Itunes 12.1 has wiped music library - how to restore it?!

Updated to iTunes 12.1 last night and iPod Touch 4th Gen also updated to IOS 8.1.3.
Went to use my iPod today and all of my music has disappeared. Logged onto iTunes and it has all disappeared out of the library but shows in the "music" section of the iPod summary page. Tried restoring from backup and re-syncing but now any trace of the 1900 songs has completely disappeared.
Have tried a few of the suggestions online to no avail.
Can anyone help?

iTunes won't offer to download previous purchases if there is a broken entry looking for the lost track. Delete that entry, don't hide from iTunes in the cloud, then redownload from your purchase history.
For cleaning the dead links here are two alternatives:
Lost & Found Playlists
Create a playlist called Found, select everything in Music and drag it into the Found playlist (it may take some time to count the tracks that are to be dropped). Create a smart playlist called Lost matching All the rules Playlist is Music and Playlist is not Found. Your lost tracks will be in this playlist. You should be able to select all the tracks in this playlist with CTRL-A and then remove them from iTunes with CTRL-SHIFT-DELETE. In the unlikely event iTunes asks if anything should be kept or recycled you've made a mistake somewhere.
However I prefer to use iTunes Folder Watch with its option to Check for dead tracks on startup selected.
See Make a split library portable for some ideas on setting out your library in the best layout and Backup your iTunes for Windows library with SyncToy for backup advice.
tt2

Similar Messages

Can´t find all my movies from itunes in apple tv. has already restarted apple tv and have the latest update for both itunes and apple tv. my music library works however

can´t find all my movies from itunes in apple tv. has already restarted apple tv and have the latest update for both itunes and apple tv. my music library works however

Welcome to the Apple Community.
Have you looked in home videos

How do i download the new version of itunes without deleting my current music library and apps?

I have downloaded to new version of itunes in the past and lost all of my music. How do I successfully complete the download of teh new version of itunes, without deleting my current music library and apps?

Open itunes, click Itunes>Check for updates.
I nor anyone I know have ever lost anything on update.

I have an iTunes account with my own music library. My wife wants to have her own music library. Is there a way of setting up a sub account for her, or do I have to set of husband playlists and a separate set of wife playlists?

I have an iTunes account with my own music library. My wife wants to have her own music library. Is there a way to set up a sub account for her, or do I have to set up a set of husband playlists and a set of wife playlists?

Sorry, but that's not possible.
You can share iTunes libraries on a network > iTunes: Setting up Home Sharing on your computer

I have recently downloaded logic from the app store and it can't locate quite a few of the sounds in the music library.How can I solve this problem? Thanks

I have recently downloaded logic from the app store and it can't locate quite a few of the sounds in the music library.How can I solve this problem? Thanks

Can you download large files from other places apart from the App store, wondering if it is the App store or your internet connection.
If it just the app store check this url http://www.apple.com/support/mac/app-store/contact/

HT1473 I have several .mp3 files of speech. When I add them to iTunes they show up in Music. How can I get them to show up as Audiobooks?

I have several .mp3 files of speech. When I add them to iTunes they show up in Music. How can I get them to show up as Audiobooks?

Have you tried restarting or resetting your iPad?
Restart: Press On/Off button until the Slide to Power Off slider appears, select Slide to Power Off and, after It shuts down, press the On/Off button until the Apple logo appears.
Reset: Press the Home and On/Off buttons at the same time and hold them until the Apple logo appears (about 10 seconds).
No data will be lost.

I got a new PC Windows 8...downloaded iTunes--and half of my music library is missing.

I got a new HP with Windows 8, installed iTunes and half of my music library is missing. Please advise. Thanks.

Did you copy your library from your old computer, or backup copy of your old computer, to your new one.

Itunes no longer has my music in my music library. How do I transfer ALL my music (not just the purchased from Itunes) from my Ipod Touch back to my Itunes library on my computer.

ITunes no longer has any of my music in my music library. How do I transfer all of my music ( not just the purchased music from ITunes) from my IPod Touch to Itunes library on my computer for syncing to other devices.

Recovering your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device: Apple Support Communities

How to avoid wiping music library off iPod once transfered?

