Itunes cant find music files

Seems to be some discussion on this problem where as itunes will not play the music on the computer and says it cant find the music files. I found that the block for using itunes as default audio player has to be checked. This is in preferences under the advanced tab. Seems to come unchecked at times and stops the player. Also my music location, also under advanced will go back to default at times. (My files are on an external hard drive) Hope this helps.
dlj

Try one of these solutions already posted to this forum or use the "Search Discussions" for many more:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=4358684&#4358684
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=4123245&#4123245
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=4090531&#4090531
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=3960710&#3960710
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=3950754&#3950754

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I am getting an exclamation point in front of all tracks and message itunes cant find original file. How do I resolve

I am getting an exclamation point in front of all tracks and message itunes cant find original file. How do I resolve

Hey waltee911,
It sounds like you're seeing something similar to this picture:
If that's the case, the following article has troubleshooting steps to solve the issue:
iTunes: Finding lost media and downloads
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1408
Welcome to Apple Support Communities!
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ITunes not finding music files

iTunes cannot find 90%+ of my music files. I manually linked them together over the last weekend (yucch) and today when I went into iTunes, the links were all broken even though the .mp3 files were in the same directories as before. I can manually find the music files but that's a chore, particularly if I have to do it several times (not!). Any suggestions?
Inspiron 6000 Windows XP

Well, you have a couple options. First shut down iTunes. Then unmount your HD. Then mount your external HD again, then after it pops up on your desktop, launch iTunes. Any files iTunes has that points to your ext. HD should play just fine.
Or, you can copy all your music to your ext. HD (if you don't already have it there), and simply delete your iTunes library (by removing your data files). You could then add to library, making sure you uncheck "copy itunes songs to music folder). This way, iTunes will only "point" to your ext. drive to play the music. If the drive isn't on, you don't get any music, and the "!" sign. If you have many playlists, this can be tricky.
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ITunes cannot find music files, confuses inodes, external drive

I have all my music on an external drive, which is not always connected to the Mac. When I start iTunes w/o the hdd connected iTunes occasionally marks some of the songs as not found. Which is ok so far. BUT if it finds the same inode (of the original file on the external hdd) on the internal hdd it changes the location of the songs to the internal hdd. In my case to files like /Previous System/<some path>/Info.plist. So iTunes thinks the files are still there and cannot play them. After deleting all the Previous Systems files iTunes marks all those files as not found, that is, it does not search for the inode on the external hdd again. Very confusing.
Yesterday I started from scratch with an empty iTunes Library (I moved the original one) and the problem reoccurred instantly after I imported all my music, quit iTunes, disconnected the external HDD and started iTunes again. So some of my songs are lost, iTunes will never find them again w/o me reimporting them. Also the problem might occur anytime in the future and I seem to not be able to cure it, because iTunes tried to be intelligent. But how it can confuse inodes w/o looking at the device ID and why the songs did not return after I removed the /Previous Systems folder I cannot image.
I checked the inodes on the internal and external hdd for some of the songs and they were indeed identical. So iTunes seems reset the path/location in the Library DB if it can find the inode of a song which it cannot find by path. Why it does not look at the device id in combination with the inode# is a mystery.
Some additional details:
iTunes Music Folder Location: on external hdd
The Library files are on the internal hdd at ~/Music/iTunes.
I hope someone can answer that. I do not want to start from scratch every week. I hope my iPod which holds all the songs synchs meta info like play count and rating back as well.
Kind regards, soryu2.

And further....
I went into iTunes to try to download all my purchased music. Some, but not all, is showing up under iTunes>iTunes Media>Music. It looks like the library thinks some if the music is there, but it actually is not.
Seems like my library is corrupted (or something).
Since I have to upload all music from CD anyway, should I delete my iTunes library and start over, first by downloading all purchased music.

Moved music to external Hard Drive. Now Itunes cant find Music

Moved my Itunes to an external hard drive and went through preferences in Itunes with the location. However, when I click on the music, Itunes cannot play and I have to manually link the library to the song to the new location. I have over 300 songs in Itunes as well as videos and photos.
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Thanks

If you moved the files then you have to re-link the files. Using iTunes to move the files would maintain the links.
This article gives the details.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305451

I cant find music files on my Ipod

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Hi,
To transfer all the songs from the computer to the iPod shuffle and then to a new computer, first determine the amount of space taken by all the songs.
Then connect the iPod shuffle to the old computer and in iTunes Prefrences click on the iPod and check "Enable Disk Use" and slide the slider to the Right side to increase the size.
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Itunes cannot find music files

