Itunes canont find my library

Hello,
I have not found any discussion dealing with my problem. I installed Itunes on my brand new Sony Vaio FW21E laptop in November or December 2008 after having purchased a new Iphone 3G. Since then, when I open Itunes (approx one time out of five), Itunes cannot find all my libraries. This is, as if I opened Itunes for the first time. Therefore each time this phenomena occurs, I need to re-add my itunes folder into the itunes-library. All my files (music, videos...) are still in the "itunes music" folder, but itunes cannot find them. This is very disturbing, as it takes each time one hour to put things straight (to add the "itunes music" folder to the itunes-library, to get the albums' covers from itunes and finally to run genius).
I asked several times the Iphone hotline who told me it should be an itunes problem.
I hope you will be able to help me. I thought that upgrading from vista to windows 7 would have solved this issue, but unfortunately not.
Looking forward to reading from you.
Best regards.

The issue is with a program on your Sony Vaio computer called a program watcher. What it is doing is changing your iTunes library file to a new name, therefore every time you open iTunes, it is blank.
This discussion will explain in more detail and show you what program you need to make adjustments to or remove on your computer
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1800551&tstart=30 - Heres the discussion
You may also want to try running MSCONFIG to help isolate the issue
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1275 - MSCONFIG
Let me know what happens

Similar Messages

Why is it so hard to get iTunes to find my library?

<rant>I don't understand why it's so difficult to get iTunes to find an existing library after a move. I wish I had left this alone from the beginning. Had I known it would be this hard, I wouldn't have done this.</rant>
I have tried to move my iTunes folder from beneath my home folder to the root. After following some instructions to get this moved (I forget the link), iTunes thinks my songs are in the trash. I verified this by looking at the iTunes Library.xml file, and saw the songs linked to the songs in the trash.
So now that I've deleted my trash, all of my songs are showing up with exclamation points, saying it can't find the original song. If I locate an individual song in the new folder, it works fine. But I have thousands of songs, and have little interest in doing this for my whole library.
I've tried manually updating the iTunes Library.xml file, pointing them to the proper location, but I've figured out iTunes doesn't really use this file -- it uses the binary "iTunes Library" (with no extension) file, which I can't edit (thanks Apple).
I've also tried the option+start trick to point it to the new library (at several different points along the way), and it still thinks my songs are in the trash, I believe.
I can only assume that this has something to do with digital rights, and them not making it easy to copy music, but for us legit people, this is really a pain.
So is there a way to get this back? Or, am I left to wiping out my library, and having iTunes import my songs from scratch, and lose all of my metadata and album art?
Also once again, why is this so hard anyway? Has Apple not seen the tons of blogs and discussions on this very topic enough to warrant actually addressing this?
Thanks in advance.

Thank Chris and Diane.
After looking into this more, it looks like after transferring my media folder, I also moved my iTunes library to the root following this article:
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/moving-your-itunes-library-to -a-new-hard-drive/
Somehow, something got missed (though I'm almost positive I followed that first Apple support article). Anyway, my fix was this:
1) Move my iTunes media folder back to the exact trash location it thought the songs should be in, and confirmed that the songs were once again found through iTunes.
2) Follow the Apple support article, relocated my iTunes Media folder from the trash to the desired folder in the root
3) Moved my iTunes Library back to my home folder following the iLounge article above (move physical files, then option-open iTunes and point the library to the new location).
Once I did this, everything is as I wanted it.
By the way, Chris, the reason I want my iTunes in the root of my external rather than under the Home/Shared, is because I want my songs on the external, and my Shared folder is on my internal. I want to keep all my large files on my external.
Also, Diane, what I meant by digital rights issue, I didn't mean this was the cause of my problem, but rather speculating this was the reason Apple made it so hard to relocate your media files. Again, that was just speculation, I obviously have no way of knowing. It just seems unreasonably hard to relocate your iTunes songs (or even just tell iTunes where they are after it lost them) because Apple seems to try to make users' lives easier, not harder.
Anyway, thanks again for the help.

Itunes cant find my library in external HD

Ok Gang...
I consolidated my library and moved it to an external HD. I changed the advanced setting info to find my new external HD. But when I open Itunes it comes up blank no music library. Help How do I correct this problem. How do I tell Itunes to find my external HD and open the library?

