ITunes keeps losing my library every 2-3 days!

iTunes keeps losing my library every 2-3 days. Completely erasing all songs and playlists. This is incredibly annoying and forces me to redo it all AGAIN.
Any way for me to solve this problem?

Empty/corrupt library after upgrade/crash
Hopefully it's not been too long since you last upgraded iTunes, in fact if you get an empty/incomplete library immediately after upgrading then with the following steps you shouldn't lose a thing or need to do any further housekeeping. Note that in iTunes 11 an "empty" library may show your past purchases with links to stream or download them.
In the Previous iTunes Libraries folder should be a number of dated iTunes Library files. Take the most recent of these and copy it into the iTunes folder. Rename iTunes Library.itl as iTunes Library (Corrupt).itl and then rename the restored file as iTunes Library.itl. Start iTunes. Should all be good, bar any recent additions to or deletions from your library.
Alternatively, depending on exactly when and why the library went missing, there may be a more recent .tmp file in the main iTunes folder that can be renamed as iTunes Library.itl to restore the library to a recent state. Look for a recent .tmp file that is similar in size to the .itl files in the Previous iTunes Libraries folder. If it has happened repeatedly you may want the earliest such file generated since the last iTunes upgrade.
If applicable, see iTunes Folder Watch for a tool to catch up with any changes since the backup file was created.
When you get it all working make a backup!
Should you be in the unfortunate position where you are no longer able to access your original library, or a backup of it, then see Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device.
I've noticed more of these missing library posts of late and a common factor to most since I started asking is AVG Anti-Virus. It seems in some cases it might be at least part of the reason why the library file disappears. Try excluding the iTunes folder from any AV scanning process.
tt2

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ITunes keeps losing my library

Hi folks! I just added a time capsule to my home and moved my itunes library to it from my 2011 iMac. Every time I close and openTunes it asks were the library is located, what gives? Thanks in advance for the help!!

That's the problem with using networked drives, they have to be turned on, fully mounted and awake when iTunes starts or you have to restart iTunes with the option key held down and guide it to the library.itl file in the iTunes folder on the external. Make sure the Time Capsule is on and fully awake before starting iTunes.
By the way, if using the Time Capsule for backup, it is a bad idea to keep your iTunes library on it too. What happens when the Time Capsule drive fails (it will some day, unexpectedly)? Where's your backup for your library?

Itunes keeps losing my library on an external hard drive

Several issues of which I can find no answers.
I have 600 CDs I have ripped. Due to space constraints, I have them all on an external hard drive. I can view all the contents of the hard drive through Windows. Yet when I click the song in Itunes library, Itunes can't find any of them. If I open up the song through windows, Itunes displays a duplicate song title in the library, and plays that, but no others. I've tried restarting Itunes with the external hard drive on. I've tried restarting the computer with the external hard drive on. I've verified my "Itunes Music Folder Location". When my Ipod syncs, it deletes EVERYTHING, since Itunes can't find these files. Every time I want to add a CD to my Ipod, I have to re "add folder to library" for 600 cds worth of music. This takes days to accomplish, after Itunes analyzes song volumes. Then I have to manually upload album art because about 80% of the CDs I have, Itunes can't find it. It takes me about 3 days of hard processor crunching and adding album art just to sync my Ipod to add a new CD.

I had the same problem. I had to move my iTunes and all my music from my main HD to an external. Even when I pointed iTunes to the external HD it messed up the whole lot. It said that it couldn't find any of my tracks and there where (at the time about 9,800) so I wasn't too chuffed. The only way I could get round it was to delete iTunes from my main HD and reinstall it on the external HD. That has worked for me. I am not saying it will work for everyone. Thankfully I haven't had a problem since, plus I've backed up my external to DVD's just in case.

ITunes KEEPS losing my library, it's insane!

Gah! I'm HATING iTunes right now, and I'm a die hard-mac user!
Every single day, I'll start up itunes, all will be well.. I'll hit quit.. A few minutes later, I'll open it again, and oh! iTune slibrary corrupt!
It's driving me nuts...
I'm doing backups every day now. A few minutes ago, it crashed, I restrored it, all was fine, I shut it off, I reopened it, and it was corrupt! What the heck!? I'm going nuts here guys, does anyone have an answer?
I'm on 10.4.8, using iTunes 7.0.2.. Surely there's a solution to this, right?

