Lost Playlists, Playcount and ratings

Hi recently loaded I tunes and no songs were linked to the library. All files were fine, but had to add my music folder again then redo all my playlists ratings and playcount. Is there an index file which can be backed up in the event of this happening again?
Many thanks for your help in advance

Close iTunes and wait for 30 secs or so then copy the two library files somewhere safe.
To restore, close itunes, drag the bad iTunes Library.itl from the iTunes folder to the desktop and copy in the backup.
Note: the xml file is not required for this but it can come in handy so it is worth backing up with the itl file.

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Restore playcounts and ratings from discs

I made playlists on itunes and backed up all my music to dvd disc's in this way instead of the backup to disc, because i was ignorant of it unitl i have lost everything and was reinstalling music but my playcounts and ratings will not trasfer. I can see them on the discs when i click on it in itunes they will not however transfer. There is a xml document which says ContentsDB is there a way to transfer the ratings and playcounts off this or must i start over. Thanks for your time!

I just put ipod on manually manage and then dropped songs onto ipod from playlist to restore playcounts and ratings.

Playcounts and Ratings did not transfer over

I did a clean reinstall (HIGHLY recommended every new OS) and imported my iTunes files and preferences. However, my playcounts and ratings are missing. Anyone know which folder those are kept in? Thanks...

Tux hello,
I'm not sure what you did when you say you imported your iTunes files and preferences...
The playcounts and ratings etc. are stored in the iTunes Library file in your iTunes folder... if you replace the current iTunes Library file with your backup and check that the name of the file is the same as one you are replacing... restart iTunes with a double/click on the backup copy of the iTunes Library file you put in the iTunes folder...
come back if you need to know more Tux .... TP

Get playcount and ratings from ipod when pc library doesn't match ipod

After updating iTunes, the library on my PC was erased.
So I imported an exportfile 15 months old to the new library and added all songs in my "recently added" (of past 15 mths) on my iPod.
So far so good.
The problem is that this new library doesn't match the one on my iPod, though they are the same. The only difference: all ratings and stats that are on my iPod but aren't on my PC.
Is there any way to get the "library identifier" on my PC and iPod to match again, so my stats and ratings are updated to my PC?
Cheers,

Which model of iPod do you have? I have a 160GB Classic (this forum) which _does not_ show Podcasts under the Music folder, and apparently does not have an option to do so. However, I also have a 5th generation 30GB video iPod, which does show Podcasts under the Music folder. Straight away, you'll notice that different modles behave differently, so we need to know.
So, that's the first thing to sort out.
Then, on your manual recordings, did you add all the relevant artist information to the file (i.e. the MP3 tags) when you created them? If not, that will be why they only show up in songs, (but there may be another cause too!). You can fill in any missing information by highlighting the song and clicking on *File/Get Info* and adding the info then.
In the long term, the probably answer to your manual files is to give them their own genre and then search for them that way.

Transfer Playlists, Artwork and Ratings.

Hi,
I got a macbook not long ago and I transferred all my music files from my iMac onto my Macbook planning to sort out the ratings and stuff 'later'. I've since added about 500 songs and still haven't done anything about the ratings, artwork and playlists.
I though just backing up the original library xml files and adding the library xml files to the itunes folder would fix it, but then I thought that, that might mess up the new music.
Any help would be great.
Thanks

see if this KB helps.
JGG

CS3 to CS5 lost keywords, labels and ratings

I have just moved from bridge CS3 to CS5 and find that the keywords, star ratings and colour labels on my images have all disappeared.
Can anyone tell me how to get them back please? There was a lot of work put into them over time.

In edit/preferences/thumbnails make sure you have a check mark in the drop down box under additonal lines of metadata for keywords.

Lost playlists, music and video

When I connected my 1g Itouch to my computer today, none of my playlists or music registered. I disconnected it and tried to access them on the itouch and found that nothing is found despite the fact that itunes is still showing that the disk space is still being used, although instead of it being marked down as music or video on the summary, it is down as 'other' and I cannot access it. My apps are all still working fine, but I was wondering if there was a way that I could either restore my music and video files so that they are acessible, or, at the very least, a way of removing the items to reinstall without having to reset the whole player.
If I have to restore the itouch to factory settings, would that mean I would have to pay again to get the 2.2 update?
Thanks for any help.