There's been a few threads about this recently. Where we've all come unstuck is that even if we can get Itunes to look in the right place for the music (by consolidating, or dragging the files into the library) ... IT STILL LOSES ALL THE USER-GENERATED INFORMATION.
That is to say; you'll find your music again, but all the album art, ratings, playlists and so on that you made yourself will be gone gone gone.
No-one so far has come up with a solution to this. Several of us have found that even if we input it all again, it's lost the next time we connect the External.
If anyone has found a solution, PLEASE tell us, because this problem makes the entire ITunes experience time-consuming and pointless. You might as well go back to having a big pile of CDs on your bedroom floor!

I just got my new iMac, and when going to iTunes, cannot find my library,etc.

Can you help me find my iTunes library and account on my new iMac?

Your library will ONLY be where you put it. It will not magically appear anywhere.
Have you copied to from your old computer, or your backup copy of your old computer?
You can sign into your account from any computer with itunes. This has nothing to do with your library. Your library resides on your computer and you have to move/copy it wherever you want it.

Itunes not finding my library after getting new laptop

Hi, I'm new to this so please bear with me. The laptop I was using to sync my iPod touch died last week and after I installed iTunes on my daughters laptop, I can't find any libraries or recently purchased music. If I try to sync my iPod to the new laptop, will it erase the music and playlists I already have on the iPod? Does anyone know why my recent music purchases aren't showing up in the iTunes folder? Thank in advance for any advice.

Try this to copy your data and settings:
Syncing to a new iTunes library or computer will erase your ipod. Only if you back up your ipod manually before syncing, you can restore your device from that backup again. A manual backup does not include the sync process.
Disable autosync in iTunes, connect your ipod to your new computer and right click on it in the device list and choose backup. iTunes will backup your ipod without syncing.
Transfer your purchases the same way, choosing "transfer purchases" this time.
When you connect your phone for the first time, all media content will be erased. But you can restore your settings and app data from your manual backup afterwards.
Don't forget to set up at least one contact and event on your new computer to be able to merge calendars and contacts when you sync the ipod for the first time.
Music is one way only, from the computer to your device, unless you bought the songs in itunes and transferred your purchases.
There is 3rd party software out there, but not supported by Apple, see this thread: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2013615&tstart=0
About backups and what's saved:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4946
How to back up and restore:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1414
How to download apps for free again:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2519
Saving other data is also described here. How to back up your data and set up as a new device

Itunes cannot find my library anymore please help

Please help!!
I recently installed a new internal hard drive and my itunes library was installed on an external hard drive and when i rebooted my pc after the new drive was installed my drive letters changed and itunes could no longer locate my library.
I had around 38,000 tracks in the library along with aps etc and i cannot seem to locate or load that library anymore.
I have tried renaming all the drives (internal and external) to the drive letters they were before i put the new drive in but it has made no difference.
System restore doesn't seem to fix it and when itunes opened after the reboot it started adding some tracks but not all.
Please Please Help

Search your drives for files of the type *.itl
When you have identified the one that should be your library hold down the shift key and click the icon to start iTunes. Keep holding until asked to choose or create a library. Click choose and browse to the file you found earlier.
If your library was all properly self-contained then "It just works"TM otherwise post back with the details of the path to your media folder and I'll show you how to fix things.
tt2

ITunes cannot find Aperture library

Hi all,
Im trying to sync pics to my iphone 5. I've used Aperture for 5+ years without a problem until now. I got a new imac and since then i am unable to sync pics. See error messages below. I dont see any option in Aperture to share as the error msg states.
I've tried all the aperture db correction steps as well as creating a new library. No luck. Any ideas are appreciated
thx
Brett

From itunes, when checking off "sync photos from...aperture" msg is:
Your aperture library could not be found. Open the preferences window in aperture and enable the preference to share previews with other applications.
When i click "ok" to the above msg, get the following:
itunes cannot sync photos to the iphone "bretts iphone" because your sperture library could not be found. Open the preferences window in aperture and enable the preference to share previews with other applications.
thx

