ITunes playlists all screwed up...HELP!

So I opened itunes today and I noticed that all of the playlists I have got scrambled. The songs are still there, but the order is screwed up on all of them and I need songs to be in specific order on most of them. Is there anyway to revert back to the original order??
Thanks

Also, with Shuffle turned off you can click on the header of any column to sort by that column. In a playlist, if you click on the extreme left column that has the row numbers, you can manually reorder any tracks you want.

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ITunes music all screwed up

Hello.
I like to think of myself as a very proficient Macintosh user. However, from time to time, things stump me. This is one of those things.
So, I was manually adding some folders (the way iTunes likes to organize them, by artist titled folders) in the proper directory (iTunes was open) but my songs didn't show up. So, I closed it and opened it back up again. Nope, nothing. So I moved the iTunes Database File (what is this file??? please explain what this is even for..) one directory up. Big mistake... All my stuff was gone. So I thought that at this point it wasn't too bad, because I thought I could reverse it back. I was wrong. I moved it back and it just converted the original database file to the new one (the one with no songs)! So now I have a new database file that has lost all the information that I needed. Maybe I would better understand the issue if I knew what those were really for. But aha! I didn't stop there. I impulsively trashed iTunes' .plist file. Now I was really in for it! Not only were all my songs "gone" (I know, I know, they're not gone, I have them all neatly organized in folders by artists, it's just that iTunes can't see them) but I was about to go through a set up wizard. But I didn't stop there! I completed the setup wizard, making one mistake along the way: To have iTunes search for my music for me and import it. So now I have every audio file being imported into my library, but they would go in by doubles, triples, and sometimes even quadruples! I got really scared then. iTunes gave me a warning saying that there wasn't enough room for it to copy all the music into it's library. Good! I don't want it to! (Does it mean copy, literally? Like duplicate? Would that explain the pairs that were imported?) So now I am really all screwed up. Ahh, the consequences of mucking with files you shouldn't be mucking around with. While it was determining gapless playback information, I stopped it. Somehow, the duplicates went away, I think. But there are still lots left. What should I do? Where can I startover? I don't like this! I just want the music in my iTunes music folder to be put into my library exactly how it is. Acutally, it's quite similar to the request of this http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=854588&tstart=0 user. (Sorry, I don't know how to make hyperlinks)
Can anybody offer ANY suggestions?
Thanks for your time,
Sam M.
PowerBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

If I remember your problems started when you moved things from within the Finder. The plist was just fine. If you trash the plist then iTunes will generate a fresh default plist. You will need to set your prefs before continuing. The Library file is related to the data base of tunes not your prefs. The plist is related to your prefs and not your Library file.
You should be able to open iTunes - blank library in the main window then 'add' the tunes back into the library. You can use the File menu 'Add to Library' (+O) or you can navigate via the finder to the tunes and drop them into the main iTunes window. +O is the easiest for me. You will get the same result. Navigate from within iTunes - not the Finder. iTunes will ask you the path.
Now comes the potential messy part. If you grab an folder that has multiple albums in it - i.e.: Beatles White album + Sgt. Peppers - and add those to the library at the same time you will likely get the tunes out of album order- iTunes will add a couple of White Album then a couple of Sgt. Peppers then a couple of White etc. If using the 'Date Added' as the view then it looks really disorganized. So if that is a view that you normally use and order is important to you then it will take some time to add tunes back in an orderly fashion. If order is not important and using the sort by 'Album' is suitable for you then never mind. Try a couple and you will see what I mean. You can add multiple folders back at the same time if you want.
MJ

When downloading the new update to my windows 7 I get the error MSVCR80.dll not available. I can't access my itunes at all. Please help

When downloading the new update to my windows 7 I get the error message MSVCR80.dll not available. I can't access my itunes at all. Please help

Follow the instructions of tt2 in https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5822086 and note to run the installer as admin

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so i noticed my smart playlists are all screwy with the new itunes. for example. i have my genres in different catagories like rock and rap. anytime when im editing a smart playlist and i choose an option of "this genre DOES NOT CONTAIN" it screws up the entire genre selection. im getting rap songs in my rock catagories... anyone else having this problem?

Maybe it's something related to your iTunes library files. Close iTunes, go to your iTunes music folder, copy the .itl and .xml files and make a copy of them anywhere you want, then delete them from your iTunes music folder. Open the "Previous iTunes Libraries" folder in your iTunes music folder, copy the .itl file and paste it where the other .itl library file was (your iTunes music folder). Now, change its name like this: if it's called iTunes Library 09-12-06, rename it just "iTunes Library" (.itl). Hopefully that'll do the trick. Reopen iTunes and check everything is OK.

"Smart" playlists all screwed up after downloading iTunes 7

Okay, so I downloaded iTunes 7 this morning and have so far been lucky that all of my music is playing perfectly. I just have a different problem: when I play a song iTunes displays the correct information, but when I look at my "recently played" playlist it shows completely different songs as having played...it's completely ridiculous and I can't figure out how to make it right again...any ideas?
Windows XP Pro

Maybe it's something related to your iTunes library files. Close iTunes, go to your iTunes music folder, copy the .itl and .xml files and make a copy of them anywhere you want, then delete them from your iTunes music folder. Open the "Previous iTunes Libraries" folder in your iTunes music folder, copy the .itl file and paste it where the other .itl library file was (your iTunes music folder). Now, change its name like this: if it's called iTunes Library 09-12-06, rename it just "iTunes Library" (.itl). Hopefully that'll do the trick. Reopen iTunes and check everything is OK.