I think restoring the device is your only option. And you don't have to pay for the 2.0 update again as long as you use the same computer that you brought the app from to restore your iPod. You can try to reset the iPod but I doubt that will help much. To reset hold down the Home and Sleep/Wake buttons until the  logo appears (ignore the turning off option).

Backing up iTunes playcounts and ratings

I have a fairly large library (just under 80GB) and have had some previous experiences with iTunes data loss. I'm getting dizzy going in circles looking for a way to save the information of my music (play counts, ratings, etc) in case of losing them, so I thought I'd try asking here.
Thanks very much for any responses.

Yes, just put it back to where it was before.
For example, I run my ITL file from my drive K: so that's where I put mine back.
Keep in mind, itunes uses absolute paths. Your music files still need to be in the same place itunes expects them.
I could change my drive letter to M: and shift-start itunes to use that the same ITL file, but I'd get ! next to all the songs. The ! means itunes can't find them.
The content would show in my library because I have the ITL file, but the itunes would still think the music was on K: (and not know about M:) and not be able to play the content.

Lost ratings playcounts and playlists from itunes

Itunes would not open, is said, the path itunes had an invalid character and came up with an error, so I reinstalled itunes using the disk clean up utility for windows, and finally was able to get rid of the itunes itself, so reinstalled itunes from apple.com/itunes/download and all my music was there but greyed out, including playlists and playcounts and ratings, so I changed my preferences to make sure my itunes was reading from the correct itunes folder location, which I had on another hard drive. When I reinstalled itunes I had put the program files in the same hard drive as my music was stored on so that Itunes is being read from and playing from on the same hard drive. Now how would I go about getting my ratings back?

Hi Polydorus,
thanks for your help. But unfortunally it did not work. I will write down my setup, maybe you still could help me to solve the problem.
At home I am using a PC with the latest version of iTunes. All the music is not stored on that PC, but on a seperated server in my house. The path is //NAMEOFTHESERVER/music
On my PC I have a iTunes folder in MyDocuments with a folder artwork, iTunes libary, and iTunes Music libary.xml
Following you instructions; I copied those three files to the EHD. Then I started iTunes on my laptop (at this time not connected to the network) with the shift key and there was eveything there. But when I clicked on a mucis file in iTunes it would not start. Instead it asked me "could not be used because the original could not be found ... do you want to search for it ?"
Do you have any clue ?
Thank you very much for your help !
Best regards,
Olli

How can I recover my play counts and ratings?

I recently moved my iTunes librabry to an external hd, and lost all my preferences. I have recoverd my playlists (at least the ones my wife uses) but can't figure out how to restore my ratings/ play counts etc. I have time machine but cannot locate the data i'm looking for.

iTunes: How to move [or copy] your music to a new computer [or another drive] - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
Quick answer if you use iTunes default preferences settings: Copy the entire iTunes folder (and in doing so all its subfolders and files) intact to the other drive. Start iTunes with the option (shift on Windows) key held down and guide it to the new location of the library.
The above is how you should do it. Your playcounts and ratings are stored along with all other information about your iTunes collection in the library.itl file. If this wasn't part of the move then they got left behind.
What are the iTunes library files? - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1660
More on iTunes library files and what they do - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes#Media_management
What are all those iTunes files? - http://www.macworld.com/article/139974/2009/04/itunes_files.html

Play counts and ratings aren't saving

So far I've been using iTunes for a year and I haven't had any problems until now. So here goes:
As far as I know this has started since I've updated to iTunes 8.2. My play counts and ratings aren't saving when I exit iTunes and start it up again. When I plug in my iPod Classic it syncs up to the old setup and doesn't update playcounts either. At first this happened when I added a new CD and started rating the songs and playing it. Then last night I bought 3 tracks off iTunes Store and all of a sudden it started saving my playcounts and ratings for that past CD. Now today when I started rating and adding playcounts to those new tracks I bought it won't save anything again. It's like it saves the file when I add something new but always reverts to that spot whenever I open iTunes again. I hope this makes sense, haha.