ITunes can't locate library on external hard-drive

I have had my iTunes library in a folder on an external E hard drive for some time, and it worked fine.
After I downloaded the latest version of iTunes - in response to a prompt from Apple - it now can't locate any of the tracks. The library is still displayed in full in the iTunes screen, but each track has an exclamation mark next to it, and if I try to play a track, iTunes tells me I have to locate it manually. If I locate a track manually, it plays, but that's obviously not ideal. Also, it won't sync my iPod, but just tells me that the named tracks can't be found.
I looked in the `iTunes music' folder in `My Music' on the C drive, and it has a handful of tracks in it. Those tracks play in iTunes as normal.
Going via Edit-Preferences-Advanced, the `iTunes media folder location' is set as the folder in my E-drive which contains my music library. I had understood that that was all I needed to do in order to enable iTunes to find my library, but I guess there must be another step I've missed.
I suspect that I should be using File-Add Folder to Library, but I'm not sure what the result will be if I do this. Will it copy the files from my E drive onto my C drive (and swallow up all the memory space on my laptop)? Will it duplicate all the tracks in the iTunes display so I have two versions of each track - one with an exclamation mark and one without? Should I delete all the tracks from iTunes before adding the folder?
Thanks for any help you can offer.

Have you assigned E: to the exHD permanently? Because Windows can change USB drive letters on you, if you don't assign them.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307844
That is the most common reason for itunes suddenly unable to find files.

How to stop iTunes creating a new library on my hard drive when it can't find the one I have created and told it to use on an external drive?

I have quite alot of music etc so to save hard drive space I have created my iTunes library on an external hard drive. If I ever accidentaly open iTunes when that external hard drive isn't attached iTunes makes a whole new library from scratch on my computers hard drive. I find this highly frustrating as I often open Itunes to find no music as it have changed librarys and I have to re-load my actual library: very frustraiting and time consuming.
I would like to know if it is possible to lock iTunes some how to stop it from changing folders when it can'f find the library, or atleast give me a warning that it can't find the library before creating a whole new one????

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.

My ITunes library was wiped from Itunes app on my PC, but it is still in a folder on my hard drive. How can I reinstall my library back to the Itunes app? My library is available in Itunes on my Ipad but I can't find an option to synch to my PC?

My ITunes library was wiped from the Itunes app on my PC, but I think the files are still in a folder on my hard drive. How can I reinstall my library back to the Itunes app? My library is available in Itunes on my Ipad but I also can't find an option to synch to my PC?

How to recreate iTunes Library
No content shows up in iTunes after updating

I got a new computer, told it library was on external hd, no problem. A lot of artwork was missing though (NOT manual artwork, only previous artwork I'd asked itunes to find). I ran 'get artwork' but it's only asigned artwork to the1st song in each album

So, I got a new computer. As my itunes library has gone through a few in its time, it lives permanently on my external hard drive, as this generally makes moving to new computers hassle free. I told my freshly intsalled itunes on my new computer where to find the library and it got all my songs, movies etc no problem. However, some albums were missing artwork (NOT any of the albums I had ever manually added artwork to, thank god, these all seemed to be intact, jut ones where itunes had previously got artwork for me). I asked itunes to get missing artwork, as is par for the course. This it did, but it has only installed artwork for one song per album (generally the first song, or the lowest numbered track for incomplete albums, as far as I can tell).
It does not acknowledge these songs as missing artwork when I create a smart playlist but, erm, they are - the artwork doesn't show up on the display in the bottom LH corner or in the info tab. WHY? When I've added new albums 'get artwork' has always added artwork for EACH song on the album in every previous itunes I've ever had. I don't get it at all.
I appreciate it might be irreperably messed up, but please don't reply with any manual adding solutions. I have over 25,000 songs in my library and to go through and manually ask itunes to add artwork to each song (apart from the first on the album which already has it) would take SO LONG it makes me want to die inside.
I can't find anything else on this. Other people have had issues with itunes match and devices, but these songs don't even have artwork on itunes, let alone on my ipod, iphone etc.

Well my first guess was wrong. The line that failed is the one that writes out the image to disk. I've not revisited the code for that script for ages, but it seems I did add in an extra test for missing files a little while later, then forgot to upload the change. I can reproduce the error message if I deliberately rename a file to confuse iTunes so that seems the most likely reason for your problem with the script. I've uploaded a new build of CreateFolderArt which should work better.
See FindTracks for a tool to repair broken links. You should probably get that issue fixed first.
I know what SPSS stands for but that is all I know about it.
tt2

How do I switch to an older version of my library? Itunes asked me to find the library, and I seem to have picked the wrong one. Ive lost over 500 songs!

