ITunes unable to locate original files

I just moved the 'iTunes Music" folder on my hard drive on to a second larger hard drive that is internally located in the same computer because there was not enough space for all my video on the smaller drive. I didn't want to separate my music from my videos, so when I moved the whole folder, I went into preferences and changed the location of my library to where it was on the new drive. All of my videos instantly worked and I didnt have to go threw and relocate them manually by browsing, but all of my songs are not working, and it says it cant find the original file. I could browse and locate them manually but that would take a long time because I have over 2,000 songs. I have iTunes version 8.1.1 if that is relevant.
Thanks for the help
Trey

I switched computers and tried to reload all my backed up itunes files. It loaded the files fine the first time. After I logged off the files disappeared from my Itunes. Apple tech told me to add itunes folder to library. It worked fine until i logged off again. I tried it several times because my files never stayed on itunes. Finnaly I added two new CD's into my library and I went to file Libray and I entered consolidated Library. This brought everything I had before and then some to my itunes library. I logged off, shutdown and even hibernated and my files still remain. I was able to create playlist, my movies, podcast, there all there. Hope this helps.

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Itunes unable to locate original file for music after update. How can I find it

I am not able to play any of my music since the last update to itnes.It gives me a message that the original file canot be located but when I say locate it comes back with nothing. Any suggestions?

This happens 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.
Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Ctrl-I to get info, then cancel when asked to try 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.
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 .
tt2

Itunes seems to be unable to locate original file to play songs. Songs are in the itunes media file and playable direct from file. Preferences/advance file location is correct. Some files are playing and others aren't with no obvious pattern.

Itunes is unable to locate original file when attempting to play music. Songs are in the itunes media file and playable direct from there. Preferences/Advanced file location pointer is correct. Some songs play but most don't. I did move files around a bit in an attempt to share music with another account on same computor, however this did not work so have returned file to original location. Please help, I am way outside my feild in this one. Ta.

I have solved the problem. i think when I moved the media file back out of public to my account, I put it back into the wrong place and ended up with a media file inside a media file, inside another media file!! So I moved it again and fixed!! Now I just need to work out why i can't share with another account user of same computor.

All my purchased songs from Itunes says unable to locate original file

all of my songs purchased from itunes say unable to locate original file

Did you recently move any files around on your computer. iTunes looks for the files in the original location; if they are moved this can create problems. One possibility is to right click on one of the songs with an exclamation point, and the go to "Get info." This will open a pop-up window that has several tabs.Click on "Summary." At the bottom of this screen, there is a section that says "Where:" This is the path of the original file. Check that location and see if the file is located there (probably not, or you wouldn't get the warning).
Next, I would search Windows for the particular song. Assuming that you find it somewhere, I would bet that is where the rest of the missing files now reside.

ITunes unable to locate music files saved on external drive

Hi all,
This is proabably something incredibly simple but my iTunes was installed on to my laptop wih music added till my memory was all used up.
So I bought an external drive, and re-added all my music saving it to the external drive, my iTunes however remained installed directly on my laptop.
This worked fine initially as long as my external drive was selected in the Preferences section of my Itunes, but recently all my albums are available but it says that Itunes is unable to locate the files, even though none of them have been lost or deleted from the external drive.
Ive tried everything I can think of - does anyone know how to rectify this?
Thanks....

I switched computers and tried to reload all my backed up itunes files. It loaded the files fine the first time. After I logged off the files disappeared from my Itunes. Apple tech told me to add itunes folder to library. It worked fine until i logged off again. I tried it several times because my files never stayed on itunes. Finnaly I added two new CD's into my library and I went to file Libray and I entered consolidated Library. This brought everything I had before and then some to my itunes library. I logged off, shutdown and even hibernated and my files still remain. I was able to create playlist, my movies, podcast, there all there. Hope this helps.

