ITunes Music Library mostly greyed out

I have a relatively small iTunes library (2107 songs). I just synched all of them with my new iPhone 4S and about 85% of the songs are greyed out and won't play. When I select the iPhone > Music in iTunes on my Mac they're also greyed out. Yet all is just fine in iTunes itself. Any ideas? Thanks.

Re-posted with a clearer explanation. http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1706571&tstart=0

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Itunes music library player logs out after 5 minutes

Running iTunes 11.1.1
When playing music from my music library, the application closes after 5 minutes if the computer is not touched, i.e. volume changed, tune skipped, etc. It's like it "logs off". I don't have any sleep settings turned on. This happens with battery or with power plugged in. Any suggestions as to what might be causing?

I've had the same issue since upgrading to latest iOS 5.1 on appletv and latest patches on mountain lion mine usually drops out after a minute

Itunes library is greyed out

Hi,
I hope someone can help as this has been driving me crazy the last few days.
I imported some cd's into my itunes library & connected my ipod classic to my laptop (Win 7) expecting it to sync the music, it didn't. The music I imported is visible in my itunes library but is greyed out.
I keep my music on my external (G) drive & itunes points to my G drive correctly i.e. Edit>Preferences>G:>itunes music folder. I'm runnning itunes ver 2.0.1 (this updates automatically). My G drive itunes folder contains all my music folders plus: itunes Library (database file) & Library XML doc file. My C drive itunes folder contains: Album Artwork Folder, itunes Media Folder, itunes Library Extras Folder, itunes Library Genius Folder, itunes Library File & itunes Music Library XML doc file.
I've not experienced any problems before but it appears to have happened since the update.
Thanks.
Gary.

I'd try repairing permissions on your main drive. My guess is you'll see a long list of differing iTunes permissions. Also if you have a TM backup of that library from 6 months ago when you put it away you should be able to restore the itl file from that. But I'd try the permission repair first. If that works & iTunes lights up, make sure that it is pointing to the media file in the external drive and that "keep iTunes Media folder organized" & "copy files to iTunes..." are checked. All of these settings are in advanced preferences.
Then run TM (or super duper or something) and back everything up (including the external drive).

My itunes music is showing shaded out when I connect my ipod and is not showing in my library. How do I get the music from my ipod into my library. It won't sync

Mu ipod contains my itunes music library but when i connect it to my laptop the music only shows shaded out on my ipod and does not appear in my itunes libary on line. My iphone only has my playlist in it and as my libabry is only on my ipod it doesn;t allow me to import to my iphone

Hello rhys139,
It sounds like you are trying to transfer music from your iPod to your computer. I found an article with information on transferring media from your iPod to your computer:
iTunes: Transferring media from your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or iPod
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1209
Thank you for posting in the Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Sheila M.

Computer crash wiped out itunes music library

My computer crashed and I lost my itunes music library on my hard drive. when I plug in my ipod to my computer I get a message that the music library on the ipod doesn't match my itunes library. How can I get my music library on my ipod back onto my computer so I don't lose all my stored music?

It has always been very basic to always maintain a backup copy of your computer for this very occasion. Use your backup copy of your computer ot put everything back.

How do you make a song out of your itunes music library?

I can't remember how to make a ringtone using itunes music library? What's the easy way to do that?

http://bit.ly/yo5vWF

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)

ITunes musical library located on a WD 2TB, ext. drv. Computer destroyed by virus; ED survived. Bought new laptop, connected ED. Not able to see library. ED shows as 'G:' 95% full. How can I reconnect my old library to new laptop?

I had my iTunes musical library on an ext. drv. WD 2TB, ‘MY BOOK ESSENTIAL'. Three weeks ago, my computer was infected by a virus that fried it. It did not affect the external drive. I bought a new computer: a laptop, Dell XPS, Intel Core i7-2630QM CPU, Windows 7 Home Premium. I have been able to connect the WD external drive; however, I am not able to see the musical library in my iTunes or Explorer. ‘My Computer’ shows the external drive as ‘G:’ 95% full. It reads, 32.1 GB free of 1.36 TB. When I click on the drive to see its contents, it shows nothing. The library in iTunes also shows nothing. Can anyone help, please? How can I reconnect my old musical library to my new laptop and iTunes? Many thanks.

