Itunes library problems

I am a new user of itunes and created a library of tracks from my cd collection and tracks purchased from the store, then syncd them to my ipod nano.
I now find that my library only contains the purchased tracks, the others have disappeared.
I looked in this forum for a solution but I do not have a file 'previous itunes library' so I could not follow the advice from this time last year supplied by turingtest2.
Can anyone offer a simple easy to follow solution please I am using a compaq presario CQ56 and windows 7 home premium and ipod nano 7th generation

Hi. I take it you've run across this or something like it.
Empty/corrupt iTunes library after upgrade/crash
If the media is still on the drive you can import it, either using File > Add Folder to Library, or iTunes Folder Watch.
If the media is on a device, but nowhere else to be found there is a recovery link there too.
tt2

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Random iTunes library problem or bug with duplicates

iTunes (Mac) spontaneously creates duplicate songs and does some unusual things in the process. The duplicate songs only appear in my library, the music media remains intact most of the time. Sometimes iTunes moves one or two songs from the same recording to a separate folder and puts in outside the iTunes Media folder.
The duplicate songs that appear in the library appear randomly. Sometimes both dup songs play fine, even though there is only one source file for the song. Sometimes only one plays, so I have to delete the one with the exclamation mark. Often one of the 2 dup songs has the wrong artwork. This wouldn't be a big issue if I didn't have such a large volume of music and this wasn't happening to hundreds and hundreds of songs, which need to be dealt with manually one at a time.
I have several music folders (CD , Downloads) inside the Master iTunes Media folder on the ext HD
In iTunes Perfs I have enabled "Keep iTunes Media folder organized" and "Copy files to iTunes Media folder." This setup worked fine in the past, before 2010.
I've repaired permissions regularly and have repaired the Boot HD.
I first starting noticing this problem at some point in 2010 while using iTunes 9. Upgrading to iTunes 10 has not helped.
Any ideas on what's going on or what I might try to fix the problem?
Is this a bug in iTunes?
If I re-installed iTunes and could return to an earlier version which one should I use ?
Specs. iTunes 10.3.1 with 350 GB of music on an external HD

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my question.
I need some clarification on your instructions. Once I have Exported my Library to the desktop and moved my iTunes folder to the desktop I can't proceed as you suggest.
When I open iTunes it opens the original library full of all my music. If I launch iTunes (while holding down C key) I can create a new empty iTunes Library inside the Music folder.
If I try to import (open) the original Library.xml file on the desktop nothing happens. If your saying I need to import all the music in my iTunes folder (inside the Music folder) I can't do that since all my music is on an external HD.
Are you saying I need to reimport the entire contents (all the music) in my iTunes Media folder?
I thought your solution was aiming to simply rebuild the directory structure while leaving the original music media alone.
Thanks for helping clarify.
Or could you point me to a support.apple.com/kb article?

Help! Itunes library problems of all sorts...

I've been exhaustively searching for ways to merge an old library with play counts etc from a backup to my new itunes library. That still is one question (I could find help for two computers, but couldn't figure out how to use two files on the same computer-ie back up and the active library) however now in trying to do that I have really screwed things up I think.
Here are all my problems- the most recent being that I ended up trying "import playlist" with my xml file...which resulted in a ton of duplicates and still no play counts etc. So now I am hoping to back up to my last library. I had been "exporting library" to back it up before trying these things...
however the problem I was having trying the "option" trick is still in effect. Which is that I do the option, I pick "choose the library" and then all of my .xml files are grey and unchoosable.
I think that I could choose the itunes library file that does NOT say .xml from my computer-- however, I had just created the whole library from my external harddrive, and I don't find one of those files there, only on my mac directly. So will this file be the one that has the thousands of songs I just spent the last days importing? (I did that before realizing the importance of the play count!).
My harddrive crashed before all of this, so I just have the backup file that is a grey square, not the color itunes logo that I am seeing on my computer now (and this is what isn't letting me choose it).
So I guess here are my questions:
Why can't I choose the .xml files?
Does the "export library" actually create a useable backup? If so, how do I restore it?
Then if I can fix this mess- my original goal- how to keep my newest library, while importing play counts/info from a backup .xml file.
MUCH thanks to anyone who can offer me some assistance!!!!!!!!