ITunes Unable to Locate Music File

I have a few hundred songs in iTunes that have been loaded over the years. Their source is CD's and iTunes. Tonight on an airplane, I was listening and noticed that I had red circles with red squares inside of them next to song titles. When I selected these, they were not available. This happened more and more as i selected different songs, eventually I was left with just a handful of songs. Immediately when I got home, I snyched to my computer and it said that there were items unable to synch because iTunes was unable to locate the original file. (it did restore a few but still over 100+ missing files). The titles are still listed.
However, I am unable to play any song in itunes on my computer. Just on my iPhone. When i ask it to loacte it directs me to a catroot file from 2009???
I have not added or removfed songs in weeks and it has been working fine (iPhone and computer) for months.Any help in finding these files or restoring them would be appreciated.

Use the iTunes command File > Add Folder to Library, and navigate to the folder containing the music.

ITunes Can't Locate Original File - 7.7 error?

hoping someone out there can help me....
basically, I have 2 external hard drives. the first one is a 160GB hard drive, the second one is a 250GB hard drive. initially I had all of my music on the 160GB, but when it got too full I copied everything over on the 250GB drive, so I could add more music to it. everything's been working fine for 2 years on the 250GB drive until this weekend when all of the sudden, iTunes is now looking for the music on the old drive again, saying that it can't find the original file. the songs are all on the new drive, but for some reason it will only look for them on the old one. So - if I have BOTH drives on, everything works fine. If I turn the old drive off, iTunes can't locate 3/4 of my music. it's frustrating because all of the old stuff is on the new drive but iTunes won't see it. I've even tried copying some of the stuff from the old drive onto the new drive and itunes still seems to be looking for it the old drive even when I change the pathway to the new drive in the general preferences.
the only thing I can think of is:
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2) reinstall itunes, but I'm afraid of losing my settings and all of the movies,
apps, games I've bought etc.
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Yeah,
I've upgraded to 7.7 and have a large library of tracks on an external drive. I added them manually to the library - rather tedious, it took me about 3 days!
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This is a real pain. Can anyone help?
curly

Unable to locate original files in a second library

Hi everyone! I just got a new christmas cd, and opened my second itunes library (which I use to keep all my holiday music separate from everything else), only to find that itunes is unable to find the original files of all my music (with the little ! symbol next to every song). I'm not very computer-savvy, so the only changes I've made to my computer since I last opened this library in January would have been to run a couple of automatic disk defragmenters. I tried looking through all of my files when the error message popped up, but I don't really know where to start. All of the music in my regular library and the music in the library I made for my father (also not opened since January) are fine, but for some reason it seems to have lost the files in just this one library. I originally downloaded all of the music that's been lost directly from the cds into this itunes library, and I have no idea why this happened. All of the other posts with problems similar to mine seem to be people with external hard drives, but mine is all kept on one laptop. I have quite a bit of music in the library, and I guess I could just re-load it, but I don't have the cds with me and I don't get internet on my laptop at home, so I would have to manually label all of the songs (again!), which would take literally forever. If anyone has any suggestions, I would really appreciate it! Thanks!
Jenny

A followup: If I copy the files for this album into the local iTunes library of the mini(client) system, it plays fine. But it still can't play the same songs from the shared library.

Itunes can't locate original files for songs on my external harddrive

I recently added my music collection to a new computer from my external harddrive. At first everything worked great, now when i open itunes and try to play songs that are located on the harddrive the following error message pops up "The Song "xxxx" could not be used because the original file could not be located. Would you like to locate it?" I am able to locate the files one at a time, but i have over 12000 songs. I am wondering if there is a way to make itunes recognize that all of the songs it is looking for are located on the external harddrive. Any/all help is appreciated.

1)if you have an ipod than you are in luck. plug it in.
2)go to my computer and select your ipod.
3)click on search and DO NOT TYPE ANYTHING IN OR CLICK ON ANY THING.
4)you will be on the first page with the little charactor in the bottom left hand side of the page.
5)just click "OK" NOTHING ELSE!!!!!!!!
6)then click on search
7)when it is done searching, select all your music and PUT IT IN A FOLDER. any folder will be fine.
8)select all of the music in the new folder and drag and drop it in to itunes.
9)that is it but if you have any questons email me at [email protected]

Most songs come up with a message "unable to locate original file".What's that about and how do I fix it?