Hmm, viruses don't generally "fry" drives. They can make bootable operating systems not bootable, hide data, and corrupt executable files. Software can potentially wipe all the data from the drive but it shouldn't be able to physically damage the drive. Bah! What's done is done.
As to unhiding your files assuming they are just hidden....
Hit Start > Run, type in CMD and press enter. Type the following at the prompt and then press enter:
attrib -h -s -r g:\*.* /d /s
This tells windows to clear the hidden, read-only, and system flags from all files on the drive, assuming of course your profile has the power to "see" the files and change them.
If that doesn't work then you may need to take ownership of the drive first. The drive may have security settings that make it "belong" to an account on your old system. Right-click on the drive in Windows Explorer and click Properties. Click the Security tab, the Advanced button, the Owner tab, then the Edit tab. Make yourself the owner, then you can make any other changes to the security settings you want to back on the Permissions tab. (If you can't change the owner log out and log back in as Administrator). For iTunes your account (or everyone) and SYSTEM need full access to all files. Any changes you make should be applied to "This folder, subfolders and files", should be inheritable and you should also replace the permissions on all child objects.
tt2

Itunes won't find 'itunes music library' on external hard drive by default

I have my Itunes library saved on a wireless external hard drive. When I open itunes for the first time after a re-start it won't automatically detect the itunes music library file and I have to point it to the correct folder on the external hard drive. Once I do this everything works perfectly until I re-start my mac and then I have the same problem.
One of my friends has told me that macs won't automatically connect to wireless devices like windows does but he thinks there is some software that enables it to do so. I presume this would sort the issue out or alternatively any other suggestions are very welcome.
Thanks for any help

Your external HD needs to be mounted before launching iTunes or iTunes will create a new blank library on your startup drive.
You can add your external HD to the list of startup items in  > System Preferences > Accounts to avoid this problem.

How to move iTunes Music Library from an external HD to another?

Yesterday I tried to move all my music from an external HD to a new bigger one.
Well, I encountered various problems, the most important one is that the “iTunes Music Library” file messed up.
I transferred all files and both “iTunes Music Library.xml” and the “iTunes Library” file in the new HD. I have to say that I didn't know so much about those two files and I thought that it was enough to move them in the new location; I discovered that those files included the information about where the music is located (among other infos), so it still redirects to the older HD.
However, now I’m trying to recreate the previous situation on the older HD, and I’m trying to “rebuild” the iTunes Library (I have a back-up of the xml file, even if it is not the running one).
This operation is very important for me because about two years ago I used (for a long time )an earlier version of iTunes that had a bug: even if wrote all the tag infos on an a mp3, the “artist name” and “album name” tags didn’t remained. But I still can see all the informations through the iTunes browser (thanks to the iTunes Music Library DB). So, I cannot recreate it from zero. I absolutely need to export the existing “iTunes Music Library” to the new HD, or at least to use the existing “iTunes Music Library”, leaving it where it already is and moving only the “iTunes Music folder” (even if I don’t want to use two external HDs, the older one holding the existing “iTunes Music Library” e “iTunes Library” files and the newer one holding the “itunes Music” folder I moved!).
As far as you know how can I move safely “iTunes Music Library” e “iTunes Library” files on the new HD applying them to the new “iTunes Music” folder??
I really need your help!
This article http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307074 didn’t help.
Stefano

Sorry, I wasn't responding to you, just the original poster. I didn't look at the date on that posting and didn't realize that you'd added a post that wasn't quite the same problem. In future, you'll find you get better answers if you start your own thread. You're issue really is a bit more complicated.
If iTunes currently recognizes all the music on both internal and the external drives, it should work. You have to make sure that both drives (old and new) are mounted. Make sure you have both "Keep iTunes music organized" (you probably already do) and "Copy files to iTunes..." (you probably don't) checked.
If not all of the music is currently in your iTunes library, perform the procedure with the music that is a part of the library and add the other stuff afterwards.
Best of luck.

