Itunes has lost all music file locations

Itunes has lost the location of ALL the music files in the library. I have not moved my files so I believe it may have happened when Itunes updated a few days ago. If this is the case, it is not very smart of the programmers! When I locate individual songs, Itunes only finds the other songs that are in the same subfolder, that leaves about 5000 files missing! I realise I can import my whole music folder but this will revert a lot of incorrect track information that I have manually edited over the months.
I would love some help as all the other posts seem to refer to slightly different problems and can never get around the problem of files being in various subfolders.
Thanks.

Hey Lhatcher1987,
That can definitely be stressful, but there's an article that can help you find the media you expected to appear in iTunes. I'd read through it and see if that helps you find the missing music:
iTunes: Finding lost media and downloads
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1408
All the best,
David

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Hi,
We have recently downloaded all our CDs into itunes to clear them out and have them successfully on our devices. I went to reorganise my music and change things and discovered that my music library looks like it is there but says cannot locate file. I have tried to search for the albums but they are nowhere. There is my most recent download and I can search for that and it plays but that is all. Please help...we no longer have the albums and have purchased a lot through itunes.
Thanks.

Hey Lhatcher1987,
That can definitely be stressful, but there's an article that can help you find the media you expected to appear in iTunes. I'd read through it and see if that helps you find the missing music:
iTunes: Finding lost media and downloads
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1408
All the best,
David

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My Windows PC has lost some music files I purchased in iTunes. If I try to use iTunes to restore them it just shows that they are already downloaded. How do I reclaim them?

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New version of ITunes installed - Not all music files are being recognized

My system crashed and Itunes was automatically 're-installed.' My music is located on my external hard drive. When I reconnected my music to ITunes about 3000 music files did not appear in my library. Before the re-install all music files were available in the library.
The music files are all still located on my external hard drive. Strangely, when I copied my music on my external hard drive to create yet another back up of my music many music files were missing on the copy. The missing files were a combination of downloaded music from a cd and purchased, no trend.
I welcome any advice on how I can get 1. my ITunes library to read all of my music files (which are in ITunes format) and 2. how do I copy all of my music on my external hard drive to make a safe back up (I-tunes back up is not an option because not all of the music appears in my library)
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See Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device.
tt2

I had to wipe my PC, now itunes has lost all my music?

Hi everyone (HELP) iphone 3gs
I had to wipe my PC I had backed up all my files to external harddrive, re loaded them on new PC and discovered when I plugged my iphone in to sync all my music files had dissapeared from itunes. itunes recognised my phone no probs when I plugged it in on new PC.
I thought everytime you plugged the iphone in it says it is making a backup of your phone if so how do I get it back (what really annoys me is that itunes in the first place took all my music file over and put it on to itunes if it hadn't of done this all my music would still be in my music folder outside of itunes).
Cruella Deauville

Hi
If I go into "my music" on the pc there is no music as itunes took it over.
there is an itunes folder but I can't access anything in it.
when you say did I restore itunes after the wipe how was I supposed to do that? I just plugged my phone in and it recognised it, its just that if you click on the music folders they are all empty, I didnt have all the music on my phone just some.
I don't ask itunes to backup my data I just noticed it says that's what it is doing just before it syncs.

ITunes has lost all my playlists!

...and Party Shuffle is missing as well (I presume since it has no playlists from which to shuffle as the pre-loaded pl's are also missing) but all the actual music seems to be intact. I think this happened after the second-to-last update- 7.4.3 has given me no problems other than it did not help iTunes restore my lists nor did it help me figure out how to do so. My iPod (5thG Video) is working fine and I can go indefinitely w/out syncing it- don't want to lose all my work on that as well- but if I can't convince iTunes that I have playlists, can it pull all that stuff off my iPod if necessary? I never find what I'm really looking for when I try to use the manual or articles....
TIA anyone with an idea about this!

