ITunes Library exsists but is no longer detected

My "physical" library exsists. It's been sitting fine in my local computers hard drive in the music folder for ages. Never had a problem.
Then, I turned my computer off, went away, came back, turned it on, ready to sync some apps to my iPad, when iTunes tells me it needs a library to function. What the feck!?!
This makes no sense, nothing was done to my computer in between except for one boot into my Windows partition, and stright back to the Mac OS X.
My library is still in the Music folder on my local drives. Even after selecting the sub folder in the facility.
Honestly, if my iPad and iTunes were not required for my iPad and iPhone 4, I'd have dumped iTunes a long time ago.

Augh. No way do I feel like a restore. As hopeful as that sounds, it's way to much effort. I'm hoping for a less intrusively difficult method where I have to restore the whole backup. No thankye laddie.
I managed to get it working... Kinda. For whatever reason, the transfers purchases never works for me. It will start fine, and all of a sudden stop. And I have to keep clicking transfer purchases until it does each app. Sometimes it manages to download 2 or 3 and sometimes only 1 before it dry heaves and cuts out.
I then feathers and that got most of the updated apps across. I missed a couple. Guess I need to leave the iPad on a while to update again.
I don't backup my iPad much, it's different to my iPhone which I sync regularly. Not sure why apple thinks it's the bridge between laptops and desktops, much less kill them, if the **** thing still needs a PC to live.
Well, all seems to be 87% working. I'm tired and this took longer than what I wanted. All I wanted was to sync my updated apps and go to bed, and it became a typical iTunes experience. Sigh. Thanks a bunch.
I managed to work most things out as I went along. I have no idea why I made this post when it didn't take me long (or you for that matter) to work out a solution. Guess I was frustrated and tired.

Similar Messages

To restore my itunes library. but no songs will play. what next? i

i had backed up iTunes to external hard drive since i had to do a clean install on my computer. My os is windows vista.
I installed iTunes on my computer.
Then i copied the iTunes folder on the external hard drive to the music folder on my clean computer.
these are the steps i followed: iTunes: Back up your iTunes library by copying to an external hard drive
i followed these steps for
Restoring your iTunes Library backup
When you need to restore your backed up iTunes Library from your external hard drive to your computer, follow these steps:
Quit iTunes.
Locate your external hard drive.
Windows: In My Computer
Drag the iTunes folder (backed up earlier) from your external hard drive to whatever location you desire on your internal hard drive. It is recommended that you choose the default location for the iTunes folder, which is:
Windows Vista: \Users\username\My Music\
Open iTunes while holding down the Option key (Mac) or Shift key (Windows).
In the resulting dialog, click the Choose Library button.
Select the iTunes folder you just moved to the internal hard drive.
Click Choose (Mac OS X) or Open (Windows) and then choose the iTunes Library file inside .
After following these steps, iTunes will open and your iTunes Library will be restored.
to get my iTunes library in iTunes.
Well, my library IS there with playlists. But no songs will play.
Obviously i've missed a step or done something incorrectly.
please help.

Are the songs displayed with exclamation marks? The exclamation mark for missing files is shown if the file is no longer where iTunes expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, or that the drive it lives on has had a change of drive letter. It is also possible that iTunes has changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout, or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place. Changing the path to the media folder won't fix the links to files you've moved by hand.
Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Ctrl-I to get info, then say no when asked to locate the track. Look on the summary tab for the location that iTunes thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drive(s). Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, or a drive letter has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions. I can provide a step by step guide if you give me the two paths.
In some cases iTunes may be able to repair itself if you go through the same steps and locate the lost track. It may then offer to attempt to automatically fix other broken links. Alternatively, as long as you can find a location holding the missing files, then you should be able to use my FindTracks script to reconnect them to iTunes. I would suggest you untick Edit > Preferences > Advanced > Keep iTunes Media folder organized before you start so that things don't have to move around as they are repaired.
tt2

