Invisible music files

New Itunes user after recent purchase of 60GB Video ipod.
I have about 75GB of mp3's and itunes found them fine.
I wanted to burn an mp3 DVD and couldn't seem to get itunes to do it (Cd yes, DVD no). So I thought I'd use Nero.
When I tried to locate the correct files with nero it cant SEE any of them, and neither can xp explorer?
There all there, itunes plays them fine. Is this something to stop file sharing?
I'm not really worried , but just thought that what if one day I want to use something other than ipod, will I ever get my music back?

yeah i can find it no problem at all with itunes, it's just that any other program cant SEE them. So if I explore my drive, it finds all the artists folders and their respective album folders, but when you open that folder there's nothing inside, except there is , if you get what I mean, but windows cant see it. I've tried show all file types and show hidden / system files, but nothing works.

Similar Messages

After a backup all music files are invisible and iTunes don't see anything

Hi,
I got a very strange problem and I'm really lost.
I made a backup of my portable iTunes libray (using a 160 GB Maxtor one touch 4 mini usb) on another backup disk (750 GB Maxtor onetouch III firwire 800). I have my library on a external disk to safe disk space on my MacBook Pro disk. For the back up I use the software Personal Backu4 of Intego Software. The 160GB iTunes disk is Formatted als Mac OS Extended format.
Now all back up data that aren't music files (AAC or MP3 files) was correctly back up, but all music files was like deleted, all artist > album folders looks empty. But, cheking with the disk utility it looks that all files exist and the Used space (36.06 GB) looks correctly and the numbers of files too (some 5942 files). But all files are invisible, folders looks empty. Now is looks that all purchased and CD imported int my library didn't exist anymore: and this in BOTH disks, side by side is the same situation.
How I can come out from this situation, I really don't have any idea how to coming out fron this sad situation.
Hany help is really appreciated. Thanks in advance!
Julien - Switzerland
Message was edited by: jdaulte

OK, here's what REALLY doesn't make sense.
After manually fixing a lost file, NOTHING in the XML changes. Not one single character changes in the XML file. I diff'd the whole file before and after - no difference. So, basically, it goes out and 'finds' it and updates something that we can't see to repair the connection, meanwhile we are left to think that this XML file has the library data in it.
Mind you, the media file(s) are present and accounted for in the file system - correct name and path and everything - before and after I go Locate the file when iTunes complains about it being missing..
iTunes is so overbloated, we can't even fix stuff when we see precisely how it is broken.

Music files are invisible

I was moving some music files the other day to categorize them within MY MUSIC folder. Then yesterday, I was trying to add some files from my ITunes to a flash drive and some of these files are now invisible. I don't know what I did wrong. I also did a Disk Utility Verify and Repair. Did that have something to do with my files becoming invisible? I don't have a clue how many of these music files are invisible. But I've noticed its a lot of them. How do I find these INVISIBLE files and make them VISIBLE again so I can copy them to the flash drive? They play just fine from the Source or from ITunes.. Please help.

OK. I've never seen files or folders disappear on their own. Here's what I suggest. While booted into the new account, copy your other account's folder to another volume (disk or partition), launch System Preferences->Accounts, delete the bad account, selecting the *save data option* (which stores the data in /Users/Deleted Users/ as a disk image), recreate the bad account using the same username/password combo, log out and back into the recreated original account. If the problem's solved, open the saved data dmg file in /Users/Deleted Users/, open the /Library/Preferences/ folder from the saved data, open the current /Users/restored account/Library/Preferences/ folder, and slowly copy plist files from the saved data folder to the current one that don't exist in it. Log out and back in to ensure there's no conflict and things still work correctly. Resolving conflicts or identifying corrupt plist files or recovering missing/lost/hidden files is a laborious process. Good luck.

6.0 Upgrade erased all my music files

Could anyone please help me retrieve these lost and/or invisible files?
There are no music files left in my iTunes music folder. They were there minutes before the upgrade. Others have reported the same experience.
Everyone, make a backup of your music folder before any iTunes upgrade. I didn't and I have no backup as my iPod was linked to another computer.
The last version that worked for me was iTunes 4.9. I do not like the look since 5.0 and the fact that you can no longer search by composer.
Apple has removed almost all previous iTunes versions from their web site. I don't know why because they have all previous iPhoto versions and upgrades still available. Apple, please post prior iTunes versions on your website.
If you want to return to version 4.9 look at the fine instructions in this forum. If you want to download iTunes 4.9 I found one link at www.techwhack.com:
http://appldnld.m7z.net/content.info.apple.com/iTunes4/SBML/osx/061-1868.2005062 7.Tnpl6/iTunes4.9.dmg
RB

I too lost all my music, but on advice from Apple Support, I downloaded a new version of itunes. Here is where I am now. I found my music on my hard drive, however each time I attempt to "import" as suggested, my emac won't light the "choose" button on the import dialog box. When I click the entire folder, choose lights up, but no songs are delivered.
Searching with spotlight, is how I found the music files, but it seems that I have to go through the whole process of "add to library" all 1,536 music files... one at a time. Choose all is not working, so if this is indeed the only way, then....it's gonna' take awhile. Suggestions?