I don't know if you've tried using the old library file - every time itunes is upgraded it saves the old library file in a separate folder. Maybe the new file got corrupted somehow? Although if you upgraded after you lost your playlists this might not work. The itunes playlists are saved in the library file, unless you exported them or recently made a CD backup of your itunes library. You can try this if you haven't already:
1. Close itunes and go into the itunes folder (usually my music>itunes) and look for the 'itunes library.itl' file. Move this onto your desktop. Leave the 'itunes music library.xml' file where it is.
2. Also in the itunes folder you should see a 'previous itunes libraries' folder - open this. You might only see one file; if you see more than one use the file from the date you noticed the problem. Copy this file into the itunes folder to replace the one you just moved, then change the name to just 'itunes library' or 'itunes library.itl'.
3. Try opening itunes now - you should see everything the way it was at the time of upgrading, but if itunes only saves the most recent library you may have lost the playlists ....:(
If there is another way to restore playlists I haven't found it yet - I lost my playlists about a month ago because I didn't know how the library file worked, and I was going between 7.4.3 and 7.3.2 and I must have overwritten the old library file. After that I found on the apple website how to do it correctly.
If that didn't work and you have a disc backup of your itunes you can try opening the contents of the discs in windows so you can see what files are on there, and look for a copy of your old library file and copy that into the itunes folder in step #2 instead. But don't restore from the backup discs in itunes if your music is still showing up - when I tried that I got duplicates of whatever music files were on the discs.
There is also a program called copytrans that you can use to copy the music and supposedly your playlists off your ipod back onto your computer, but I didn't have any luck with that; again I just got duplicates of my song files and not the playlists themselves. And the free version only does 100 songs at a time.
If I've learned anything from this experience, it's to save a copy of the library file before doing any updates because it's a lot easier than all this copying stuff - you just go under File>Export Library and save the file somewhere. Then if you have any problems you can just import that file and all your playlists will be restored.

ITunes has lost all my APP purchases and reset my library and playlists.

Well as above. I dont have any other username accounts. iTunes has had a breakdown and misplaced my entire library which is on my external hard drive, I havent lost the somgs just the location and all the metadata pertaining to it. Its a pain to reinstate it all but the most worrying part is that all of my APP purchases which I kept stored on iTunes are missing, which is a n awful lot of cash as they are mostly quite expensive music production and photography and film apps. How can I recover my metadata for iTunes and how do I restore all my APP purchases?

Ok I have trouble shooted the problem myself and found the culprit. For whatever reason iTunes had created a n entire different library next to my usual libray and was referring to that!? I removed it and iTunes and the app purchases are back to normal. Phew!

HELP, itunes has lost my music!!!!

Hey there, this is my first post soa any help is appreciated.
Today i opened up ITunes and I had no music??? no idea why, it was just not there. After this I then connected my ipod to my MAC and it said that my ipod was linked to another itunes. I tried to import my tunes off my ipod but can not do it as when i look on my ipod it does not show any music only the contact files etc. I also get an error message comes up every time i open itunes after connecting my ipod that says ' the itunes music libary file cannot be saved. an unknown error occured (-51).' then when you click ok and close the itunes window it the starts to bounce in the dock untill it is opened again and repeats the error message again.
Any ideas? where do I look for my music?

It sounds like your iTunes library file is corrupted. This file is located in (home)/Music/iTunes, it's called "iTunes Library" and contains the links to all your music files (but not the files themselves), your playlists, playcounts and ratings. Your music files most probably still remains on your hard drive (the default location is (home)/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music, but the library file that used to access it can't be used at the moment.
Try this to "revive" it:
- close iTunes
- go to (home)/Music/iTunes and drag "iTunes Library" and "iTunes Music Library.xml" file to the desktop.
- open iTunes, it will open to an empty library.
- now go File->import and select the "iTunes Music Library.xml" file from the desktop.
Does that restore your library?
If not, then you can download a 3rd party utility like iPod Access or senuti to transfer your library from your iPod to your computer (this can't be done using iTunes) and restore everything that way.
Let us know how it goes...
Sara.

