Itunes says "Original File could not be found"

I've moved my Itunes music folder to a different location to accommodate more music. I've also created a new library in another location with other music (reasons aside). Also, the Advanced pane shows the correct location of the Itunes files. All worked just fine, opening Itunes with option key to be able to choose the correct library. Now, when I click almost any tune in after opening the original library, Itunes says "Original File could not be found - would you like to locate it?" I could but I certainly don't want to do this for each and every song. How can I do this "en masse" and How can I avoid this in future? Thanks in advance for any help.

am pulling my hair out now after to many hours on this issue.. Surely Apple must be able to sort this issue by now.
My itunes library is 5+ yrs old now and therefore 10,000 songs, numerous podcasts, videos etc etc. not to mention loads of rating information, hundreds of playlists created from last played, rating, genre etc etc, therefore i cannot afford to loose all this valuable data attached to my itunes library. However recently half of my library appeared with exclamation marks all over it, though i cannot work out why as all the music files are in the location specified in preferences, path etc.
It seems that itunes just wont bother looking at this path and syncing with whatever is there. Yeah fine i can add the whole itunes music folder again and it will import every song again so i go from 10,000 to 20,000 songs, i could deal with this with a dupe eliminator that are freelu available on the net but the new imports without the exclamation marks cleary dont have the historical data of play counts, last played ratings etc etc attached to them so its no different from deleting and starting again.
I have tried all the options in this post and none of them deal with the simple issue of just look at the location that it listed in the preferences and search for the file u think is missing on mass!!!
Its not rocket science so why havent Apple fixed this. !!!
If anyone has got a solution for this or work around that doesnt involve completly writing off years of rating and creating playlists based on numerous historical data then i would be bery appreciative!!

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When I try to play a song iTunes says "Original file could not be found"

I am getting a "!" next to my songs, and the message that the file cannot be used because the original file cannot be found.

iTunes' library keeps track of where your tracks are located. If you move a track, or keep your music on an external drive and don't turn it on before starting iTunes, or your computer's file system becomes corrupted, or iTunes' library gets corrupted, or..., then iTunes goes to where it thinks the file is located, can't find it, and you get !

Getting error message when trying to play songs from library saying original file could not be found

when trying to play songs from library, getting message saying original file could not be found .. my full library all says the same .. can anyone help ?

Hello Ceeclass,
I suggest this article named iTunes: Finding lost media and downloads found here http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1408.
It should help you locate the media that is not playing in the iTunes library.
Take care,
Sterling

HT1923 I am using windows 7 and have upgraded itunes to 11. Now when I open my music library in itunes and click on a song it says "original file could not be found" Over 2000 songs come up this way and locate does not seem to work. Before the upgrade all

With Windows 7 I upgraded itunes to 11. Now in my itunes library, when I click on a song "original file could not be found" comes up. This happens with over 2000 songs, but it seems to be ones I recorded from cd's. Locate does not seem to work. Has anyone else had this problem?

Highlight a song that is supposedly missing, press CTRL+I to Get Info, say no when asked to locate the file, then look at the summary tab. Where does iTunes "think" the file should be? Where is it really? You may need to give a configuration file a minor tweak.
tt2

Itunes purchases - original file could not be found

Last night I made an 11 item purchase. At the time, my Ipod was connected to my PC and after download was complete, I synced. The new songs are on my Ipod. However, they cannot be found on my computer, or so iTunes tells me every time I try to play one.
This is my only authorized computer, I am using Windows XP and iTunes ver. 7, music and podcasts only.
I have gone through the "transfer purchased from iPod" exercise a number of times. The first few times, a progress window would flash so fast that I could see only the name of one song. Presumably, that song was transferred from ipod to itunes. However, when I ask to play it, I am still told that the file cannot be found. I have searched and searched for it! Now when I try to transfer, itunes and ipod talk to each othe (
My music folder is on an external HD, but that hasn't proved to be a problem with previous purchases.
I did discover that in my preferences, on Advanced|General tab, the option "copy files to itunes folder when adding to library" was not checked. I checked to enable. Would that have made a difference? I don't recall unchecking it and other purchses (without check) have been okay and are all accessible both from itunes and ipod.
For the heck of it, I purchased just one song just now with absolutely no problems. Synced and it's on ipod and itunes. HOWEVER, just before I synced, I unchecked in itunes the 11 songs which I'm writing about -- the ones that are on ipod but itunes can't find. Well, they're no longer on ipod. My sync option is "only checked files," but I didn't understand that since they were already on the ipod, unchecking them would remove them!
This is so frustrating. Can anyone shed any light?? TIA!!