Surely there's a solution to this, right?
I'm tended to say "Yes", but it depends on the cause of the troubles you're having.
A corrupted library ('iTunes Library' file) can have a few causes.
When you quit iTunes, it still will be busy for a number of seconds (depending on your library size), writing a new 'iTunes Library' file.
Any interruption will cause this operation to be incomplete and cause a corrupted library.
You also might have problems on your HD, which usually can be repaired using Disk Utility.
I would suggest running DU from your Tiger (OS X 10.4) install disk and verify/repair the HD first using the instructions at 'Try Disk Utility' in this article.
M
17' iMac 800 MHz, 768 MB RAM, 200 GB HD, DL burner Mac OS X (10.4.8) iTunes 7.0.2

Help! iTunes keeps losing library on Vista

Just changed my laptop from XP to Vista
I installed the iTunes, but No matter how I import songs or list, the library and the list keeps losing when I restart the iTunes. Believe me I have reinstalled the itunes and everythng.
I didnt just import the list from my old computer but I did drag and drop and make lists again manually!
Anyone knows how I can fix this?
Thanks in advance.

Not sure from your post, but if the file or folder was read-only, then you need to change this attribute FIRST.
Once corrected, any future changes you make within iTunes should be kept and reflected the next time you open iTunes.
iTunes needs to write the Library files to your PC when iTunes closes, so it can read them the next time you open iTunes.
Test this by making some changes to your Library (i.e. - re-import it). Make one simple playlist. Close iTunes. Then re-open iTunes. If your Library reflects the changes you just made, you may have solved your issue.
Best of Luck

ITunes keeps losing library

I went on iTunes last night after charging my iPod to add new music to it and iTunes lost my current library I was using. My library hadn't been updated since September and the option I had was to create a new one or use an existing one so I went with an existing one dated from September. I have made 3 purchases and now my "purchase" folder isn't appearing. I uninstalled iTunes and deleted the "iTunes" folder off my computer removing everything altogether. I just reinstalled iTunes and I logged onto my account hoping I would be able to see my purchase folder but it's not there. How can I get my purchase folder to appear again and by the way I created a new folder for iTunes once it was installed and made a new library for my music. I hope this is enough information to give you an idea on the trouble I am having. thanks

You've got several issues going on here!
+now it's saying I need to download Quicktime player which is already installed+
Since itunes absolutely depends on a good QuickTime installation to play content, maybe you should get that fixed first.
Download and install the QT standalone while iteuns is closed. Do you still get some error about QT, after installing the QT standalone?
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/
Make sure to get the version WITHOUT itunes.
+when I tried to open iTunes it said the library was un found and I needed to make a new one. is there anyway around this?+
Try a shift-start of itunes. Press *AND HOLD* the shift key while starting itunes until you get the prompt asking to choose a library.
Browse to melissa/music/itunes and choose the iTunes Library.itl file that is there.

ITunes keeps losing track of music on my external hard drive.

I keep "new" music on my laptop and my vast library of "old" music on an external harddrive ('cause there's not nearly enough space on my laptop...and not enough remaining space on my ext. harddrive to put all the music there either). iTunes is good about finding the music on the hard drive some of the time, (especially after I delete all the music and then re-introduce it to iTunes...this all takes forever and then I have to laboriously, manually delete duplicates etc.) but other times, seemingly at random, it suddenly can't find the harddrive music at all...and once, after losing the harddrive for a week, just as I was about to rebuild the whole libraray...again, iTunes magically re-found all the music...I have no idea why or how...it was just working once more. I know to have the harddrive up and running before turning on the iTunes (believe me I've tried and tried to trouble shoot this on my own). And I've tried a couple of the suggestions offered to other posts, but since I have 2 music sources, I can't do the "hold the shift while starting iTunes and name a library trick" and another suggestion of merely highlighting all the files, clicking "get info" and then restarting iTunes didn't work either because "get info" merely offers me the option to edit the files not find their source.
Thanks in advance for any advice!

hi waltm!
it's a user-to-user troubleshooting forum:
What is Apple Discussions?
you might have a bit more luck if you post over in one of the iTunes fora, like:
Using iTunes for Windows
love, b

Why does my iPad keep losing the wifi every few minutes?

Why does my iPad keep losing the wireless connection every few minutes?