ITunes Playlist M.I.A. HELP!

I opened up my iTunes today, and all my playlists were gone. I haven't done anything different with the computer. I restarted the computer, and it still came up without my playlists. Does anyone know what's up, and how to sold this problem? I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

First check that your msuic files are still in your computer - usually they are in the iTunes\iTunes Music folder
If they are you may be able to recreate your library using the following method:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93313
If that doesn't work you can add your iTunes Music folder to iTunes with File>>Add folder to Library...
But this loses all playlists, counts and ratings.
If your music files are not in your computer we are into a different problem.

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I don't know when exactly this happened - but in one of the recent updates in the last two months of either iTunes, iPhoto, or iOS something was changed in the photo sorting algorithms. iPhoto does not seem to dictate the sort order any more?
I have a smart album in iphoto that is called "our best pics" and that automatically takes the top ranked pictures and sorts them by date. That used to be perfectly mirrored on the iPad and iPhones in our household. Since a few weeks, this does not work anymore. The order of the pictures in the album are now very random, but identical on all iOS devices. I tried deleting the pictures and re-syncing, but nothing changes. Anyone have any ideas?
Many thanks Klaus

Spare yourself the pain. Use 3rd apps to sort you photos.
https://itunes.apple.com/sg/app/photo-manager-pro/id393858562?mt=8

Cannot open itunes at all. Please help

I have recently upgraded to the newest version of itunes but everytime I try to open the program it says that a newer version of quicktime is needed to open itunes and for me to reinstall itunes. Well I have done this about twenty times and it still keeps giving me the same error. What can I do I have downloaded both quicktime and itunes seperatly and together how can I get itunes to open.

You'll need to find your iTunes folder. It's usually located on your main hard disk under My Documents/My Music/iTunes. Copy this whole folder to another hard drive (if possible) or burn it on a CD (probably will take more than one--depending upon how large your library is) or DVD. Once you have a good backup of your library, try downloading and reinstalling iTunes.

After iOS 5 upgrade my "artists" are all screwed up on my iPhone but are fine on my iTunes. ANY SOLUTIONS?? HELP!!

After iOS 5 upgrade my "artists" are all screwed up on my iPhone but are fine on my iTunes. ANY SOLUTIONS?? HELP!!

I had a similar problem to you that I have since solved.
At first only some albums/songs were missing artwork but they all showed up fine in itunes. I went into itunes and did the view where the album art is displayed next to the album in a list, middle option for viewing. I found that on several 1-2 songs did not have the artwork attached and so that was the cause of it not showing up on my iphone. However after I got all that solved I found that the artworks were all messed up. Much like you described many songs had the complete wrong artwork and some songs on the same album had different artworks or the same artwork showed up on multiple albums.
I could only come up with resyncing my iphone to solve it. I only use one playlist for my iphone so that I can sort of do manual management and only have to deal with one playlist. So I unchecked the playlist and did a sync to clear off all the audio. Then I rechecked the playlist and did a sync to reload everything and after that was done everything appeared correctly.
I didn't notice if this was affecting any of my purchased albums, I don't have that many so I didn't think about it but affected a lot of them. I hope this helps in some way and that you can get it working again.

I just updated my Mac Mini to the newest version of itunes and itunes no longer reconizes my external hard drive as my storage for itunes. All of my music, movies, playlist, etc. are found on my itunes. Help I'm about to punch something!!!

I had some updates for my mac mini and so I updated and when it reboot I checked iTunes and all of my data was gone. I have a 2TB External HDD that contains all of my iTunes data and before the latest Sept. 2012 iTunes update I had the folder located in the advanced tab of itunes located on my external HDD. After the reboot and the new iTunes software was installed it defalted to my HDD on my mini and nothing that was there before the update was no longer there. All of my music, playlists, podcasts, folders, movies etc. was gone. I have redirected the library file locating back to my external HDD but it still is not working. HELP!!!!

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.
Windows images, but you get the point. Depending on the age of your library the library file might not include the .itl extention. Make it match the file you are replacing.
See MusicFolder Files Not Added and Super Remove Dead Tracks for tools to catch up with any changes since the backup file was created.
tt2

I just downloaded the newest reconfigured version of iTunes, and for the first time ever my content is all screwed up. Specifically, all of my playlists are gone, so are my apps. However, the music library is intact. Any ideas? Thanks.............