Ok, I found out that when I added another new CD it seems to stop saving all information once I try to rate the new files, or something like that. For example, I started changing the 'Sort Artist' category for the songs and afterwards started to rate them. This was before I clicked 'Get Album Artwork' as well so then when I closed out and opened iTunes again it had the 'Sort Artist' info right but in the wrong spot and the artwork wasn't there. One song was missing too. Is this a corrupted Library file then? It won't save any changes for any of the other songs either. It always reverts back to the old info. I'm really not sure what to do.

Put H.Drive with iTunes onto new computer...lost playlist and ratings

My main computer that had iTunes on it crashed the other day, my motherboard was fried. So I put the hard drive with the iTunes into another computer. The iTune files are not corrupted, but I have lost my playlist and ratings.
Is there a way to recover my old playlist and ratings?

Yes there may be.
iTunes operates as a database of information for your music files. The actual music files are stored on your PC, not within iTunes. iTunes keeps absolute references of the music file location and other information in its database file. This allows iTunes to use music files from any location on the PC: different directories/folders on the main HD, another internal drive, an external drive, or a network drive (or any combination of the above).
Each song reference has a specific and hardcoded location (both drive letter & path) so iTunes can find and play (or sync) it. Move the file, change the path, re-map the drive it is on, shut down or remove the Drive, and iTunes will lose the file (giving you the '!' of a ‘Broken Link’). Lose, move or corrupt the ‘iTunes Music.itl’ file and your complete Library will ‘vanish’.
If you delete, corrupt, or otherwise lose your ‘iTunes Library.itl’ file, you will end up with a ‘blank’ Library within iTunes. Nine times out of ten, your underlying music files are still on the PC. They can be ‘re-Added’ via the File==>Add Folder/File menu command, but you will lose some of the music meta-data. Recovering your Library via backup copies of the iTunes database file, or from importing the XML file is always preferable.
By your placing the previous C: drive (I'm assuming) into another PC now reading it as the H: drive, iTunes is either looking at a blank Library database file, or reading the old one, but looking for the music on the C: drive where it was before (I'll guess the former).
IF you can put all the music on the C: drive into the exact same path as it was previously
AND you can place a copy of your previous ITL database file into the '..\My Music\iTunes' folder on the C: drive
THEN when you open iTunes, it should restore your complete Library.
Post back if you have questions or if you need to clarify your exact HD situation (I may have misread your meaning...).

Somehow, my iTunes music disappeared. I restored it with Time Machine and have all of my music. However, my playlists and song ratings did not restore. Does anyone know if there is anything I can do to restore my playlists and ratings? Thanks.

Somehow, my iTunes music vanished from iTunes. I was able to restore my music from Time Machine, but I lost my playlists and song ratings. Does anyone know how I can restore the playlists and ratings? Thanks in advance for any help.

iTunes as you see it is more than just a file or two. It is all the contents of the iTunes folder including the critical library.itl file. That holds pretty much all the information about what you see when you start iTunes. You need to restore the whole iTunes folder, not just media files.

4 MB .itl file damaged - I want my playlist and ratings back...

For no apparent reason my iTunes library file (.itl) got damaged and I have no clue how to fix it. Just renaming the (damaged).itl into normal name does not work.
iTunes created a new .itl file which is smaller and not at all up-to-date (I cancelled during a re-built). I have no iPod and no backup of .itl or .xml library files.
I think I have to re-import all music (scattered over my PC) but I will still have lost playlists, ratings, (covers?) etc.
Unless someone knows how to re-validate/fix an .itl file. Internet searches did not help so far.
Any ideas? thanks.
It's iTunes 6.0.1.3.

The normal advice would be to attempt a rebuild from your remaining xml file.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93313
But IIRC version 6 doesn't include ratings and counts, even if the rebuild works.
The other thing you could do is to look for an old backup library in iTunes\Previous iTunes Libraries but my guess is that that will be so old as to be worthless in your case.
Some third party utitites such as copytrans claim to be able to get metadata off the iPod, but I have never tried that myself so I can't advise, you might have to copy the music files as well, I don't know.

