ITunes damaged library leads to thousands of missing songs

Ok, so my itunes library decided that it wanted to become damaged, then when I go to rebuild the library, it only imported about 500 songs of the close to 2 thousand before. So I went into my external drive where I keep the song files, and discovered that almost all of them were missing. I even checked in the trash with no luck. Any ideas how I could find these, or somehow the restore huge investment of my library?
Thank You Very Much!

http://www.prosofteng.com/ is one piece of software (not free, none of them are), but you can Google. They all search a drive for deleted files and try to recover them (to a different drive, of course).
For rebuilding the library, it was basically just re importing all of the songs
The ones it could still find on the eHD, right? 500 or so?
It is very important you don't write to the eHD from now on, or you could easily overwrite the areas where your music files still are.

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Itunes damaged library file

My itunes has been working reasonably well but I have had many issues with it crashing over the last year or so. I just got a Sonos device and after having problems with indexing my songs the support guy looked through my itunes folder with me and we found a load of library files as follows:
itunes library (Damaged)   Created 15 Sep 2012, modified and last opened 16 Sep 2012
itunes Library Extras.itdb   Created 16 Sep 2012, modified and last opened today
itunes library genius.itdb   Created 16 Sep 2012, modifed and last opened 8 Dec 2012
itunes library.itl               Created 8 December 2012, modifed and last opened today
itunes library.xml             Created, modified and last used 15 October 2008
itunes music library.xml    Created 18 May 2009, modified and last used today
We moved all of these files up a level to the music folder, which didn't help with Sonos, and the support guy at Sonos then suggested I 'Reset' my itunes folder location in the Preferences.
THe issue with Sonos was that it was picking up some but not all of the songs and I couldn't see any sort of pattern to it. The number of songs I have is fine and there is very little if any DRM left in there.
It looks as though I need to do something to sort out these library files but I'd prefer to get some guidance from you guys on this forum.
Any thoughts?
Thanks
David

All these files should reside in ~/Music/iTunes. You don't need the damaged file, or the iTunes library.xml file. That is an old library file as yu can see from the date. One troubleshooting step that sometimes helps me is to delete the iTunes Music Libray.xml file and let iTunes rebuild it. Although I'm not really sure it will help in your situation.
The other question I would ask is about the format of the music that isn't bring found by the Sonos device. Are you sure it works with the files that aren't bring recognized?
I'm afraid I don't have a lot of input beyond that, though.

HT1329 My computer has crashed totally. I have a new computer and on downloading itunes my library populated but with hundreds of songs missing. My library and itouch are out of sync with more songs on my itouch is there a way to resolve this situation?

My computer has totally crashed with my latest itunes library. I have a new computer and on downloading itunes my library automatically populated but there are hundreds of songs missing and multiple duplicates. So now my itouch is up to date but my itunes library has regressed to an earlier version so if I sync I will lose hundreds of songs from my itouch is there any way to sync my itouch to my itunes library?

See these 2 User Tips...
Syncing to a New Computer...
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3141
Recovering your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3991

Itunes damaged library - Help!

Hello Everyone, my itunes library doesn't recognize my library anymore when it starts up and says the library is damaged and renamed. It then creates a new library which is blank. Is there any way to recover my library?
Thanks!

Time Machine is a Mac OS X Leopard backup utility. Basically, it creates backups of your machine on an hourly/daily/weekly basis. You're running a Windows box, but if you do any sort of backup on your machine, you may be able to use the same fix I've just recommended.
Query: just what, exactly, was mistakenly deleted? The "iTunes Music Library" isn't really = all your music files. It's really just a database that tells iTunes where to find your music files (your songs) on your hard drive. Most of the people posting in this thread have a corrupted library file, but their songs are still on their hard drive and (assuming that they can't fix the problem the way I did) they can fix the problem with a brute force approach:
delete the library file (but NOT the folder of songs on the hard drive). delete iTunes. reinstall iTunes. Run iTunes and then use the "Add to Library" command in the File menu to rebuild the Library file from scratch: in the dialog box, navigate to the folder where you keep your music.
Your message, however, implies that you have a different problem from the other people in this thread. Have you deleted just the library file or did you accidently delete all your music files (all your songs)? If you did delete your songs, it IS possible to recover all your music from your iPod, but it requires a non-Apple utility. (Apple designed the iPod/iTunes interface to make it difficult to move music off an iPod onto a computer, I think because of concerns about music piracy.) There are lots of utilities out there which enable one to recover music from an iPod. Do a Google search for "recover music from ipod" (no quotes) and you'll see a lot of options.