ITunes library file ("iTunes Music Library.xml") being trashed and not read

My iTunes music library is being recognized as a .xml file and comes up looking like a Dreamweaver file. It no longer can be loaded in iTunes (grayed out) when loading the app. Can't find the Library.
So iTunes no longer recognizes it, nor does it see the backup on a different drive! I have no idea how it got recategorized. I also check in my Time Machine backup and all the similarly named files show up as the same way (with a Dreamweaver icon). This did occur after a restart of this machine. I see the same problem with a backup of the library on the same machine.
I have not yet opened a new library and tried to import all my music over again. Is that the only viable fix? I remember this problem (or a similar one, I think) happening a year or so back. I didn't know what it was at the time but it caused me a considerable amount of grief with subscribed music not getting reloaded, etc. Is this what I'm in for again???
How can I fix this? Here's what I did so far:
1. Rebuilt Permissions. Here's the log.
+Repairing permissions for “Macintosh HD”+
+Permissions differ on "usr/share/derby", should be drwxr-xr-x , they are lrwxr-xr-x .+
+Repaired "usr/share/derby".+
2. Checked time machine to see if the folders' icons are the same. They are.
3. Tried to open up iTunes library manually (option+open iTunes). Grayed out.
4. Older backed up libraries show the same icon. Only version 3 or version 4 labelled libraries do not. Version of iTunes is 9.0.2
Henry

Chris CA wrote:
iTunes does not use the .xml file. It is created only for other applications to use the iTunes library.
Try this...
Hold Option and launch iTunes.
Select *Choose library* and select the iTunes library file in \Music\iTunes\ folder.
That's what I've said, Chris. The files that open when selecting the Choose Library are:
Yes they all exist. Also the following files exist:
*iTunes 3 Music Library*
*iTunes 4 Music Library*
*iTunes Music Library (2)*
Is there a pref I can delete somewhere to get rid of these? Copying the files from TIme Machine doesn't fix this.

TS1717 how to restore my itunes music library when an apple download stuffs up

how to restore my itunes music library when an apple download malfunctions

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. 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.
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!
tt2

Can I add the iTunes Music Library (old) to iTunes Music Library?

Hi, I'm asking this question on behalf of a friend and I don't want to give her incorrect advice ... She has an Intel G5 iMac running 10.5.8 and iTunes 9.0 (she has downloaded but not installed the iTUnes 9.1 update).
Her problem is that she has deleted certain songs from her 'Jane Doe's iPod Playlist' so that she didn't have those songs on her iPod - I don't know the method she used to do this, nor does she. However, it has resulted in those songs now not showing up in the iTunes music library on her computer. There's just an exclamation mark and a dialog box asking if she would like to locate the songs.
She asked me to help her out and I discovered that all these songs (there are dozens- more than a hundred - of them) are still on her computer in a folder called 'iTunes Music old' - this is a sub-folder of the iTUnes Music folder where the path is Music - iTunes - iTunes Music.
My question is this -
Is it possible to select all the albums in this 'iTUnes Music old' folder and simply drag and drop it onto the iTunes Music folder (after making sure that the location I'm dragging and dropping to corresponds to the location for her library as specified on the advanced tab of preferences) so that the songs will be back in the default library?
It seems to me that it should work but I don't want to be responsible for the person who loses all her music for her if it doesn't.
I would really appreciate someone who knows their way around iTUnes telling me the best way to sort her music and whether or not she should install the 9.1 update before or after reorganising the library.
Cheers
Tricia