am pulling my hair out now after to many hours on this issue.. Surely Apple must be able to sort this issue by now.
My itunes library is 5+ yrs old now and therefore 10,000 songs, numerous podcasts, videos etc etc. not to mention loads of rating information, hundreds of playlists created from last played, rating, genre etc etc, therefore i cannot afford to loose all this valuable data attached to my itunes library. However recently half of my library appeared with exclamation marks all over it, though i cannot work out why as all the music files are in the location specified in preferences, path etc.
It seems that itunes just wont bother looking at this path and syncing with whatever is there. Yeah fine i can add the whole itunes music folder again and it will import every song again so i go from 10,000 to 20,000 songs, i could deal with this with a dupe eliminator that are freelu available on the net but the new imports without the exclamation marks cleary dont have the historical data of play counts, last played ratings etc etc attached to them so its no different from deleting and starting again.
I have tried all the options in this post and none of them deal with the simple issue of just look at the location that it listed in the preferences and search for the file u think is missing on mass!!!
Its not rocket science so why havent Apple fixed this. !!!
If anyone has got a solution for this or work around that doesnt involve completly writing off years of rating and creating playlists based on numerous historical data then i would be bery appreciative!!

HT1386 When I sync my i-phone with my pc, will it pull audio from my phone to my i-tunes on my pc? My problem is I have songs on my pc that will not play - the message says "original file could not be found"... They play on my phone.

I am not sure if the synching will pull the audio from my phone and replace the 'not working' files on my i-tunes, or if it will replace the working audio on my phone with the non-functioning audio on my pc.
Thanks for any insight...

No it won't. You are getting that message because those song are no longer in your my music folder and itunes doesn't know where to look for the file.

Itunes match, original file could not be found

Hi,
When I try to access songs via itunes match, I get an error that states that the file cannot be located. Additionally, I don't have the icloud icon on all of my albums, but it shows that over 16,000 songs are on the cloud. This problem appears to only affect one computer, on my laptop and iphone, its not an issue. And yes, all are authorized with itunes match already turned on.
Marlon

Provided that the Songs have already 'uploaded' or 'matched' the issue sounds like a local one with the specific library concerned.
Would recommend:
1. Take a secure backup of all the Songs in the library;
2. Select all Songs in the library and delete (do not also delete from iCloud);
3. Restart the iTunes client.
At this point you should have access to all your Songs from the iCloud - if needed any further Songs can be recovered from the secure backup. You can either download all Songs or simply stream Songs as needed.
It is worth checking your operating systems versus the iTunes Match minimum requirements as well.

Original file could not be found ----PLEASE HELP

Hello,
I have 4,000 MP3s on an extrenal hard drive.
When I open iTunes, I would double click on a song, and it would play.
NOW, for whatever reason, when I double click on a song, a window pops up and says: +Original file could not be found, would you like to locate it?+
I then have to manually locate the song, for it to play.
I do not want to do that for 3,999 more MP3s.
I went to EDIT>PREFERENCES>ADVANCE>GENERAL andmade sure the file path is my F Drive (external hard drive) where my MP3's are.
Still no luck.
The 2 or 3 songs, that I've manually located have a speaker by the title. The other 3,900+ MP3s have and exclamation point by the title.
Can anyone PLEASE help me?

I went to FILE> ADD FOLDER TO LIBRARY and selected the folder where my MP3s were.
This updated my itunes library and now allow me to play every song, but it also made a duplicate of every song.
Example:
Kanye West - Stronger
Kanye West - Stronger
1 plays and 1 doesn't.
I just have to go and delete the songs with the infront of the title.

Original file could not be found. file is.itc2. will not allow me to play song.

Original file could not be found. There is an exclamation mark before the song, and it says "original file could not be found" the file is ITC2. Can someone please tell me how to fix this?

Do you use anything such as Windows Media Player, whcih may have done something to the files?
The message is blunt - the file cannot be found - it is no longer where iTunes thought it was.
Try looking in the folders where you would expect the music to be located. Look at the example below. In the first shot, you can see the correct path to the file. In the second shot, when iTunes can no longer find the file, because I have renamed it, the path changes slightly, but the original path is buried in there anyway.
Basically, the path is:
iTunes\iTunes Music\<Artist name>\<Album name>\<song name> or
iTunes\iTunes Music\Compilations\<Album name>\<song name>
Then you will have to work out what went wrong and correct it yourself.