Hi. I needed to free up substantial space on my internal HD so loaded music library onto EHD (& made DVD backup). Now how do I change settings for the IHD-to-iPod relationship so I dont wipe out all of the music on my iPod next time I need/want to plug it in? Catch 22: it looks like iPod has to be attached to computer in order to change this setting. Any help appreciated!
Micknyc

Open iTunes (iPod not connected of course). Use File->Add Folder to Library... to point to the top level folder (or folders if you've spread the song files around a bit) on the new drive. Note that "Add Folder" implicitly adds subfolders and all valid files that it finds.
You can then go through a bit of a cleanup operation on the library since you will have duplicate entries, one pointing to where the file used to be (shown by the "!" in the left most column in the right-hand pane) and one pointing to where it is now. The "!" will not show up until you attempt to select the entry. So you need to "walk" the library entry by entry (showing "Info" will do it).
Of course the other way to begin this is by deleting all the "old" entries in the library (but not the library itself!) before pointing iTunes at the new song file folder location. If you are comfortable about backing up and restoring libraries (if need be!) that would be less labourious, but at the risk of it being less obvious to spot if the odd file or two has not been picked up.
Please remember that when you do connect the iPod up on autosych it should see all the moved songs as "new" so will copy over the new songs and delete all the old song files as "orphans".
Someone may have an even better way of doing this, lets hope that if they do, they post it.
Good luck.

How do I get iTunes Match to upload my music library from my external hard drive? It only got some of the music and not a lot of it at that.

I'm trying iTunes Match and not having a great time of it so far. It only got a fraction of my music from my music library. I contacted support and they told me that it would recognize my external hard drive and take all of the music. My collection is all from CDs with the exception of a few from iTunes. I just want more of my collection to be available.
Can anyone help with that

The issue is not related to the external drive. iTunes Match has difficulties matching tracks ripped fom CDs because they may differ slightly from the versions on sale in iTunes. You can try the match again. Otherwise do a search of this forum. There are already many discussions on this subject here that may help you.

ITunes can't locate ⅔ of my Music Library -- How to repair?

I manually reorganized the iTunes Media Folder on my MacBook Air because everything was all jumbled up in the Music folder -- Songs, Movies, Mobile apps etc. everything all mixed up in Music folder. I manually dragged the Movie, iTunes U, Mobile Applications etc.Folders out of Music Folder and put everything into iTunes Media Folder. The same order as it is on my desktop iMac. Now iTunes can't locate about 1/2 of my Music library. Everything else (movies, TV shows etc.) works fine, but iTunes lost the location of 1/2my music library. I get the message "The song "ABC" could not be used because the original file could not be located. Would you like to locate it"
Is there a way to reset iTunes so that it knows where all the songs are (they are all in the music folder which is in the iTunes Media Folder). If I have to locate every song individually it will take weeks.
File ->Library -> Organize Library -> click Consolidate and Reorganize files in iTunes Media didn't seem to work. Isn't this the way to let iTunes know where all those songs it can't locate are?
Kindly advise if you know how to slove this.
Thank you.
P.S. Still using Mountain Lion on this computer

I manage my music manually by turning off the advanced preferences for iTunes managing my music and copying it to the iTunes folder when adding it to the library. Realize if you do this you are taking responsibility for keeping track of your music -- you will have to be organized. If you want to move your library you will have to track down all the files. Your files will retain their original names and folder names and structure, so make sure it makes sense. There's a few other disadvantages which I can't remember right now. Even with manually managing you still occasionally get a broken link, and my experience is all with iTunes 7.5 which I still use. I may be wrong but I suspect newer versions of iTunes are trying to do more at one time with all the store and cloud interface and may be more "delicate".
If you are downloading from Apple or ripping a CD, iTunes will put it in its normal folder structure anyway, though you can remove it from there.
The various scripts on the Dougscripts web site were written at different stages. You have to read about iTunes version compatibility in the blurb about each script. I don't see how you end up with multiple libraries using hte scripts.
The .itl file can reset itself but not with what you are doing. If you had moved your whole library and broken all the links you could have found just one and iTunes might have offered to find the others based upon the same structure (not something it will do if you manually manage, by the way).

I deleted some files from my iTunes music library, how do I get them back?

Hi there, I hope you can help.
I have had an 80Gb iPod for a while now, but it got full, so I was deleting stuff that I didn't listen to very often from my iTunes library as I added new music. However, I kept all the music in my iTunes Music folder.
I have now purchased a 120Gb iPod, but obviously some of my music is only in the iTunes Music folder, but NOT actually in my music library within iTunes. Is there a way to sync the entire library with the new iPod (ie. including all the albums that I deleted from my iTunes library to accommodate new ones), or will I have to manually check my entire iTunes music library against my iTunes Music folder?
In essence, what I want to do is the opposite of consolidating my iTunes music library into my iTunes Music folder - to get all the music in my iTunes Music folder back into the library, without duplicating the stuff that's on there already. I hope that's clear...?
Best regards,
Matt.