Help required - transfering music files

Can anyone help?
I had about 1000 songs on my laptop which I put onto my ipod - the transfer method was via real player. The transfer appeared succesful and the music is on my ipod.
However I cant play it - and now I've deleted it from my hard drive.....the music only exists in a kind of invisible iPOD file.
I need to take the music off my ipod (I can play it on my computer when my iPOD is connected) and put them back onto my hard drive and this time use iTUNES to transfer my music......*but is there anyway of putting my music back onto my hard drive?*

*is there anyway of putting my music back onto my hard drive?*
If you have any iTunes Music Store purchases the transfer of purchased content from the iPod to authorised computers was introduced with iTunes 7. You'll find details in this article: Copying iTunes Store purchases from your iPod to a computer
The transfer of content from other sources such as songs imported from CD is designed by default to be one way from iTunes to iPod. However there are a number of third party utilities that you can use to retrieve the music files and playlists from your iPod. You'll find that they have varying degrees of functionality and some will transfer movies, videos, photos, podcasts and games as well. Have a look at the web pages and documentation, this is just a small selection of what's available, they are generally quite straightforward. You can read reviews and comparisons of some of them here:
Wired News - Rescue Your Stranded Tunes
Comparison of iPod managers
TuneJack Windows Only
iPod2PC Windows Only
iGadget Windows Only
iDump Windows Only
SharePod Windows Only
iPodRip Mac & Windows
YamiPod Mac and Windows
Music Rescue Mac & Windows
iPodCopy Mac and Windows
iRepo Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iPod Access Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
There's also a manual method of copying songs from your iPod to a Mac or PC. The procedure is a bit involved and won't recover playlists but if you're interested it's available on page 2 at this link: Copying Content from your iPod to your Computer - The Definitive Guide

Box likned to music file...

Hi,
Is it possible to link an invisible box (which would be place 'in front of' a graphic) to a music file on my computer?
Thanks!

Ah yes, that woks just fine Varkgirl...
Now, if I could just get this 1% visible button to play my music .mp3's without changing pages (i.e. to Quicktime type pg.); and without any other button like the one from del.icio.us or Wimpy I would have exactly what I want...
Is that even possible?
Thanks!

How do I find, at-a-glance, the sample size used in several music files?

How do I find, at-a-glance, the sample size used in several music files?
Of all the fields available in a FInder Search, "Sample Size" is not available. Finder does offer a "Bits per Sample" field, but it only recognized graphic files and not music files.
Running 10.8.5 on an iMac i5.
I did search through a couple of communities but came up empty.
Thank you,
Craig

C-squared,
There is no View Option to allow display of a column of sample size.
For WAV or Apple Lossless files, it is available on the Summary tab (one song at a time, as you know). For MP3 and AAC it is not available at all.
You can roughly infer it from the files that are larger than expected for their time.
99% of the music we use is at the CD standard of 16-bit, so I can guess that displaying it has never been a priority. However, if you want to make a suggestion to Apple, use this link:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html

I have two different itunes music files on my computer. How do I combine them into one file?

I have two different itunes music files on my computer. How do I combine them into one file?

I don't think so. The only other ID I have is a developer id, and I didn't get that until several months after I got the phone. In addition purchases I made from the App Store onthe phone would sync up with It unes on the Mac meaning it would be the same id.
However I looked at the AppStore on my phone while it was connected to the Mac with iTunes open, and now the balance has changed to the same as the others.

How do I use one external HD for two Macs to play music files?

I have an External HD linked to my iMac with all my music files. I want to use that same portable Ext HD to use with my MacBook.
Changing the location from MacBook/iTunes Preferences doesn't work, nor does File>Library>Organize Library. The music files don't show up in iTunes. I'm on iTunes 10.6.1.