I recently reset my computer and copy my music from an external hard drive to my itunes library. When I click on a song to play i get an error message that says " the song could not be used because the original file could not be found". need help

I recently reset my computer and copy my music from an external hard drive to my itunes library. When I click on a song to play i get an error message that says " the song could not be used because the original file could not be found". But when I have my external hard drive plug in the song will play with no problem. What do I need to do to play my music without having the external harddrive plug in ???????? Please help

Because the location for each song in your library is on your hard drive. If the hard drive isn't there, how can iTunes play it?
You'll have to move/copy the music from your hard drive to your computer's hard drive.
Basically, EASIEST way to do all this, if you don't care about your play counts, etc...
-Delete EVERYTHING from iTunes, so that your library is now empty.
-Go to "Advanced" inside of the "Preferences" window, found in the "Edit" drop-down. You can also access Preferences by pressing Ctrl+, (Press Ctrl and the comma key)
-Change your iTunes Media Folder Location to something simple, but on your computer. I use C:/iTunes. Make sure "Keep iTunes Media Folder Organized" and "Copy files to...." are both checked. You can close Preferences now.
-Now, drag and drop your music from your hard drive into your iTunes library. iTunes will automatically add the music to your library, as you would expect, and also creates a copy of each file to place into that iTunes Media Folder you just created.
Shouldn't have any more problems...

I tried to play my iTunes and suddenly get an error message that says "The song (name) could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it now?" It happens on all my tunes and each one I select ends up with a "?"

I tried to play my iTunes and suddenly get an error message that says "The song (name) could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it now?" It happens on each tune I select and a "?" appears beside the song. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

I was not complete clear.
Since you never changed the settings in the advanced section of iTunes preferecnes, you have to chech that your music is really in the location setted in the folders reported in the advanced section. If not you have 2 ways: reset the position of this folders or in the actual disk organisation or in the pointing on the preferences.
If you press the reset button you just give to itunes its default setting as for the position of the music files: probably this will be a good choice if you have never changed any default preference.
But before I would check the folders and see if the songs are really there
In my iTune I have this, and I believe it is the default.
Users/YOURHOMEFOLDERNAME/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music

When I try to play a song in my itunes libery I get an error saying "this song could not be used because the original file could not be found". I do I restore the file?

When I rry to paly a song in my itunes libery, I get an error saying "this song could not be used because the original file could not be found". I do I find the orginal file?

Hello crispinofromfl,
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
For more information, take a look at:
Where are my iTunes files located?
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1391
Have a nice day,
Mario

I downloaded the new version of iTunes and now over 100 songs have an exclamation mark beside them and won't play. The message says: "The song ... could not be used because the original file could not be found." How do I get these songs back?

I downloaded the new version of iTunes and now over 100 songs have an exclamation mark beside them and won't play. The message says: "The song ... could not be used because the original file could not be found." How do I get these songs back?

Presuming they're on your computer, right click on them and then follow the prompts to locate hte file on your computer.

HT1933 I bought six songs using my itunes gift card in February but I cannot play the songs or downlaod them to my ipod because I get an error saying the original file could not be found. I have used the gift card previously with no issue. How do I fix

I bought six songs using my itunes gift card in February but I cannot play the songs or downlaod them to my ipod because I get an error saying the original file could not be found. I have used the gift card previously with no issue. How do I fix it?

Have you moved or deleted those tracks on your computer (the gift card has got nothing to do with it) ?
You might be able to re-download them via the Purchased link under Quick Links on the right-hand side of the iTunes store home page on your computer's iTunes (re-downloading isn't possible in all countries) - if those songs appear there then delete the entries from your iTunes library (where you are clicking on them to play them and gettinf the 'original file' error), and they should then get a cloud symbol against them for re-downloading.
If they don't appear in that link then have you got them on, for example, an external drive ?

I have moved my file from my old computer. Now that I am trying to play songs and movies iTunes says the original file could not be found. How do I reverse this problem?

I have moved my file from my old computer. Now that I am trying to play songs and movies iTunes says the original file could not be found. How do I reverse this problem?

Put the files back where iTunes expects them to be.

Itunes says "Original File could not be found"

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