Or the other option I am wondering about is if I can take all of the info off of my ipod, and then sync that with the new library?
Or, if need be, erase the current library. take the info from the ipod to create the base library that would have my play counts etc. However, then I would need to merge that with my master music data files, and there would be no way at this point to know which are on the ipod and which are not- so I'd need to be able to merge without duplicates.
What would you all suggest??

Using an NAS drive as the iTunes library (problem with Lacie external hd)

Hi,
I already have my iTunes library on an external hard drive (LaCie 320GB mini Hard Drive & Hub) which I absolutely NOT recommend. The drive goes in sleep mode every now and then and most of the time I have this big 4 sec blank between each song till the drive wakes up again
soooo painful.
Anyway, I am about to buy another external hard drive with an Ethernet interface (+ FTP and samba) Does anyone know a good product? Any problem running the iTunes library over the Ethernet network?
By any chance, if someone know a trick to cut the sleep mode of my external hard drive, that would be great as well.
Thanks!

Alexis, saw your mention of trying to put the iTunes library file on the network, and wondered if you would comment further on why you wanted to do that, and what happened to make it difficult. It sounds like what I'm trying to do.
I have all my music on a USB disk attached to my Airport Extreme base station. I have three Macs in the house - two on a 1G EtherNet and one MacBook on wifi. I would like to have each instance of iTunes use a common library, so that I can access my music from any of the three Macs. It seems that putting the Library file on the networked drive would do what I need, after telling iTunes on each Mac to use that library. Yes? No? Definite maybe? I'd appreciate any information you would share.

Using External Hard Drive as storage for iTunes Library - Problems

I currently use an external hard drive to store my iTunes music, does anyone know why when I copy folders to iTunes library, duplicates appear - sometimes 2 or 3 copies of same song, same artist, album everything. A trud copy. Also, when you are setting up your music folder on the External Hard drive, would you copy from C: the entire iTunes tree - ie. iTunes/iTunes music/iTunes library or just have one folder called iTunes library? Also, when specifying location for finding music in preferences, again would you use entire tree of just iTunes music library.

See Dave Sawyer's post here - it's the easiest way
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1866272&tstart=0
Also, make sure Windows assigns a drive letter that won't change
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307844

Backup iTunes library problem using LaCie DVD Burner error message - help!

Hi!
I just purchased a LaCie D2 DVD +-RW DVD Burner for my Mac Mini running OS 10.4.8 and iTunes 7.0.2. I've installed the latest LaCie drivers and iTunes recognizes the burner so no problem there. When I try to back up my purchased playlist iTunes checks the media everythings fine but when it tries to start the burn process I get this error message: "The attempt to burn a disc failed. An unknown error occurred (-8785)." It then ejects the DVD-R. The Burner works fine with Toast, so the issue is with iTunes. I've tried using both Apple DVD-R's and Sony brand just in case that was it. Any ideas? Please?
Thank you,
Sam

i recently got an error message while burning a dvd with lacie. i had been using the same cd's etc. found the solution on roxio boards (which don't allow just anybody to join obviously).
the problem is iSight. it can cause problems with the lacie while hooked up to the other firewire connection. unplugged the camera and viola!!! lacie works again.
hope this helps you too!!!
dizzer

ITunes Library Problem!! Help Me Please!!!