In my library, many listed songs, when activated to play, give a message "unable to locate file, do you want us to search for it?". If you say yes, it never finds it, as it the songs are gone. Any thoughts on what's going on?

This happens 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.
Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Ctrl-I to get info, then cancel when asked to try 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.
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.
tt2

Why do I keep getting "unable to locate original file"?

...and then when I click "locate"...I can't find them...please help.

When you originally put the music into iTunes, it didn't copy them into the iTunes media folder. Now, it tries to play the song from the original location, which would be gone if you used an external storage device. Before you import more song into iTunes, make sure you go to edit>preferences>advanced, and make sure the box is checked next to "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library" and you shouldn't get that message for any music you add after that.

Unable to locate original file

I was trying to get music on my Droid phone using Doubletwist and ended up deleting my music.The folders with the artists name are still in the iTunes library but there is not mp3 in it. I still have all the music on my iPhone, so how can I reinstall the music?
Thanks

Brian Strohman wrote:
I still have all the music on my iPhone, so how can I reinstall the music?
check this post by Zevoneer.
JGG

When i try to play music on itunes it says the original file cant be found. I have music on exyernal dive and it is working . How can i correct this

When i try to play music on itunes it says the original file cant be found. I have music on exyernal dive and it is working . How can i correct this?

See if you have most of the songs with 'Exclamation' symbol precede the name under your music library.
If so, double click a song with ! mark on side, you will be given an option to locate the file where the song is held. Select "locate" and direct it to your External Drive folder / file where the song is and open it.
iTunes then will give you the option to use this process to update all of your library. OK that as this will fix all automatically instead of doing them one by one.

For some reason itunes can't find original file for music. If I have purchased from Itunes do I have to re-purchase?

I keep losing music from my library because "itunes cannot locate original file". Why does my computer lose this? If I have purchased in itunes, can I copy again for free? how? Thanks.

kenfromoshawa wrote:
I keep losing music from my library because "itunes cannot locate original file". Why does my computer lose this?
If you are losing music which can mean the database in iTunes is not stable. Maybe you should do under File > Library > Organize Library > Consolidate Files.
Thanks and I did find the link, it now states that they have been downloaded but how do I copy thise files into my itunes or how does my itunes find those files? Again thank you for your help
Downloaded means you already have it in iTunes. If you've deleted them then you will see a cloud symbol. Click the cloud symbol and it will download into iTunes. (iCloud is your backup for all your purchased items)

Unable to locate image file in pixmap_path: "foo.bar"

I was trying to install fbpanel, after succesfully installing it i got this eror when trying to run it via the terminal.
This is the whole output of the fbpanel command:
$ fbpanel
/home/simplemind/.gtkrc-2.0:2: Unable to locate image file in pixmap_path: "foo.bar"
/home/simplemind/.gtkrc-2.0:3: Unable to locate image file in pixmap_path: "foo.bar"
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/home/simplemind/.gtkrc-2.0:5: Unable to locate image file in pixmap_path: "foo.bar"
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volume: can't open /dev/mixer
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Yes, google, or our wiki. Don't be a help vampire. The forums are here to help, but you should first try to search. And either a google or wiki search with anything related to logind would get you just what you are looking for. (edit: this is not to say your original question wasn't a good one. It did tell you the file name and line number, you should use those to check the file yourself, but it was a fair question. I'm referring here only to the logind followup)
However, if being in the audio group doesn't help, neither will having a valid logind session. Do you have a /dev/mixer? When a program says it can't find a file, check to see if that file exists.
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Last edited by Trilby (2013-07-17 15:32:39)

ITunes unable to locate original files

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