Tiger, iTunes library on external drive, no longer recognised

Still using Tiger on the iMac.
Software update caem up with iphoto/Pro Apps updates and a security update.
Duly installed the lot.
When I rebooted my heart sank when iTunes could not find the external drive library.
Rebooted several times, no joy, thought "why do discs fail a few days after you think I need to back that up soon?".
At this point also realsied the significance of telling everyone not to rely on AppleTv for a backup, having not backed up recent weeks iTunes Store purchases.
Tachycardic and nervous connected said drive to the Macbook running Leopard and it worked instantly.
Back to the iMac, no luck, and after much testing found the drive is simply no longer recognised on the Belkin hub it's been on for about a year. Other identical drives are still recognised.
Unplugging the hub and connecting the drive to the Mac direct it's recognised again. Absolutely reproducible and I can't explain it.
Have backed the content up now, but I'm convinced this is related to latest security update or peerhaps Apple team hacking into my iMac after all my negative comments about take 2
So, I know this may be a bit OT, but then again it is to do with the iTunes library foir AppleTV.
Any similar experiences or suggestions?
Good time to remind everyone - remember to back up your media files - these things always happen out of teh blue.
AC

Still using Tiger on the iMac.
Software update caem up with iphoto/Pro Apps updates and a security update.
Duly installed the lot.
When I rebooted my heart sank when iTunes could not find the external drive library.
Rebooted several times, no joy, thought "why do discs fail a few days after you think I need to back that up soon?".
At this point also realsied the significance of telling everyone not to rely on AppleTv for a backup, having not backed up recent weeks iTunes Store purchases.
Tachycardic and nervous connected said drive to the Macbook running Leopard and it worked instantly.
Back to the iMac, no luck, and after much testing found the drive is simply no longer recognised on the Belkin hub it's been on for about a year. Other identical drives are still recognised.
Unplugging the hub and connecting the drive to the Mac direct it's recognised again. Absolutely reproducible and I can't explain it.
Have backed the content up now, but I'm convinced this is related to latest security update or peerhaps Apple team hacking into my iMac after all my negative comments about take 2
So, I know this may be a bit OT, but then again it is to do with the iTunes library foir AppleTV.
Any similar experiences or suggestions?
Good time to remind everyone - remember to back up your media files - these things always happen out of teh blue.
AC

Have moved iTunes library and it is no longer 'seen' by iTunes

I have had to copy my iTunes library to an external hard drive (space constraints on laptop forced the issue) and I have also updated my preferences to point to this new location ([Edit] / [Preferences] / [Advanced]) but when I then took the option to consolidate the library ([Advanced] / [Consolidate library]) all that happens is that all the tracks in iTunes show an exclamation mark ( ! ) against them as iTunes has not recognised the new location. (I can however browse to the new location by right clicking against all tracks individually and navigating to the new location, but that is a non starter for all of the songs in the library. To compound the issue when I tried to make the old library location valid once more (as I have not yet deleted it from its old location), I got the same issue ( ! ) when I tried to consolidate the library again.
I am now in the privileged position of have 2 fully populated iTunes libraries and I am unable to consolidate and use either of them. Help, please.

A Couple of questions..
Is the location shown under preferences/Advanced/General still showing the correct location?
Is the check boxes under this checked or unchecked?

PLEASE HELP! Itunes library gone but music still on iPod

I recently have started organising my 'my music' files and deleting folders with more than 3 copies of songs, I have a lot of music 2500 songs and opened up itunes and all music I have imported (not bought) has gone, my music is still on my ipod though but I'm too scared to sync it in case all my music has gone, I still have my original music in 'my music' file but it's not shown up on library as usual PLEASE HELP!

See Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device.
tt2

My computer where my itunes library is stored is no longer accessible. how can i add songs to my ipod nano without losing the songs already on it.

The computer where i have my itunes library is no longer accessible. How can I add new songs to my Ipod nano without losing the song already on it?

You will need that library copied from the old computer. If not, then you can take a look at this in getting 3rd party software to recover your library from the iPod. Syncing to a "New" Computer or replacing a "crashed" Hard Drive

ITunes library on external HD no longer can be selected

I moved from old macbook pro with Snow Leopard & iTunes 9 or 10 something to new(er) macbook pro with Lion and iTunes 10.7. I keep a different music library from my internal one on external HD. When I option-click on iTunes startup to choose the external library, it is there on my external, in its own iTunes folder with associated media folder, but the library, extras, genius etc. are greyed out & cannot be selected. This is a new finding as i tried to open my external library for the first time on my new system.
I notice that for the external collection of files, there is no file with suffix .itl, but there are 2 that have suffix .itdb. My external library was created with an older version of iTunes, not sure which, but within last 2 years. It was accessible from the External thru several upgrades of iTunes using my old machine. I adjusted file permissions on all the external library-oriented files to see if that helped access, it did not. How can I get new iTunes to recognize the library file ? Thanks for any guidance or answers !