Okay. So I bought an external hard drive and transferred all my music to it and then deleted all the music from my internal hard drive to save on space. Using iTunes to manage all the music on the external. The problem is, every time I disconnect and later reconnect the hard drive, when I reopen iTunes, I get those stupid exclamation points next to the songs. I have to double click each individual track for them to go away. I can't edit multiple tags because all the songs have the ! points and individually clicking 4000 plus songs every day is just too daunting of a task. What am I forgetting to do?
I need the hard drive to disconnect, and I need to find some way to unclick all the ! points at once. Am I missing a dll file, or a log, or something? What am I doing wrong?
Can anybody walk me through this?

If you make sure your external drive is always connected to your computer and recognized by Windows before you start iTunes, the exclamation marks should not be a problem.

Adding music to iTunes library problem

So I try to add a song from my home folder to iTunes and it tells me I don't have access privileges for this operation. What is going on? I have it set up so it will copy the song to Macintosh HD:Users:Shared:iTunes Music, but it doesn't allow me to!

In Finder open a "get info" windows on that above mentioned folder by a right-click
take a look at "sharing & permissions:"
what is listed?

Itunes library sync problems. Purchased items only music that syncs.

Itunes library problems syncing. Purchased items from apple all syncing. Progressively losing ability to listen to my CD's I've loaded myself. ie: library music or store bought CD's. Some albums unplayable and some albums only a few songs playable. It's almost as if apple has decided that if I don't buy from them I won't be able to play it. New problem this week only. Cant fix despite frequent attempts to sync ipod. Library seems to be freezing or something at stage 7/7 of syncing items in library.

what computer are you using? if it a windows computer make sure you update your itunes version to 11.1.2
are you able to play the songs from your computer?
try this go to edti> preference> devices > at the bottom click the reset sync histore and choose ok close itunes pull up a new one and try if it work
Message was edited by: aldessa

Some of my tracks in my iTunes library (eg: audiobooks, lengthy classical music pieces) only play for either 6 or 8 minutes then halt. Why?

So if there is a track that would last longer than 6 or 8 minutes, the track simply stops playing.
My library has been built over 6 or 7 years, contains no illegal music, 85% bought from iTunes, rest is ripped CDs. I have transferred my library at least three times from laptop to laptop as I have upgraded machines, and used different account names and passwords as I have moved around in my job. As an aside, every time I transfer the library it screws up, always the audiobooks and always the classical music and how I have it all catalogued.
I am asuming it's a iTunes library problem, not a problem with my iPod classic?
All help and advice gratefully received; thanks.

Actually I think that its a problem with either the gapless data or the song volume settings that has been brought by itunes 7. When adding new files to the library, iTunes takes a while to determine volume/gapless information. I have replaced files and itunes didn't check the volume and info again, that is why every song stops playing at the last 40 seconds only on the iPod.
I re-added one of the bad files and it played perfectly, but I don't want to lose the data on the other 60 odd files, so is there a way of forcing iTunes to recheck these files? (otherwise i'd have to re-rate and play the songs to the level they are right now)

Damaged Itunes Library

I have read many posts about solving the "damaged Itunes Library" problem and none of the solutions works for me. My Itunes Library is located in the correct position, I have completely uninstalled and reinstalled Itunes and still, several times a week I get the damaged Itunes Library message and I have to re-import all of my music and recreate my playlists--this takes several hours each time.
A little about my setup. All of my music resides on a seperate internal hard drive--the F drive. My Itunes database is where it should be in c:\documents and settings\user\my documents\my music
My question is why is the Itunes Library file becoming damaged so often? Could it be Spysweeper, Norton Antivirus, PerfectDisk Defrag Utility...?
I have even spent $25 and tried Anapod to manage my music but I don't like it very much...but I could get used to it if Itunes doesn't start behaving properly.
Thanks for any sugestions.