On each computer:
Open iTunes. Select Preferences from the iTunes menu and click on the Advanced icon in the toolbar. At the top you will see a box showing the path to your iTunes library. Click on the Change button, navigate to the location for the library on your external drive, select it and click on the Open button. Note this permanently changes the library's location on that computer. That means you cannot access your music unless the external drive is connected.
If you don't want a permanent change, then press the OPTION key and hold it down while you launch iTunes. iTunes will then prompt you to select the library you wish to open for that session.

Installed new itunes and no longer have any music files

when I installed the new itunes version, everything went well - no error messages and itunes definetly looks different....
but now I have no music files in my itunes when I open itunes....is there a step I missed?

Your iPod can only be synced with one computer at a time. If you try to sync it with a new computer/iTunes library, it will replace the contents of the iPod with whatever is in the new library. You should probably disable the autosync functionality first by going to Edit -> Preferences, clicking the Devices tab, and enabling the prevent iPods,iPhones, and iPads from automatically syncing option.
Before doing anything else, authorize the new computer with your iTunes Account. In iTunes, choose Store -> Authorize This Computer and enter in the correct credentials. Either copy a backup file from your old computer to your new one or create a new backup of your iPod in iTunes before letting it sync.
Then right->click on your iPod Touch from under the Devices section in the left hand pane of iTunes and choose Backup. You might also want to take a look at this article to see what it all included in the backup.
iOS: How to back up
Now onto synced content such as music, videos, photos, etc. For iTunes purchases you can copy them back into iTunes by choosing File -> Transfer Purchases. For all other nonpurchased iTunes content, see this excellent user tip from another forum member turingtest2 outlining the different methods and software available to help you copy content from your iPod back to your PC and into iTunes.
Recovering your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device
Once the backup has been made and all other synced content such as music, videos, and photos are back in your iTunes library, restore your iPod from that backup you made earlier. Here is more on backing up and restoring your iPod.
iTunes: Backing up, updating, and restoring iOS software
If you do happen to lose any purchased content, you can always redownload it from the iTunes Store again at no cost via iCloud. See this article for information.
Downloading past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore, and iTunes Store
B-rock

Music files missing? Seems like iTunes bug...

I recently noticed that many of my music files are missing, and that the selection appears to be somewhat random. They are retained in iTunes, but have the ! next to them. So, doing the logical thing, I tried to locate them, and the files themselves are missing, but their iTunes link is preserved.
In an effort to continue to do the logical thing, I then systematically went through my CD library, re-loading all the missing material back into iTunes. This was extremely tedious, but appeared to fix most of the issues (obviously, the ones were the CD case was mysteriously empty were left unfixed). The files played fine at that time. Then I carried the computer upstairs to my home office, where I proceeded to plug it in to do a time machine backup on the newly transferred files.
Now here's where it gets really strange... The time machine backup went swimmingly without hitches, to a relatively new USB 3.0 drive. I then set about organizing the music, so that it would all be in the iTunes music folder (User(me)/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/ directory, the one automatically made by iTunes on installation). Many of the songs linked perfectly, and I didn't have to re-link the songs to their new location, as one might expect. So, I then thought I would sit down to enjoy this new library that I had spent a day bringing up to speed and organizing again. And, low and behold, songs are missing--again. Not just the ones that I couldn't replace, but some of the newly replaced ones. For example, Track 12 of an album might be missing, but the files for Tracks 1-11 and 13+ are all present.
As other people who have experienced this problem previously have noted, there does seem to be a slight preference for songs whose artist and/or title include accented characters, although my detection ability is more limited now, as I have since lost many of these original CDs, and so the songs were not replaced within the library. But, while they account for about 5-10% of my overall library, they accounted for about 50% of the songs missing at the beginning of yesterday's overhaul.
And what makes matters really strange is that when I tried to look up the missing files--which I know myself to have imported yesterday--in the fresh time machine backup I made right after importing all that music, they are all missing.
So, it appears that iTunes is systematically deleting files at random. While I'm tempted to try to put the missing ones back on (fewer are "re-missing" than I was able to replace, so it's a little better), this doesn't exactly seem fruitful, given the fresh deletions.
The original music files were encoded a long time ago, and have been copied and re-copied (and recopied... ad infinitium). It appears that everything that I encoded on the really old system (before iTunes really became popular for this sort of thing) were preserved; however, the issue seems to temporally localize around the time I started using iTunes for most of my music encoding needs (except, of course, for the little issue about files that were imported less than 24 hours ago).
A few other notes:
- I did not delete these files accidentally. I'm more careful than that.
- The files are not there (they're not just hidden--I already checked for this).
- iTunes has retained the link to where it believes the file should be.
- The issue appears to have originally arisen quite some time ago, as these files are systemically missing from all backups made by time machine. However, it wasn't all that long ago that I deleted my entire library and started over (about 2 years, so the files should have been natively present on 2 of my macs) by re-importing all the files in my music folder. This newly created library has since become the "master" library that is propigated to all my other computers (although I don't trust iCloud for obvious reasons, given this fiasco--Thanks, Apple...)
- I have not elected to have iTunes manage my music folder, or automatically copy things to the iTunes music folder when importing (although this is the default destination, so they are imported there, but not duplicated there when imported from elsewhere on the hard drive).
- I am currently running OS X 10.6.8 on an Intel Mac (yeah, yeah, I'd upgrade the OS, but software that cost more than the computer isn't 10.8--or even 10.7--compatible).
If anyone has any thoughts on how to prevent this issue in the future, I'd really appreciate it. I think the music files themselves are just... gone. But, I would like to be able to have them stick around for a bit when I get around to dedicating another day to trying to import them from their CD.
Does anyone know a piece of third party software that allows you to sync and update iDevices? Hopefully one that doesn't take over my music library and decide to delete things of its own accord?