You have to have that one ending in .itl. That is the library file and iTunes has to use that one. Information on itdb below but those are support files for other features.
What are the iTunes library files? - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1660
More on iTunes library files and what they do - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes#Media_management
What are all those iTunes files? - http://www.macworld.com/article/139974/2009/04/itunes_files.html
Where are my iTunes files located? - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1391
Do you still have the .xml copy? You can import that into an empty library and rebuild most of your previous library.

ITunes library on network drive, no longer able to download from store

I have my iTunes library stored on a WD My Cloud drive. Suddenly today I have found that I cannot download anything from the iTunes store (movies or music).
I get an error saying "The required folder cannot be found. Please check that the connection to the network is active and try again."
I have the WD drive mapped to Drive M and my iTunes library points to the iTunes folder on that drive. I have confirmed the drive is up and the connection is good.
I can play music and movies in iTunes from that drive.
I have shut down iTunes and rebooted the computer multiple times.
I'm running Windows 8.1 x64
ITunes version 12.1.2.27
I'm looking for any help at all. I'm getting quite frustrated.
I do have iTunes set to Keep iTunes Media folder organized and also set to Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library

turingtest2 wrote:
Is the whole library on the network drive, or just the media folder? Is it a NAS or a shared folder on another Windows machine? A USB connected drive as your primary library with the network drive as backup may be a more robust solution. If you library files are on the system drive see Make a split library portable.
tt2
I had the entire library on the network drive. At one time I used it with just the movies on a drive that was plugged into my router but that was a hassle. So I bought the 4TB network drive hoping this would be an easier solution and I could store everything on it.
It had work fine for a while but I do not know what happened. Nothing I tried worked. I successfully moved my library to my USB 3.0 drive and it is working just fine. I am able to download from the iTunes store now.
Now, I did discover that some movies were missing but I can re-download them easily.
What I don't understand is that if I view my purchases in the iTunes store and tell it to show only movies that are not in my library it shows a whole lot of things that ARE in my library.

ITunes working fine but it won't detect my ipod or upgrade firmware

I have a PowerBook G4, running the latest version of osx 10.4 and a 60 gig, 5G ipod. I was prompted over the weekend to install the new quicktime and the new itunes which I did. Both are working fine. I have no problem listening to music or viewing movies or whatever.
Except, the ipod is not being detected by itunes 7.0. I checked the ipod itself and it has the 1.1.2 version of the ipod firmware. I have done everything I can think to do including the first 4 Rs (Reset your iPod, Retry with a different USB port, Restart your computer, Reinstall iPod and iTunes software). I am not willing to try "Restore your iPod" because if that does not work I will have a blank iPod and I am about to travel for a few days and I want to have music on it when I leave.
I suppose the problem might be something about getting my ipod's firmware updated to 1.2 so that it can then be detected but the 1.2 update can only be done through iTunes 7.0. Worse, there does not seem to be any button I can push to FORCE iTunes to update the ipod firmware. This seems very chicken-eggish.
I don't actually see many folks have THIS problem. The closest is people who can't do much with the iPod but can at least see it in "source" within iTunes. I don't even see a "source" list along the left-hand side of iTunes 7.0 (I just see LIBRARY, STORE and PLAYLISTS).
Any thoughts on how I might resolve this?
PS, I have two ipod cables and tried both and tried them on each of the two USB ports on my powerbook. That plus the fact that I have never had a problem with either the ports or the cables before leads me to believe this is not the problem.