I too have a damaged iTunes library. all of a sudden, it seems. It was working fine yesterday and then this afternoon I opened iTunes to find a song and there was no library, no playlists, just an empty library page. I totally freaked out because I've got 83 GB worth of music (not backed up, stupid of me). When a library is damaged, does that mean I cannot reimport the music files from the damaged library? Rumpole, when you re-imported all of your music, did you re-import from CDs? Or were you able to use those music files from the "damaged" iTunes music folder? And what about all of those free music files from iTunes on Free Music Tuesday? All gone? Please reply, SOMEONE, so I can either calm down or completely wig out. I can't handle the idea that I may have lost ALL that music!!!
Details: iTunes is on my C drive, and the music is on my D drive, with the setting that all music gets imported directly to my iTunes library on the D drive. I've had iTunes for years and never had a real problem with it. Now, and it seems that this happened after I upgraded to 6.0.4.2 fairly recently. AAAAAHHHH!!!

Having a problem with eBooks in my iTunes library.

As the title says, I'm having some problems with the iTunes library not reflecting what's actually on the disk.
I add the ebook and it seems to add ok. The file gets consolidated into /mymusic/books under the author correctly, but the book is missing from the library. The book is in ePub format, and seems to have the right file extension and shows up as a file of "ePub" type in windows explorer.
Any ideas? Is there a way to re-build the library or a portion of it?

Hi tony paine,
Welcome to the Support Communities!
The article below may be able to help you with this.
Click on the link to see more details and screenshots.
iCloud: Keeping the Junk folder consistent between iCloud Mail and OS X Mail
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4911
Cheers,
- Judy

Problem loading content from iTunes library and Netflix

Everytime I try watching a TV episode, movie, or Netflix show, I get an error sign with loading the content. It's not restricted to Netflix and also includeds recently purchased and saved items through iTunes library. What can I do to resolve this problem?

Try restarting AppleTV (menu and down on remote together for 6 secs) and your router.

Songs disappear from itunes library - and from the harddrive - by itself. One song here and there, not entire albums. Have been surfing on the web, and can see that many people have this problem. What is the solution?

I'm deeply worried. About to digitalize my entire CD collection, but can't continue until this problem is solved, or i'll risk slowly loosing my music. Song by song. Discovered the problem while browsing the Itunes library, when I realised that for example song number 2 and 11 was missing from one album, and 4 and 7 from another album. Very strange. When browsing the when I found lots of people experiencing the same. I'm using the 2011 Macbook Pro, and the Itunes library is on the Macbook Pro harddrive.
Hope someone can help....

just want to add that i use Itunes 10.4.1. But I can see that users have problems with many versions.
I have an ipod shuffle that i connect once and a while. But the songs that are dissappearing are not the ones on the ipod as far as i can see...

Iphone 4 is having trouble syncing with iTunes. I keep getting a message sayign the phone is linked to a different itunes library. my old laptop was stolen, is that the problem? how do i solve it?

Hi,
my iphone 4 was originally linked to my itunes library via my old laptop which just got stolen. I have brought a new laptop and authorised it - so now i can see my itunes library on it, but when i plug in my i phone it says that it is registered to a different library and that if i sync i will loose everything. How do i solve this problem? is it beacuse i'm using a new laptop, or something else?
The big thing for me is that i can not loose my contacts, diary etc information. When the error message comes up it says erasing and syncing will clear the phone - does that mean EVERYTHING, or just music and apps? if just music and apps i can live with that because i don't have any music on there yet and the apps i guess i could buy again if they aren't backed up.
My iphone is running on v 4, and the macair is brand new - so maybe there is a software problem? i have tried to update the version on my phone but agian i get a message saying that i will loose data if i proceed so i want to make sure everything is backed up and synced before i go ahead with that.
Thanks guys
sb_001

Check your mac's Serial Number.
Some people have problems with missing serial numbers on their Macs and that's the message you get when this happens.
Click on the Apple at the top left of the screen, open "About this Mac" and click on "More Info". You should see a list with information about your Macbook Air. Check that on the Serial Number field you have your Mac's Serial. If you have "SystemSerial#" written instead then that's your problem.
You can re-enter your serial number if you have a USB CD drive, it's not very straightforward but I can walk you through it if you need it.
Cheers

Itunes library problems

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