I just downloaded the newest reconfigured version of iTunes, and for the first time ever my content is all screwed up. Specifically, all of my playlists are gone, so are my apps. The good news is that my music library is intact and that I've got more than one device with everything as it should be on them; the bad news is that my PC does not recognise my devices and keeps defaulting to " lets sync your devices to this new computer loose all of the playlists I've spent years compiling". I don't get it. Any ideas?
Thanks

See this post.
tt2

I'm tearing my hair out. Got a new iphone went to sync and now all my iTunes playlists are missing. Please help

Basically my iTunes playlists have gone missing. They were there yesterday and today I got a replacement iphone. I connected it to itunes and they were gone I was left with just 3 songs I had downloaded from the itunes store. I've read previous posts about recovering them but I can't find 'previous iTunes library' the folder with the dates in for exaple itunes library 2012-03-09.itl - all I can find is music - itunes then one a few options but none that has the dates on
Any other ideas
Please help

Can you copy over the library again from the old computer?
And yes, backup is advisable.
tt2

HT1751 After "Restoring iTunes Library Backup" it wont link to the files in the iTunes folder. I've followed the correct procedure, and iTunes lists all my music correctly (but with no artwork), but can't locate any of the files. Using Windows 7. Help ple

After "Restoring iTunes Library backup" it wont link to the files in the iTunes folder. I've followed the procedure as described, and the iTunes folder is in the correct location. iTunes lists all my music correctly (albeit with no artwork), but can't locate any of the files.
I've been restoring my iTunes folder from a backup hard drive to a new computer on which I've downloaded the latest iTunes (10.7). If this is a newer version than the one I backed up with could this be the problem? (I had the latest (to my knowledge) iTunes when I backed up the folder about 3 weeks ago, was this version 10.7?)
Or is the version of iTunes (within recent updates) not an issue when restoring a library?
Using Windows 7.
Any help please?

From the top of the page where the scripts live...
The general method of use is to download the script to a folder of your choice, e.g. your Desktop, Downloads folder or create a folder at ...\iTunes\Scripts. Select a playlist or highlight some tracks in iTunes and then double-click on the script to execute it. If no specific tracks are selected the script will try to work with all tracks in the current playlist. Some scripts offer a choice of track by track confirmation of changes or fully automatic processing of the selection. Many of the scripts can optionally display a progress bar while running.
You are strongly advised to backup your entire library, or at the very least the iTunes Library.itl file, before use. Test the behaviour of your chosen script on a small group of files first to make sure it does what you want before applying it to large numbers of files.
Most builds of Windows will execute *.vbs scripts when you double-click them. If that doesn't happen then you might need to visit the Add/Remove Programs or Programs & Features control panel to enable the Windows Scripting Host. I can track down details if you have issues.
Backing up and restoring data is an area that is often glossed over. Most people don't try to learn much about it until they've lost something important. (Me too )
If your iTunes library was in the usual layout then normally copying the whole iTunes folder from the User's Music folder in the old computer to the User's Music folder in the new one will usually work fine. Ideally this is done before iTunes is installed so that there is no empty library to replace, and all settings are picked up from the old library. This post contains more details.
tt2

Itunes colors on screen all screwed up

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Change the monitor's bitdepth to 32 bit from the Control Panel.
(41140)

(HELP!)How can I import Windows Media Player Playlists, into iTunes Playlists, with Music . . for an iPod

How can I import Windows Media Player Playlists, into iTunes Playlists, with Music . . for an iPod
We are having no luck with the thousands of songs we have to manualy add to a particular playlist in iTunes alone. .. there must be a simpler way! How can this be done . . . if there is and it's complicated, is the Genius allowed to help us out with this? They seem to only master Mac's only. . or can they help us? PL E A SE E E HELLPPP!

tt2,
Your very helpful and knowledgeable. I for one appreciate all the hardwork and help you have been giving the people on theses lists, especially with the problems associated with the "importing playlists" from windows media. Unfortunately I need more help if you or someone else can provide it. I followed all the steps you have instructed so far in the threads I have seen. Unfortunately nothing so far works for me. Maybe you or someone can help me, I'd really appreciate it. I tried the notepad++ method and when I click on save I always get a notepad file that my iTunes can't do anything with. I click the "convert to UTF-8 without BOM" then click save as and it still saves as a notepad file. I am also unable to find the \n\ file path to replace with my \C:\ filepath. Here is a copy of the first part of one of my playlists:
<?wpl version="1.0"?>
<smil>
    <head>
        <meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Windows Media Player -- 12.0.7601.17514"/>
        <meta name="ItemCount" content="161"/>
        <author/>
        <title>Power Surge</title>
    </head>
    <body>
        <seq>
            <media src="..\Various Artists\Mixed Tape 2\13 Out of Control.wma" tid="{650561AF-AA9D-4EA3-84CC-2F09C24DF3B3}"/>
            <media src="..\Various Artists\Mixed Tape 1\12 One Step Closer.wma" tid="{EE5ADD9D-A879-404A-BC60-CE841045BCB6}"/>
            <media src="..\Various Artists\Mixed Tape 1\15 Click Click Boom.wma" tid="{0F71941C-1B67-425F-BDAA-246618709179}"/>
Now I went and switched the part from <media src="..\ to <media src="C:\ in all the files in hopes that was where I am supposed to have my drive letter but it didn't seem to help. Please forgive my encoding ignorance if that's what my problem is. I hope you can help. Thanks in advance.
Madmaxneo

ITunes playlists all screwed up...HELP!

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