After several weeks of not finding answers here or elsewhere on the web - and after waiting for an iTunes 7.0.1 and getting it - I "gave up" and went to the Apple Store last night.
The Genius bar took my ipod, plugged it in to a mac, reached under the counter and handed me what they said was a NEW ipod (it was in a generic brown box with no accessories, cables, etc). I did not like that solution for two reasons. First, all of my family photos and videos were on my iPod and I did not like the idea that maybe those photos would turn up on the web someday. Second, it was a gift and had a personalized engraving on the back. When I pressed them on what they thought was wrong with my iPod they said it was not worth the time to figure out and they would just give me another one. Or I could ship in to Apple Support and they would send me a new one WITH the same engraving in a couple of weeks. I took the "new" iPod.
And, sure enough, when I connected it to my powerbook it was detected, the firmware was updated and iTunes synced all my music, photos and videos (and games).
The Genius bar people seems pretty sure that the problem was hardware (the port where you connected the USB cable at the bottom of the device). When I pointed out that it had been working fine right up until the day I upgraded to iTunes 7.0 and that it had not worked since they did not seem terribly interested.
So, my problem is "solved" in that I have a working iPod sans engraving.

I dropped my external hard drive which contained my iTunes library and it is no longer readable. I attempted to upload my library from iPod and while all the songs appear to be in iTunes I get a message telling me that the original file can't be located.

I dropped my external hard drive that contained my iTues library and the disk is no longer readable. I figured I would simply transfer my music back from my iPod to my MacBook Pro and it loks like it worked. All the songs are there, but I receive a message that the original file can't be found when I try to play anything. ANy help would be greatly appreciated.

A Couple of questions..
Is the location shown under preferences/Advanced/General still showing the correct location?
Is the check boxes under this checked or unchecked?

I just downloaded a CD onto my itunes library. But when I try to drag and drop the CD onto my Iphone 4s, it doesn't do anything. I have manually manage music and videos checked but it still wont download. I don't know whats wrong. Someone help!

Thanks

Now I tried downloading other albums that are in my library but not on my phone and those didn't work either. Could it be my phone or itunes that's not working?

I deleted my local iTunes library (40GB) but I haven't got any more disc space free.

I switched on iTunes Match so I could free up the 40GB of disc space my music uses. I have another MBP that has the full library (no iTunes Match) and backups galore, and I don't listen to music much on my MBPR anyway. So after aeons of uploading it's all done, and I've selected all the tracks in iTunes and deleted them from my local drive (kept on iTM). I've checked the folder and it's gone from 40GB to 3GB, and I've emptied the Trash can, but I still don't have much (any?) additional space on my hard drive. Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Greg

Ok, so I now have 46GB free space. I didn't do anything, it just suddenly appeared 24 hours after I deleted the local files. Ah well, jolly good.

My iTunes library works, but my iTunes stores comes up blank.

I have tried to uninstall and re-install itunes and it hasn't helped. I set up Apple TV and that seemed o be when it started, but not sure if it is a coincidence or not.

Hello FatButcher36,
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
For more information on this, take a look at:
Apple software on Windows: May see performance issues and blank iTunes Store
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4123
Best of luck,
Mario

Recently downloaded itunes on laptop but its failing to detect my apple devices

downloaded latest version of itunes onto my laptop ive gone to sync devices but they showing up anywhere on my system

The following may help:
Windows laptop: iOS: Device not recognized in iTunes for Windows
Mac: iOS: Device not recognized in iTunes for OS X

I have the computer with my itunes library on it but no longer have access to the email account the library was set up with. How can I transfer the library to a new appleid/email?

I have the computer that holds my itunes library. However, I no longer have access to the email account (and therefore apple account) it was set up with so can't sync/update etc. How can I transfer the library to my new apple id? Any help gratefully received as searched the internet but can't find the answer!
Have ipod touch 4th gen, ipod touch 5th gen and ipod nano 7th gen all to sync to library.

Hi Stillme,
You cannot transfer purchases from one Apple ID to another. You need to go into the old Apple ID and change it to the new email address instead of using a new Apple ID altogether.
Apple - My Apple ID
If you can't remember the password to the old ID, then click on Reset your Password, and answer the Security Questions. If you can't remember the Security Questions, contact iTunes Support and have them reset:
APPLE ID SECURITY CONTACT NUMBERS
Once you get into your old account, Edit the Apple ID to your new email address. Before you will be able to do that you are going to have to change the email address on the new Apple ID to something else.
Cheers,
GB

ITunes Library exsists but is no longer detected

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