Itunes told me it couldn't find the library, and asked me to find it. I apparently picked a version from years ago, because over 500 of my songs are missing, and some I deleted a long time ago have reappeared. I see a file labelled "itunes library" from yesterday (the correct one), but I can't find a way to make itunes use it. This screwup is costing me several hundred dollars at the moment!

I assume that this new interface AirPort Utility you are referring to is version 6.0. If that is the case you can download and install version 5.6. Both can co-exist on the same machine and I would recommend that you keep both of them. Then use 5.6 to administer the base stations for your networking requirements.

New install of iTunes can't find old library

Hello, iTunes experts. I'd greatly appreciate your help.
I put a new hard drive in my computer and did a fresh install of Windows XP Pro and iTunes. My iTunes library has only a few tunes I've purchased, and the rest have been imported from .wav files elsewhere in my computer. Apparently those songs are not actually in iTunes, but just a pointer in the .xml index file.
I would like to connect my old library up to the new instance of iTunes without re-importing everything and re-purchasing what I've bought in the past.
I've followed all the instructions I could find on the web (copy the iTunes Music folder from the old hard drive to the new, change the location in Edit --> Preferences --> Advanced tab, do a Consolidate Library, etc.), but I can't seem to make the new instance of iTunes find the library, either in the new location or even the old one. But I am able to re-import songs successfully, although when I try to play them I get a message that this computer is not authorized to play them.
I'm pretty computer-savvy; this shouldn't be this hard. What trick(s) am I missing?
Windows XP Pro, iTunes 7.6.2.9, The old hard drive is still in the computer as a secondary drive and the old installation of iTunes on it still works (for now).
Thanks very much,
Ted

These sorts of msi-related troubles have gotten more complicated to deal with ever since Microsoft pulled the Windows Installer CleanUp utility from their Download Center on June 25. First we have to find a copy of the utility.
Let's try Googling. (Best not to use Bing, I think.) Look for a working download site for at least version 3.0 of the Windows Installer CleanUp utility. After downloading the utility installer file (msicuu2.exe), scan the file for malware, just in case. (I use the free version of Malwarebytes AntiMalware to do single-file scans for that.)
If the file is clean, to install the utility, doubleclick the msicuu2.exe file you've downloaded.
Now run the utility ("Start > All Programs > Windows Install Clean Up"). In the list of programs that appears in CleanUp, select any iTunes entries and click "Remove".
Quit out of CleanUp, restart the PC and try installing iTunes again. Does the install go through properly this time?
(If you do find a clean download site for the correct version of CleanUp, please don't tell me where it is. Without wishing to sound paranoid (although I grant it does sound paranoid), there is a non-zero chance that posting links to download locations for the utility here at Discussions leads to that download location being shut down.)

I installed the upgrade and now itunes can't find my library and doesn't recognize my devices. Using Windows 7. Any help?

Help!!! I installed the 10.5 update and now itunes can't find my library or recognize my devices. Running on Windows 7.

For moving your iTunes library, I recommend this method...
Assuming you use the iTunes default settings where iTunes copied added items to your iTunes folder and organizes your library (meaning - everything is all self contained in the iTunes folder), then all you have to do is drag & drop your iTunes folder (not just the iTunes Music folder you find inside the iTunes folder) to the external drive and copy the entire thing.
If you want to test that it worked or would like to actually start using it from that location instead, use these instructions when you start iTunes to point it to the new location...
How to open an alternate iTunes Library file or create a new one
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304447
If you are just testing, then close iTunes after you verify it works, and restart iTunes again with the same instructions and point it back to your internal drive (original) location.
Back up your iTunes library by copying to an external hard drive
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307074
Patrick

Itunes can't find music library on computer

Somehow I've moved my music on my computer and itunes cannot find any of it. I can't play anything on the computer, an exclamation point is next to it and the computer tells me itunes cannot find the music. Help! What did I do and how do I fix this? Where should my library be saved? It's currently under itunes folder in my music... is there somewhere else it should be?

I have the exact same problem and came here looking for an answer. Does anyone have one?!? I am so frustrated. All my music is on my computer and has not been moved yet iTunes suddenly can't find it and I am so mad right now!! When I went to update my iPod with the one new song I bought from iTunes it deleted EVERYTHING except my purchased music and now it can't find anything. WE're talking 500+ songs and I am really upset so I hope someone here has an answer!!

Itunes canont find my library

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for