Could be
1 the routers firmware require an Update
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HT1451 iTunes keeps losing music and playlists

I am running the latest version of itunes on my XP machine, and upon opening it, my library was missing 2/3 of my music and all of my playlists were gone. I reimported all my music from the File/Libary/Import Directories function inside iTunes. I then used a product called TouchCopy to copy all my Playlists from my iPod back to iTunes. I opended and closed it several times to see that it remained unchamged. I opened iTunes again a couple hours later and it was back to the way it was, missing 2/3 of my music and all of my Playlists. I fixed it twice and it keeps happening after a certain unknown amount of time. I also unimstalled and reinstalled iTunes in between, and it still happened again. Any ideas what is wrong?

Empty/corrupt library after upgrade/crash
Hopefully it's not been too long since you last upgraded iTunes, in fact if you get an empty/incomplete library immediately after upgrading then with the following steps you shouldn't lose a thing or need to do any further housekeeping. Note that in iTunes 11 an "empty" library may show your past purchases with links to stream or download them.
In the Previous iTunes Libraries folder should be a number of dated iTunes Library files. Take the most recent of these and copy it into the iTunes folder. Rename iTunes Library.itl as iTunes Library (Corrupt).itl and then rename the restored file as iTunes Library.itl. Start iTunes. Should all be good, bar any recent additions to or deletions from your library.
Alternatively, depending on exactly when and why the library went missing, there may be a more recent .tmp file in the main iTunes folder that can be renamed as iTunes Library.itl to restore the library to a recent state.
See iTunes Folder Watch for a tool to catch up with any changes since the backup file was created.
When you get it all working make a backup!
Should you be in the unfortunate position where you are no longer able to access your original library, or a backup of it, then see Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device.
AVG AntiVirus is one possible suspect in this matter. If you have AVG you should download the latest patch. Try excluding the iTunes folder from any AV scanning process. I'd be interested to know which AV package you use to see if others may also occasionally interfere with the library files.
tt2

ITunes keeps losing its connection with my iPhone 5 - anyone else seeing this?

Hi
UK iPhone 5 user here - iMac with Mountain Lion.
iTunes sporadically keeps losing its view of my iPhone 5 which I have set to sync over wi-fi (Apple Extreme Base Station)
I know it will redetect it once I lightning connect it back in but isn't the point of wifi sync is so you DON'T have to do that.
Doesn't seem to retain much memory of the connection.
Anyone seeing this? Or know why?
Cheers

I have this happen to me all the time. I have an iPhone 4, iPhone 5, and iPad 2 all set to sync through wifi to my iMac. At any given time, one or more of them will drop from the list of devices.
The easiest and most reliable way for me to get around it is to turn wifi off on my iMac, wait a second, and then turn it back on. The missing device suddenly reappears 99% of the time. For the other 1%, I also have to quit and restart iTunes. This is much faster than rebooting the device, which is what I was doing until I learned of the Mac wifi toggle tip.

ITunes Keeps Erasing Entire Library

Hello,
Since the most recent iTunes update, my iTunes has started to erase my entire library. I have re-imported all of my music, books, videos, ringtones and TV shows back into iTunes at least 20 times, only for iTunes to dump the lot the next time I open the software.
I have tried to resolve this by uninstalling iTunes and reinstalling 3 times to no avail. I am at a complete loss as to why this is happening.
I am running Microsoft Security Essentials and Windows Firewall.
Any advice on a resolution to this would be sincerely appreciated.

Have you worked through the following document in the course of your troubleshooting to date, scott?
[iTunes creates an empty library file in Windows|http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2715]

ITunes keeps losing library location

ok, so I moved all my tracks to my timecapsule - have pointed iTunes at the location multiple times, but every time I restart it I have to locate the library again.
Am on latest version of iTunes & it is driving me nuts now. I want my iTunes to just work - don't want to have to keep telling it where to look every time & want all my music on my timecapsule (due to amount!).
I also seem to lose random amounts of music that I've paid for & dl to my iPhone - even though I have it set to sync to iCloud and it seems to do this - yes never appears properly in iTunes - what the heck?!
What do I need to do?!