Itunes Movie Library: Information about the movie missing.

Hi.
I have this problem in itunes 11.
I've added a couple of movies to my Itunes 11 Library and added subtitles for the movies using Isubtitle.
The first of about 10 movies shows info about the title aswell as: resume, genre, producers, actors, directors, & the year of release.
While the next 9 movies only shows: Title, genre, resume, and year of release.. What happened to the info about the actors and directors?
I did the same process as with the first one: Adding subtitles aswell as adding the info about the movie from Isubtitle.
Is there anyway that i can add it myself in Itunes 11?
Thank you in advance
- Pallisgaard

I would think so to, but when I compare them, they are exactly the same.
But it ends up like this:

I accidentally added a folder to iTunes music library and now all of my songs are in there twice. How do I delete the folder/music i just imported?

I added a folder accidentally to my iTunes library and now all of the songs are in there twice. I tried to stop the import but it transferred too quickly. How do I delete all those songs without having to click on each one to delete?

Apple's official advice on duplicates is here... HT2905: How to find and remove duplicate items in your iTunes library. It is a manual process and the article fails to explain some of the potential pitfalls such as lost ratings and playlist membership.
Use Shift > View > Show Exact Duplicate Items to display duplicates as this is normally a more useful selection. You need to manually select all but one of each group to remove. Sorting the list by Date Added may make it easier to select the appropriate tracks, however this works best when performed immediately after the dupes have been created. If you have multiple entries in iTunes connected to the same file on the hard drive then don't send to the recycle bin.
Use my DeDuper script if you're not sure, don't want to do it by hand, or want to preserve ratings, play counts and playlist membership. See this thread for background, this post for detailed instructions, and please take note of the warning
to backup your library before deduping.
(If you don't see the menu bar press ALT to show it temporarily or CTRL+B to keep it displayed.)
The most recent version of the script can tidy dead links as long as there is at least one live duplicate to merge stats and playlist membership to and should cope sensibly when the same file has been added via multiple paths.
tt2

Repeated itunes damaged library messages

I am having repeated issues with damaged itunes libary. It is intermittent. I can't seem to pin point what is causing it.
I have recreated the library - according to apple's instructions. But then the problem recurs.
It will always bring in my music libary - but then I have to re-customize my columns with the fields I want to see. It never brings in my apps - I always have to add the apps folder. And of course when I bring in the apps - I have to reset all the customizations again. This is very frustrating.
The one thing I have not done is reinstall itunes - but I suspect the problem is something with my libary or a setting that is affecting it.
Any ideas? Please help. This is driving me crazy!!
Ann

Thank you for responding!
Regarding saving a copy of the file - I have to make sure I do this after every add/change to the libary, right? Otherwise I lose any adds, correct?
As for the other ideas:
1. No temp files. But there is a hidden file called "sentinel". Not sure what that is.
All the other files are the damaged files (there are 11), itunes libary extras.itdb, itunes libary genius.itdb, itunes libary.itl and itunes music libary.xml.
2. iTunes is in the default location: music\iTunes
3. No external plugins installed per diagnostics. But I did get this list at the top of the diagnostics report:
Microsoft Windows 7 x64 Enterprise Edition (Build 7600)
LENOVO 4389AB8
iTunes 10.1.1.4
QuickTime 7.6.9
FairPlay 1.10.14
Apple Application Support 1.4.1
iPod Updater Library 10.0d2
CD Driver 2.2.0.1
CD Driver DLL 2.1.1.1
Apple Mobile Device 3.3.0.69
Apple Mobile Device Driver 1.52.0.0
Bonjour 2.0.3.0 (214.3)
Gracenote SDK 1.8.2.457
Gracenote MusicID 1.8.2.89
Gracenote Submit 1.8.2.123
Gracenote DSP 1.8.2.34
Are any of these widgets or plug-ins?
Thanks for any help you can provide.