I was lucky to be able to use a PC, that after trying numerous times actually read the external hdd, I quickly copied all files over to a backup hdd and recovered all files. After that I ended up in contact with Western Digital about the incident and they recommended to completely erase (7-pass erase) of the hdd, which ended up taking over 5 days to do. They gave me no reason as to "Why" it would have happened but if I erase and reformatted of the hdd and the problem reoccurred they recommended to get the unit replaced.
I was lucky to recover all my files.....keep trying on different computers if you can, and copy what you can get hold of. The 7-pass erase will delete pretty much every trace of information on the hdd with no chance of recovery.
So far since the incident its been running ok but I not longer trust the hdd to be stable. Not a simple nor quick process / solution I'm afraid.
Good luck!
Once you have recovered your files (or as many as you can get hold of) and ready to erase the hdd:
(THIS WILL ERASE ALL YOUR DATA, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A BACKUP BEFORE PROCEEDING)
Connect the drive directly to the Mac, open Disk Utility.
Select the drive and click on the "Erase" tab Select the "7-times zeros" to completely erase the drive.
Once the erase have completed format the drive to your selection.

ITunes 6.0.3 destroyed my music files (mp3 and m4a).

iTunes 6.0.1 has destroyed a significant amount of my 35,000 song library. Not just the library, but the SONG FILES. Take a look:
http://riggswerks.com/itunes/diy_gaps.gif
This is an mp3 file that has been opened in Peak. See all those gaps? They were added by iTunes.
What happens is when a song that has been damaged like this goes to play, iTunes will only play it till its first gap (in the case of the screenshot song, about 2 seconds). Once it hits the gap, it moves on to the next song in the playlist. For some reason, iTunes is adding the gaps and duplicating small portions of the song in between the gaps, cutting off several seconds of the song ending, etc. So, it wouldn't be as simple as cutting out the gaps in a sound editing program, because song data has been added as well. The files are useless. I tried to upload one, but my ftp client wouldn't allow a file that severely damaged to be moved.
Two questions:
a) Is iTunes 6.0.1 safe to use? I'm scared to death that it will end up trashing more of my music, so I reverted to version 5, and locked my dedicated 250GB music hard drive. Anyone out there that can help explain what's going on would be tremendously helpful.
and
b) It seems that once there is a screwed up song in the iTunes library, it forces any overwritten file for the bad songs to adopt the gaps and characteristics of the previous version. For example, I reburned a couple of these bad songs from the original CD and selected for iTunes to replace the songs as they burned (after unlocking the hard drive)- when I went to play it, the new song- ripped straight from CD minutes before- had the same gapping problems. How can I reimport my good versions of these files if iTunes adopts the gaps and errors? I'm stuck.
For further reference (others have had similar/same issues):
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=1308126#1308126
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=1308121#1308121
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=1308060#1308060
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=1307909#1307909
For those who may know how to help- here's my set up:
PowerMac G5 Quad running 10.4.3
iTunes 6.0.1 (reverted back to iTunes 5 now)
TIA. core4

hiya!
hmmm. okay, here's a user tip on moving your music files to a different drive. can you spot anything you might have missed on the first attempt?
MacMuse: Move iTunes music/Library to new drive
love, b

I have multiple libraries on an external drive. Somehow all the iTunes library files i.e. iTunes Library.itl, xml, itdb, Media folder, etc disappeared! Only the music files remain. Now when I start iTunes w/option it can't find any of the old libraries!

