "the song "abc" could not be used because the original file could not be found". What can I do?

I was given the option to locate the file where the song is held. If so select "locate" and direct it to the folder / file where the song is and open it. itunes then will give you the option to use this process to update all of your library. OK that as this will do it automatically instead of doing them one by one. I hope this helps.
Martin

HELP! "Original File Could Not Be Found" iTunes 7 UPGRADE

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for