My iTunes has lost all my apps

Hi,
I recently had my iTunes lost all my apps and podcasts. I don't know what happened, but as far as I know I plugged in my iPhone to sync and charge, and after an hour I came back and iTunes had no apps. Of course syncing my iPhone meant all the apps went from my phone. Any idea what could cause this?
Thanks
Boz

OK, I think I didn't make my original post clear. The files are on the PC, they're in my My Music folder (complete path as you describe).
So yes, I can drag and drop the apps into iTunes, and same with podcasts (although subscriptions are missing). And then do a restore to a backup prior to the mess up. I have done this now, however it means I've lost all app data between the backup and now. Including photos, messages, Apple app data.
Anyway, I've worked around the problem, what I want to know is, how did this happen? Why did iTunes suddenly lose all my apps and podcast subscriptions?
Could it happen again?
Boz

I lost all music files

Hi, I lost all my purchased songs because my hard disk was broken, how can I recover
Songs purchased?

If you didn't make a back-up of your purchases to restore from (as you are advised to do) then I'm sorry to say that the policy on lost purchases is that you have to pay to download them again:
"Once a Product is purchased and you receive the Product, it is your responsibility not to lose, destroy, or damage the Product, and Apple shall be without liability to you in the event of any loss, destruction, or damage." iTunes Store: Purchased content can be downloaded only once
You could try contacting iTunes Store Customer Service and you might be able to persuade them to sanction a second free download. There have been occasional reports in the iTunes forum of this happening, however just be aware that they are not under any obligation to do so. If you click on this link you'll be able to email your query: Customer Service - iTunes Store Support
If you have an iPod that still has any of your purchases on it you'll find details in this article on how to transfer them to the computer: Copying iTunes Store purchases from your iPod or iPhone to a computer
You might also want to check out these pages for future reference:
How to back up your media in iTunes
Back up your iTunes library by copying to an external hard drive

Um iTunes has 'lost' all my music - Any advice?

I was messing about with iTunes preferences the weekend and although the songs still exist within the iTunes application the folders containing the original MP3 files are empty, all that remains is the album artwork in some of them.
Its iTunes V9 on Windows Vista. I have Googled for the answer without any success. I cant restore from the iPod as its only a 4GB Nano. What the heck have I done????

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1451
Is the link with instruction on how to re create your libary. Good luck!

Somehow itunes has lost all my music

I havent logged in for a while and all my music is gone.

You can redownload them again without incurring additional charges. See this article:
Downloading past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore, and iTunes Store
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2519
If you are having difficulty downloading them, the itunes Customer Support should be able to assist you in reposting them back for you.
http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/contact/
Have a blessed New Year!

ITunes has lost all my music, playlists, ratings and preferences

My stuff is backed up on an external drive, but if I reload it and sync my iPod, I lose all playlists, ratings and so on. Any suggestions as to how (and if) I can get my old prefs, playlists, ratings, playcounts, etc. back? I turned off my computer in the evening, switched it on uneventfully in the morning, went to sync my iPod and was told that it was synced to another computer (not so). Checked iTunes and found that it was a clean slate.

You can redownload them again without incurring additional charges. See this article:
Downloading past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore, and iTunes Store
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2519
If you are having difficulty downloading them, the itunes Customer Support should be able to assist you in reposting them back for you.
http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/contact/
Have a blessed New Year!

Itunes has LOST my music

I just re-synced my ipod. and noticed I was some 1000 songs light. Now I have my files on an external HD and itunes, but keeps losing the library when it was kept there. so I moved the library the my mac book.
I Made sure the "move files to folders" was de-checked. It did some organizing of the library and now I have lots of empty folders with just the artwork in.
Where have all my songs gone? I have run file salvage, but they have not been delete, trash is empty, so where on earth has itunes banished them to?
Can anyone help?

Have you tried this: Select in iTunes one of the songs you can't find. Press Command-I. Go to the summary tab and look at the bottom where it says "Where:". That should tell you where the file is.
If for some reason the previous method doesn't work, you can try a search. Open Finder, Press Command-F, make sure This Mac and Contents are both selected, type the name of an artist in your library, and see what appears. If you see one of your songs, you can Control-Click it and select Open Enclosing Folder. Set Finder to Column View (Command-3), and look at where the files are. You can move the music to where it should be, if you want to. Note that if you move the music back, you'll have to tell iTunes the new location.
Hope this helps!
Nate

Itunes has lost all music file locations

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