ITunes damaged library

My computer shut down due to low battery... Now my entire music library is gone. There is a file that says iTunes library (damaged) but it will not open!
Any idea how to get my music back from the void?

You can find instructions here:
How to recreate your iTunes Library
Hope this helps.

TS2972 I can see the song titles in itunes shared library on my new imac but songs will not play. I have a pc with wifi network that the main music library is on. tried saving songs from pc to an external drive then to new mac but thats not working eithe

attempted to transfer itunes music from pc to new imac. didn't work. apple suggest using sharing method. main library of music is on pc. did those steps and shared library shows up on mac but when you click on the song to play it doesn't play or maybe ther is no content? any suggestions?

Hi there,
It sounds like your purchased content is not transfering via a flash drive. It may be easier to re-download this contnet directly from iTunes. Take a look at the article below for mor information.
Downloading past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore, and iTunes Store
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2519
-Griff W.

Another user with thousands of missing songs aqgain

Before I start, I've looked at the many threads related to this topic and none of them contain a good answer. I'm using the latest version of iTunes for Windows (11.0.a1.12) and subscribe to the iCloud. This has happened to me before and I spend hours, sometime days, manually locating each song.
This time around, I was running out of space on my C:\ drive and copied the entire iTunes Media Folder (90gb) to a 1TB external drive. This went fine and it is identical to the original which is located under Users\Owner\Music\iTunes. All of the folders are there and all of the music is organized by track/album/artist just like in the default location. All of the songs are physically there also. Then, I went to Edit Preferences / Advanced in iTunes and changed the location of the iTunes Media Location.
As you can guess, iTunes can no longer find about 50% of the songs (I'd understand it if it were 100%). I can do the manual locate 1 by 1 which takes forever. Reseting the location of the iTunes Media folder back to the original doesn't even work - the songs are still "unlocatable". Sometimes I can restore from the Cloud, sometimes not. The latest thing I did was to delete all my songs and File/Import the entire iTunes Music folder from the new location. As expected, I have hundreds of duplicates - one being playable and the other not found.
Does anybody know why iTunes cannot locate songs when they are phsically there and if there is a way to force it to actually go the the location specified and look? Also, is there any way to delete duplicate names en mass? Even if you could sort by the exclamation point (cannot find symbol), it would help.
With all of the stuff in the new iTunes, the application is still a mess as far as common Windows related maintenance functions go. I wonder if these problems abound on the Mac platform.
Thanks

Another point - after the mass Import, the song names displayed in iTunes are the same as the contents of my new library location excepting there are duplicates and the the tracks are "unlocateable" for playing.

ITunes data transfer from old HD is missing songs

I replaced the HD on my iMac. The old HD was OK but I didn't want to take chances. I used super duper to transfer the old data to the new HD prior to replacing it. After replacing the HD I loaded SL and then transferred the data and apps over from the old HD using migration assistant. Now I get random error messages everytime I open iTunes. They say ' "Song Name" is not authorized on this computer'. If I go to authorize the computer it tells me that this computer is already authorized for this Apple ID. Now several of my purchased songs are not showing up ["Song Name" Can not be found] and it seems to find more songs to have a problem with every time I open iTunes. Is this a data transfer error? Old iTunes ID error? Thanks!

Sounds like the data simply did not transfer.
If you still have access to the old hard drive, copy the ENTIRE iTunes folder from the old drive to the new drive.

Recently added movies not showing in iTunes 11 library.