Her problem is that she has deleted certain songs from her 'Jane Doe's iPod Playlist' so that she didn't have those songs on her iPod - I don't know the method she used to do this, nor does she. However, it has resulted in those songs now not showing up in the iTunes music library on her computer. There's just an exclamation mark and a dialog box asking if she would like to locate the songs.
If you're seeing the , that's generally an indication that media files (the mp3 or m4a, etc., files) were moved using Finder. They were moved or removed and the iTunes library wasn't able to keep track of where they went. If this is an old machine that she's messed around with, it can be a bit of a crap shoot trying to figure out where the stuff should go (iTunes is quite unhelpful in telling you where the music for the broken links was expected to be ... you can take some guesses, but iTunes 9 and iTunes 8 use different folder structures, so getting the stuff in the right place can be a nuisance).
Is it possible to select all the albums in this 'iTUnes Music old' folder and simply drag and drop it onto the iTunes Music folder (after making sure that the location I'm dragging and dropping to corresponds to the location for her library as specified on the advanced tab of preferences) so that the songs will be back in the default library?
Surprisingly complicated question. If you were confident of where the music files should go, you could try moving them (safer, copy them) to your current iTunes media folder and if you drop them in the exact same spot they were before, your broken links problem will be solved. It's a long shot, though.
There are apps out there for rebuilding libraries, but if you don't have extensive playlists that would take forever to rebuild (or you don't have lots of ratings or things like that which you are trying to preserve), I'd personally be inclined to rebuild her library from scratch by:
Create a new library by pressing and holding down the option button while you start iTunes, keep holding the button down until it prompts you to create a new library.
Go into the "Advanced" section of the "Preferences" screen and tell iTunes to (a) keep your folder organized and (b) to copy music to the new media folder.
Use the "Add Folder to Library" command on the "File" menu to add the music to your iTunes Library. This will copy the music to the new folder you specified in the previous step. Repeat this for her old iTunes folders (sounds like she might have it in different areas). Nice thing is, you can select some common parent folder (e.g. your parent "music" folder) and you'll only have to do this once.
Once iTunes is done copying music to the new media folder and has rebuilt the new library, you can clean up the old music media files that it sounds like are scattered about on her machine.
Again, I personally lean towards just rebuilding the iTunes library, allowing iTunes to organize the files like it wants, and then rebuild your playlists. But, if you'd rather try to repair her old library in situ, then you'll want to check out some of the apps designed for repairing broken links in libraries. Let us know if you want to do that and we can point you to some apps that might be able to help.
It seems to me that it should work but I don't want to be responsible for the person who loses all her music for her if it doesn't.
It's kind of hard to lose the music unless you do something nuts like drag stuff to the trash without making sure you've got a copy/backup somewhere. In fact, go ahead and have her back up her machine before you start. And when you're all done, and you've confirmed that everything is great, do another backup.
I would really appreciate someone who knows their way around iTUnes telling me the best way to sort her music and whether or not she should install the 9.1 update before or after reorganising the library.
Unless her version of iTunes is archaic (v7 or earlier), I'd suggest fixing her library first, and then doing the upgrade. Let's not add variables to the situation. Also, I don't know what the iTunes upgrade process would do with the broken links in her existing library.
Frankly, there are enough bugs/problems with 9.1, you might want to wait until 9.1.1 comes out anyway. I personally regret doing the 9.1 upgrade. It works, but I'm working around various bugs. And some people are having very serious problems. If you absolutely need 9.1 (e.g., iPad), you can do it and you'll probably be fine. But unless you need 9.1 for some reason, I'd wait for 9.1.1 release.

How do I transfer my itunes music library to my new computer

How do I transfer my itunes music library to my new computer (not a mac owner)?

These are two possible approaches that will normally work to move an existing library to a new computer.
Method 1
Backup the library with this User Tip.
Deauthorize the old computer if you no longer want to access protected content on it.
Restore the backup to your new computer using the same tool used to back it up.
Keep your backup up-to-date in future.
Method 2
Connect the two computers to the same network. Share your <User's Music> folder from the old computer and copy the entire iTunes library folder into the <User's Music> folder on the new one. Again, deauthorize the old computer if no longer required.
Both methods should give the new computer a working clone of the library that was on the old one. As far as iTunes is concerned this is still the "home" library for your devices so you shouldn't have any issues with iTunes wanting to erase and reload.
I'd recommend method 1 since it establishes an ongoing backup for your library.
If you have an iOS device that syncs with contact & calendar data on your computer you should migrate this information too. If that isn't possible create a dummy entry of each type in your new profile and iTunes should offer to merge the existing data from the device into the computer, otherwise the danger is that it will wipe the information from the device.
If your media folder has been split out from the main iTunes folder you may need to do some preparatory work to make it easier to move. See make a split library portable.
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 for advice on how to set up your devices with a new library with the maximum preservation of data.
tt2

How to add my backed up iTunes Music library...

Hi, I had to restore my MacBook Pro to factory settings, and I moved my iTunes Music library to an external hard drive by copying the music folder (180 GB), and now I want to copy that folder again to iTunes, that has no info, its all clean.
Whats the best way to do it? I dont want to loose anything, and I want to do it as easy as I can, is there a way to add all my music to the new library folder in one step?
thanks.

THe same thing happened to me when My laptop crashed last semester. I had to replace the hard drive and a whole mess of stuff... anyway...
All you need to do is put the CD in and copy the music to the iTunes folder. It was that easy for me. If you have any trouble, call the manufacturer of the new computer (it probably has a warranty, and might have some tricky settings that could be putting a wrench in the works). Usually, they will help you get your new computer up and running, and know the ins and outs of transferring data from one system to another.

ITunes Music Library mostly greyed out

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