How to restore playlists and ratings after hard drive format

Several people have reported problems restoring paylists and ratings after reformating a hard drive. Here is what worked for me and what did not.
I had to reformat my hard drive. Before doing that I exported my playlists from itunes to another hard drive as an xml file. I also copied the folder with all my songs to another drive. (Also of course had it backed up on DVDs.)Then I copied the itunes library files (see url http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93732) to anoher drive.
After reformating my hard drive and installing the lastest verion of ITunes, I copied the actual songs back into a subfolder in my music folder. I then told iTunes to import the subfolder with the actual music. That resulted in a restored library that lacked playlists and ratings.
Don't do this
I purchased Anapod ($30.00) because its web page said (http://www.redchairsoftware.com/anapod/):
"Anapod CopyGear is an easy-to-use, compact utility for copying music tracks, playlists, podcasts, photos, and videos from your iPod back to your PC."
Well, I did transfer 104 playlists back to my iTunes library through the Anapod backup function. However, the transfer also put more than 20 gigs of duplicate songs into the library. All of the songs listed in the playlists were duplicated in iTunes. I could find no way in Anapod to simply copy the ratings and the playlists. Anapod documentation was outdated. For example the online help pages said that playlists could not be backed up. This was confusing because I had just done that.
"In a future release we will be adding the ability to backup your iPod playlists. This will allow you to generate backup files of your iPod playlists on the computer. These files will not be usable on your computer though. They can only be used to restore playlists at a later time on your iPod (assuming it still carries all the audio files referred to in that playlist)." This text is from url http://www.redchairsoftware.com/anapod/support/tome/tx2pc.php#5.1.2
I sent requests to Anapod for help today, but they have not been answered yet. Docs truly did not seem to help. Would have been good if there was a pdf file rather than just an online help html file that seemed outdated.
This worked for me:
I ended up having iTunes wipe out the entire library because of all the dups Anapod made. (Made sure that iTunes only wiped out library and did not delete actual songs from hard drive. Then I had iTunes import my subfolder with songs again. That brought me back to where I was before wasting money and much time on Anapod.
After I had my iTunes library up (without ratings and playlists and after finding Anapod did not meet my needs.
1. I imported the xml file to which I had exported playlists before reformating hard drive. That gave me the playlists back although an error message said some items not copied because the music tracks listed in playlists were not in my iTunes library. --Possibly I deleted songs after playlists were downloaded some time ago to iPod. Importing the xml file is probably not necessary because of what I did below.
2. Quit iTunes
3. Because my song ratings were still missing, I then moved the iTunes library files made by the new version of iTunes into a different folder.
4. Then I put my old version 4 library files into the place where the library files should be.
5. Then I crossed my fingers and restarted iTunes. It took awhile to start and said it was updating my library files. Now I have back most or all of my playlists and ratings.
If problems develop, I will probably wipe out iTunes library and use Anapod to move everything from my iPod into a folder and tell iTunes to import that folder. That approach might avoid the dups that Anapod makes when restoring playlists to iTunes.
So my message is keep your actual songs backed up somewhere (such as DVD's and anotehr hard drive) and keep a duplicate copy of your library files somewhere not on your hard drive. With these items you should be able to restore iTunes library to its former status.
Sorry for the length of this message. Hope it helps someone.

The simple version of above:
iTunes Files to Backup (anytime you make additions or changes to the Music or Library that you want to retain)
1) All music files in their current folder structure (usually located in and under the ‘iTunes Music’ folder)
2) The Library database file: ‘iTunes Library.itl’ located in the ‘iTunes’ folder
3) The Library XML file: ‘iTunes Music Library.xml’ located in the ‘iTunes’ folder
4) Any XML playlist files created for Playlist retention
5) The two iTunes.pref files (optional)
-- C:\Documents and Settings\<your username>\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes\iTunes.pref
-- C:\Documents and Settings\<your username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Apple Computer Inc\iTunes.pref
6) The XML file of Ratings, Play Counts and Last Played attributes saved from the main Library and created by Otto’s SaveRatings script (also optional, but recommended):
“Download this: http://ottodestruct.com/itunes/SaveRatings.zip . It's a program, just run it like any other program. Run it on the machine where you're copying the info from BEFORE you move the files to the new machine. Click the "Save Ratings" button and it'll create a ratings.xml file. Now when you move the files, move the program and this file as well. Then after you make your new iTunes library, run it again and click the "Restore Ratings" button. Voila, all your information is back in the Library. Well, most of it anyway, it's not perfect. It'll tell you what songs it couldn't figure out though, and there's usually not very many.”

Lost Playlists, Playcount and ratings

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