Try iTunes Folder Watch for rereading the content you deleted, assuming you only removed it from the library, not the media folder. If you deleted the tracks then restore those that remain from the recycle bin first.
When you are finished you should have a new playlist with all the tracks that iTFW found. Rename this Exclude and then create a smart playlist called, say, iPod Music with the rules Playlist is Music and Playlist is not Exclude. This is the playlist you sync with your device, and any time it grows too large just find some more stuff to throw into Exclude.
tt2

ITunes no longer recognizes my music library

So I have the bulk of my music library stored on an external HD and for me to listen to music all I have to do is connect my HD. I have never had a problem with it before, but now iTunes doesn't know where my music is even though it is connected to the HD. Alternatively, it asks to me to find the music I select and when I do it then plays it but it still can't find the remainder of my files.
How do I get iTunes to further recognize my files without individually finding them for it?
Completely lost,
Jimmy

You don't say if your mac or windows, but mac itunes has library file and music file - click on library and you get the app window, click on music file and you'll find the playable files which are the ones you have to link to is you're getting the ! mark - I copied the whole itunes file to an external firewire 800 HD and linked itunes to that folder and no problems - but a couple weeks later I started to get the ! mark and when I went looking in the music file, there were no longer there... a couple weeks later and I've gone from 4 songs to over a hundred missing - the ones from my cd's I could load again but some of them were from itunes downloads and they won't address this problem but have no problem telling me I have to pay to download again - But they are all still on my ipod, just not in my computer.

ITunes Match is syncing my music library using 3G but I have the option switched off.

Hi,
I have found a problem syncing my music using iTunes Match and my iPhone has used 2GB of my data plan in a day. The steps to reproduce the problem are:
Precondition: iPhone is using iTunes Match and has a list a few songs in the cloud without syncing.
Steps:
Switch on 3G connections in the settings. (Settings > General > Mobile data > Mobile data & 3G ON)
Start syncing a list of music.
Switch off the option to use data plan to sync music (Settings > Music > Use data plan > OFF)
Result: iPhone continues downloading all the songs of the list using my data plan.
Expected result: iPhone stops syncing the music because there is only a 3G connection and the option is switched off.
This is why I would like to make a complaint to Apple. How can I do it?
Thanks.

Everything that is on your device should be in your library too. If that is not the case then see Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device. See also Backup your iTunes for Windows library with SyncToy.
Once you have secured your content you can work on resolving the sync issue.
When the media on the device won't update as expected during a sync the method that usually works is this:
Export the contents of the camera roll. (You should do this routinely anyway.)
Backup the device, unless you have a recent backup that you would prefer to restore.
Restore as a new device. (The general restore process doesn't seem to clear things out before reloading, so there can be issues with missing artwork or incorrect capacity calculations.)
Restore the chosen backup.
In some cases it might pay to use the recovery mode method given in HT201263: If you can't update or restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch at step 3 to ensure that a device has been completely reset before reloading your content.
tt2

, I-tunes can no longer 'locate' my library , after a botched cut & paste attempt to back-up onto an external drive. Still syncing with i-Pod but playlists lost , podcasts no longer syncing, Can't play music .. how to restore back to original state .

I-tunes can no longer 'locate' my library , after a botched cut & paste attempt to back-up onto an external drive.Cant play any music as it "can't find" the library Still syncing with i-Pod but playlists lost , podcasts no longer syncing. How to restore back to original state . I have tried re-installing - with no change

I do the same thing as you do...
My music is on an external drive as to not use up gigabytes of storage that need not be used for media.
There are a couple basic principles to iTunes that I believe you should know.
1. iTunes is not a media storage program. It does not store your media "in iTunes". It simply is an organization tool for your media already on a hard disk.
2. As iTunes is not a storage mechanism, it has no way to "know" whether or not the media that is listed is actually there. This is where the "design" of iTunes comes into play.
I like to think of iTunes as a bread-crumb trail. The "music" in iTunes, isn't actually there. The bread crumb is the location on the external hard drive.
If that bread crumb trail disappears (in this case the external drive you use). If said external drive is not plugged in, that bread crumb trail is not able to be followed. iTunes is "lost" and unable to find the media. The only way to remedy this is to place the media on your local drive.
To address your issue of the library. If you hold down shift, you can select your library on your external drive. It will be a file with an .itl extension. The folder name will be your external drive.
I go into edit > preferences > advanced and set my library to the correct location. Make sure you check the box "Copy to iTunes Folder when importing" (or whatever it says).
You can't fix the issue of iTunes not seeing the media if your drive is unplugged unless you physically move the content to your OS HDD...Or any other HDD you use.

Itunes 12.1 has wiped music library - how to restore it?!

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for