I know I've seen this problem before but can't remember the solution. When attempting to play an Itunes song I get a box saying "song could not be used because the original file could not be found". I've checked under advanced for the proper music folder location and that is correct. Could someone help me again.
Thanks in advance.
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If you hold down the option key when you open iTunes you should be able to point it to the library that you want to open.
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I can't get my music to play in my itunes. It comes with a exclamation mark next to the song numbers and says that the original songs can't be played cause cant find the file. How do I get the songs back? (I found the files)

I can't get my music to play in my itunes. It comes with a exclamation mark next to the song numbers and says that the original songs can't be played cause cant find the file. How do I get the songs back? (I found the files

You get exclamation marks or dead tracks because iTunes can’t find the file. This can happen for a number of reasons:
The song file or a folder in its path was renamed
The song file or the folder it is in has been moved
The song file has been deleted
The device containing the song files e.g. external drive is not accessible or the drive letter has changed.
If you use an external drive, a change in drive letter is a common cause and you need to change it back.
AS a way of working out what has happened, right click on a track and select the summary tab (you will have to go past an error message). The summary tab will tell you where iTunes thinks the track is located. How does that compare with where the track actually is?
The xml library file is not used by iTunes, it is created to allow other programs to access the library. You can recreate the iTl file from the xml file, but there is no point if the location of the files is wrong.
There is a simple way of getting you music back in iTunes, but it loses all playlists counts and rating. To do this drag iTunes library.itl and iTunes Library.xml to your desktop. Then open iTunes and an empty library is created. Add you iTunes Media folder to it.
If you can't work out what went wrong and how to fix it, you may have to do this.

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I've purchased a song off itunes now itunes cant find the origianl file. Usually I just search for it in my file but now I can't find the music at all. How do I stop this from happening permenatly. I'm tired of searching for my songs in my files. HELP ME !!
Dell Windows XP

hMm me too!!! After iTunes updates my library, most of my songs have the error icon behind it. But, the songs are still in the same folder. And, my songs aren't bought from iTunes store.

My playlist appears in itunes, but the music files have mysteriously disappeared in my iTunes Media file. Is there a way to recover them? Tried searching and cannot find them.

My playlist appears in itunes, but the music files have mysteriously disappeared from my iTunes Media file. Is there a way to recover them? Tried searching and cannot find them.

This page might help: http://support.creative.com/kb/ShowArticle.aspx?sid=44083
Older Zens don't support AAC, which is the format iTunes uses for songs.
You can convert from AAC to MP3, which every media player under the sun will play. Here's a tutorial: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-12519_7-10096807-49.html

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Are you just looking through the main library?
My videos never show up under the main library anymore.
They just show up under the movie or tv show headers.

ITunes wont recognize music files

Windows 7
Dell Inspiron PC
Much to my regret, I moved music files and now itunes cant find them. They are simply transparent to itunes; not listed in the songs list. I tried to change the iTunes advanced settings for file location to no avail.
I managed to find most of the music files on my C drive using Windows Explorer. When I click and play the music directly from WE, itunes launches and the song magically becomes part of the itunes library list of songs. I have over 3,000 songs ...is there a simple way to get itunes to recognize all of them without a set of clicks.
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Open iTunes to Music view. Then find the folder of songs and drag it into the open Music window.
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i have lost almost everything on my itunes some how; it keeps saying cant locate file and asks me if i want to locate them?? i didnt know they were moved to be able to even begin looking for the files

no its a new internal hdd, though the fix may be the same? cant see why it would be different both run through the mobo just different conectors and a hdd with no operating system installed, which i,m guessing is the reason itunes cant find my music in windows on the c drive, cos it aint there!!!

Itunes 'lost' my music files

This appears to be the result of a problem while I was syncing my iPod. During a standard syncing process, it appeared that iTunes was pulling music files from a location on a home server that I didn't want. I stopped the sync process and most of my music and all my playlists have now disappeared.
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Are you saying that there is no music on your iPod and in your iTunes library on your computer?
- Try resetting the iPOd. Nothng is lost
Reset iPod touch: Hold down the On/Off button and the Home button at the same time for at
least ten seconds, until the Apple logo appears.
- Reboot the computer
- Redownload iTunes purchases by:
Downloading past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore, and iTunes Store
- iTunes: Finding lost media and downloads

Help!!! My iTunes cant find my iPod

Hey,
Im starting my iTunes but my iTunes cant find my iPod so i cant put music on my iPod i reinstalled my iPod i reinstalled my iTunes updated and everything but my iTunes just cant find my iPod :S
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greets Wesley

I am having the same problem, when i go my ipod a week ago everything worked fine then when i tried to put on some more music this morning iTunes didn't recognize the ipod when I connected it. I have uninstalled and reinstalled everything (ipod and itunes) twice now and it still dosen't work. The iPod shows up in my computer as a removable drive but it dosen't come up in iTunes and the iPod updater both don't recognize it. I have don eeverything in that one article about it but nothing has worked
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jeremiah

Itunes cant find music files

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