The external drive has to be fully mounted before starting iTunes. I don't have experience with a TC but from reading other posts here, storing items on networked drives can prove uncertain as to whether or not they can be detected by iTunes at times once a component has gone to sleep and woken up again. There may be workarounds depending upon the exact circumstances. Some people have ensured connecting with a NAS by putting it in their Login items in System preferences. You might be able to come up with some sort of script that makes sure the TC is fully recognizable, then starts iTunes.

ITunes keeps "losing" the filepaths to my library.

My friend had an external hard drive on her computer, and every time she disconnected it, iTunes would lose her songs. So we copied all of her music to her hard drive, and put it in her iTunes folder. Everything was fine; all the file paths were correct, and she could successfully update her iPod and play the music in her iTunes. This was Monday night.
Today, she turned on her iTunes, and there were exclamation marks next to more than half of her songs. The other night, when she clicked on the first file to "locate" it on the computer for iTunes, she could then just click on the next file with an exclamation mark, and iTunes would find that file immediately (meaning, she wouldn't have to guide iTunes through each folder to show it where the music file was). But today, when she clicks on the exclamation marks, she has to guide iTunes to each individual file.
Why did iTunes lose the paths in the first place? We haven't moved any of the music files. And is there anything we can do short of reassigning the file paths for each individual song? Because I don't want to do that for 1000 songs, and then tomorrow, have a bunch of exclamation marks again. For the record, she's using iTunes version 7 (which she JUST put on her computer in the last month or so).

Close all Apps and see if Activity Monitor shows any processes runnung.
Not that I think this is the cure but have you tried these resets:
SMC RESET
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
Shut down the computer.
Unplug the computer's power cord and ALL peripherals.
Wait 15 seconds.
Attach the computers power cable.
Wait another 5 seconds and press the power button to turn on the computer.
The 5 second timing is important to a successful reset.
PRAM RESET
Zap the PRAM
Shut down the computer.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.

Why does iTunes keep reseting my library?

This is the second time this has happened: everything will be working fine (as fine as iTunes 7 can) and then I'll wake up one morning and BAM! - all the songs and delightfully crafted smart playlists will be gone, replaced by no songs and the default playlists iTunes gives you. The music files aren't gone from my hard drive, just the ratings, play counts, date added and last played data and all that stuff iTunes takes care of. I wouldn't be so frustrated, but my smart playlists are either based on the songs' ratings, play counts or how recently they were added.
Last time I had to manually rip them from my iPod using one of those ripping programs (thanks to Apple's refusal to allow iPod to PC synchronising) which took me ages because I'm too stingy to pay for the registered version and had to keep clicking a "buy me" notice every 50 of 3500 songs, as well as changing the date on the computer so the 'date added' data wouldn't be too out of whack.
After the last time this happened I backed up the library xml file, but that was in early October and since then I've added several hundred songs, and it looks like I'll have to do the same procedure again to get back my data. So, is there any way to prevent this from ever happening again? Or, why does this happen to my library at all?

It keeps happening to mine as well. Honestly I think it's something that iTunes (or Apple) does if they find out you haven't been paying over 200 dollars for songs from them. I read an artical about that as well. It doesn't help that when I e-mailed the staff about this, they sent me an e-mail back basically saying: If you bought our songs, then we can return them to you... if not, then it ***** to be you.

Moved media to TC. Now itunes keeps changing default library location

I realize this might be better suited in the iTunes discussion forum however...
I recently purchased a time capsule and moved all my media to the new drive. I changed the default library location in preferences. Problem is, every time I quit and relaunch iTunes, the default library location reverts back to my old location on my mac. Any ideas how I can get iTunes to remember my new default location? It's as if it's picking up a location file somewhere that is telling it to create a new library on my mac's hard drive.
Thanks for any input.

I don't have a TC but I also keep my iTunes library on an external Firewire drive and the following is the behaviour. Maybe it's so for you too:
• When the firewire drive is mounted on the desktop and I open iTunes, iTunes will link back to the library on the firewire drive.
• When the firewire drive is unmounted and I open iTunes, iTunes preferences will revert the library to default back to the internet drive.
• BUT, when I remount the firewire drive, and open iTunes again (after it's been closed), iTunes preferences will automatically go back to linking the library on the firewire drive.
So in short: when unmounted, iTunes links music library to the original default which is the internal drive. When mounted, iTunes will automatically relink music back to the firewire drive.
Does it work like so for iTunes on Time Capsule?

ITunes keeps losing my library every 2-3 days!

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