Help! I 'm using an old G4 powerbook, Mac OSX 10.5.8, iTunes ver 10. I have multiple iTunes libraries on an external drive. Everything was fine for a while, then all of the iTunes library files, i.e. iTunes Library.itl, xml, itdb, artwork folder, Media folder, etc mysteriously disappeared! Only the music files remain (thank god) So now when I start iTunes w/option key to choose a library, I can't choose any of them because iTunes won't recognize them. Because all the library stuff is missing. So can I re-create the library files? (I don't care if I lose my ratings)
Or should I create a new empty library on the external drive, then manually move all the music files to the Media folder in the new library?
I tried some stupid ideas like creating a new library just to start iTunes, then going into prefs and advanced, then under iTunes Media folder location, selecting the location of the old library on the external, to see if iTunes would then find all the music which is still there, but no workee.
I'm out of ideas, and I searched the archives.
Help! anyone?
Scott

I don't know if this is me adding files to iTunes when the external wasn't connected
it is.
is it OK to just keep deleting that library on the Air?
i wouldn't - at least not until i
mount the external
point iTunes media folder location back to the external via preferences > advanced
consolidate my library via file > library > organize library
The ntfs hasn't seem to be causing any problems, but I've always wanted to know.
in order for your Mac to write to NTFS drives, it needs some help by installing e.g. the NTFS 3G driver. apparently that or something similar is installed on your Mac already. preferably, it would be formatted for Mac but then windows machines would need to have e.g. MacDrive installed to recognize the drive.

I had to install a new hard drive because my old hard drives boot files became corrupted, and i want to get all of my music files off the old hard drive and regain all my play counts/ratings/playlists

Greetings everyone
as the title says, ive had to install a new hard drive and i want to transfer my old itunes library onto the new drive, maintaining all playlists/play counts/ratings etc, album artwork if possible. The old hard drive is installed as a slave drive and is completely acessible, but due to the boot files being corrupted i cannot use it as the main drive and therefore operate my old itunes. Also, my ipod no longer contains my music library as itunes synced without my permission and wiped it.
The only thing i have tried is copying all of my old music files from the old drive by selecting 'add folder to library' and then the old drive, then replacing the new itunes library.itl file with the one from my old itunes. This restores all my playlists and playcounts but when i try to play any of the songs it says that the files could not be found, and i dont fancy locating 8500 music files individually!
Thankyou for taking the time to read my post, any help will be greatly appreciated.

Ah, my reply was based on the assumption that you had a default installation of iTunes.
i.e you had all your music in the iTunes media folder inside your iTunes folder.
If your iTunes folder is so small compared to the amount of music you have, you must have a different arrangement.
This complicates you situation considerably.
iTunes can cope with moving around as long as all the music is in the iTunes media folder, not not if it isn't.
Your first step should be to get iTunes working on the old drive. This will involve editing the xml library file so that the drive letter is correct and then rebuilding the library from the xml file.
Then you will need to consolidate your library which moves everything into the iTunes media fodler. After that you will be able to use my first suggestion.
Step 1
Find the iTunes folder on the old drive and copy the two library files somewhere else so you can find them again. That's iTunes Library.itl and iTunes Library.xml.
Now open the copy of iTunes Library.xml with WordPad.
Look for lines starting:
Location
These contain the paths to tracks.
You will need to use a find/replace to change the drive letter so that it is correct.
Make sure that you include enough in the "find" so that you only change the right thing.
Maybe /c:/ and replace with /d:/ or whatever.
After that, tell iTunes to use the library on the old drive with a shift key start.
Hold down the shift key and start iTunes, keep holding the shift key until you are prompted to choose a library. Navigate to the iTunes folder on the old drive and choose iTunes Library.itl.
Then use the method in the following article to rebuild your library;
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1451
Unfortunately the date added will be today for all tracks.
If iTunes works correctly after this, consolidate your library
File>>Library>>Organize>>consolidate
This copies all tracks into to iTunes media folder and could create a problem if you do not have disk space so don't do it if you are unsure about free disk space.
Check that iTunes works OK and then use the first method.
Message was edited by: polydorus

How do I fix M4P music files that stop suddenly on my new computer?

So I purchased a windows laptop and transferred my music from my mac mini to the new system and a large number of my music files - that I purchased from the Itunes store- now stop suddenly. The files all appear to be m4p files...how do I repair the files? I tried to download my purchased music again, but I tunes displays the songs as downloaded and will not allow me to initiate this action. Any help is apppreciated!!

You have to delete the current copy from the library before you can download a replacement,
tt2

Invisible music files

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