Hi - I have just converted a movie via Handbrake as usual, added it to iTunes as usual ; but it does not appear in the Movies LIbrary on the iMac. I saw the progress bar that said it was copying etc.
What is strange, I can see it via AppleTV; but not in the iTunes on the computer.
So summat is up, this is the first time I have actually added something to my library since the dreaded iTunes 11 upgrade.
Any help will be appreciated.
Thanks

I also had this problem after upgrading and this is what I did to fix it.
I belived the issue to caused by the iTunes Library.itl file found in (username) > Music > iTunes, since the iTunes Music Library.xml file contained the missing videos. I moved the iTunes Library.itl file to my Desktop and relunched iTunes. iTunes was now blank. Then I went to File > Library > Import Playlist... I then selected the iTunes Music Library.xml. This brought back all the music and videos, including the missing ones.
I also had to grab the Mobile Applications, Books and Tones folders from Finder and drag them back into iTunes as the iTunes Music Library.xml doesn't contain info about those. Not sure if you need to drag in the Podcasts folder as well since I don't have any podcasts at the moment.
I have been able to add new videos since and it works fine. This is a really tedious issue so I hope to not have to do it again.
(Note: you could also just create a new iTunes library (hold option when launching on mac, hold shift on windows) and add in the content to the new library. Make sure to delete the old library when finished.)

Japanese text is gibberish in iTunes Music library

Hello,
Problem is: Songs w/Japanese text (Kanji, Kana) as artists and/or title names look like gibberish in my iTunes Music library (viewing songs on the hard drive).
On a new WinXP PC I loaded iPod+iTunes from CD on computer. Songs play fine in iTunes. Japanese text looks fine in Windows\My Music folder. Japanese text looks fine in iPod device. With iPod connected to PC, I can view my iPod songs inside the iTunes window and the Japanese songs text Kanji looks great. (Yet if I look at same songs located on the PC using the iTunes program, they look bad).
I removed iTunes from PC, then downloaded it from the Japan Apple.com site; no change in problem. Help!
Window's settings are:
--WinXP is US English, Control Panel region is US English, Window's Far East language support is enabled. but language for non-Unicode programs is Japanese (other Japanese software looks fine), Japanese IME is enabled
-- Internet Explorer's Language Preferences is set for Japanese 1st, English 2nd.
Thanks in advance!
Erin W

I tried the "convert ID3 tags >> Reverse Unicode" option on a few songs. It only caused the gibberish song names and titles to change to different gibberish.
The odd thing is that I have some songs that had english in some ID3 tags (such as "name") and Japanese in other ID3 tags (such as "artist") and for those, the Japanese text looks great. And yet some song text doesn't.
I tried deleting a few songs from the iTunes Music library, then click-and-drag the songs from Windows' My Music folder into the iTunes program. It adds it back with the Japanese text still unreadable, same as before.
I don't know what else to do. I've searched the discussions database here and found instances of the same problem but no fixes.
Thanks for the help though, and I'd be glad to see any other ideas.
Erin

Syncing itunes music library to iphone 4s

I have recently upgraded from an iphone 3gs to an Iphone 4s. I have successfully transferred all my apps, data etc to the new phone but my itunes music library will not sync. The songs are showing in my music, but 90% of them are greyed out and some tracks are duplicated!. I have tried removing itunes from my pc (I have windows xp by the way!) and re-installing it. this has not worked. I have tried 'downloads' from itunes from my phone and this has frozen on the first track saying download error. I have phoned Apple support where i spent over 2 hours (on 2 occassions) trying to sort the issue out and it still doesn't work. Please help I am getting very frustrated and don't know what to do next, surely its not meant to be this difficult to listen to a song!!! Thankyou

If you check the manually manage music box, tehn you could drag and drop.
iPhone User Guide (For iOS 5.1 Software)

My music library seems corrupted. Nearly every song (431 albums) displays "the song ... could not be used because the original file cannot be found". Is there any way to correct this? Please help, thanks, Kelly

Almost my entire itunes music library seems corrupted. Nearly every song (431 albums) displys "the song ... cannot be used because the original file cannot be found". Is there any way to correct this? Please help!
thanks,
kelly61

Select one of the songs in question and right click, then select "Get Info". On the main dialog page you should see where iTunes thinks the file resides. Then use Windows Explorer to see if the file is actually there. If not, find out where your music is stored.If there is not a correlation between iTunes and reality, go into iTunes and delete all of the files which are not found. Then, in iTunes, select File->Add Folder to Library and select where the music is stored. iTunes will re-add all of the music into your library.

ITunes damaged library leads to thousands of missing songs

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