Missing music

Hi
My library is 3,500 songs, and about half is "missing".
Well they are not actually missing, but Itunes thinks they are.
Sometimes individual songs are marked as missing, sometimes whole albums. The "missing" songs and albums are in the iTunes folder structure, but with a different folder name which iTunes isn't seeing. Here's what happened.
I made hundreds of 'batch' changes using the "multiple item information" window, as follows: Having selected the songs and opened the information window (via apple-key I), I would change the album name, or delete the composer field, or change the artist name or whatever, and save the results.
All seemed fine until today when I got the dreaded exclamation point for a song I tried to play, with the attendant popup saying "...original file could not be found ...". "Spotlight" can find it though. It is there ... in a different folder!!
Here is what is actually on disk:
...Ella Fitzgerald>Ella_ Intimate Ella> 10/12 songs (my new album name)
...Ella Fitzgerald>Intimate Ella> missing 2 songs (the original album name)
ITunes shows all 12 songs under the new album name I gave it, and shows 2 songs as missing
(I did a "consolidate library" and that is when the extent of the problem manifested).
It seems to me there is a bug in the "multiple item" update function, where not all selected items are actually updated. Some of the originals get left out and remain in their original folders.
The question now is how do I get Itunes to "find" the "missing" songs and albums without loosing the dozens of hours of edits I've made to the library??
And how (or should I) report this to Apple. (I was on the phone with my AppleCare person and all I got was "we don't know ... good luck")
Thanks
(Glum) Peter.
MacBook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.8) MacNewbie, PC Oldie
MacBook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Hi
My ideas:
1. Make sure that every music file has mp3 format (it may sound silly, but I was looking for one album for a while after I realised that it was .acc not mp3 );
2. Try to copy them one more time to your N97 using Ovi Suite;
3. Check if music files has been physically copied to your phone memory (the simplest way to do it is to browse phone folders while connected via usb).
good luck
"Imagination is more important than knowledge"
Albert Einstein
If you think that my advices were helpful for you anyhow, just hit the white star on the left. Thanks

Similar Messages

Itunes: i want to find a single fix for missing music on itunes rather than using "iTunes: Finding lost media and downloads" on a case by case basis.

recently when i was creating a playlist, i realized that i was missing music from my extensive itunes (12.0.1.26) library. i found the solution "itunes: finding lost media and downloads" and used the general approach to find the music in finder and copy it to itunes. i don't want to do this every time i find i am missing music. is there an automated fix? i want apple to develop a way to automate the fix. can it be that this isn't a problem for many people?
i ask this now because i just looked for music i thought i had but can't find. maybe i am wrong about having the artist, but it has happened on another artist too. i can't trust itunes to tell me whether i have a song or not. i don't want to keep going back to finder, especially when the instructions in "itunes: finding lost media and downloads" doesn't actually reflect my system (os x 10.7.5).
i don't want to try to do a restore. i have never done a restore on my mac (previously a pc user). and, i don't know how far back to take the restore to find the old music. and then music i have added since i lost the old music wouldn't be there.
i understand that there are so many system variables that apple would need to take into consideration with a general fix. but: i am assuming that apple's changes have caused my problem and feel that apple should do something to fix it. perhaps my assumption is incorrect.
thank you for your help.

limnos, i always have backups. the problem is that i don't know how far back in time to take a restore because i don't know how long this has been going on. and, if i take the restore back very far, i will lose what has been added since the music started to disappear.
i don't even know what you mean when you say "you will check there aren't any broken links (use a script from the Dougscripts web site) before you do a backup."
i agree with you to some extent about not automatically installing upgrades. i'm still running lion and was pushed to it from snow leopard. the problem is that i have a hard time envisioning the changes described in an update to judge whether something is valuable or not.
i have questions about your last paragraph. i'm going to repeat it here and then insert my questions as i go. please forgive my all caps for the moment:
"Now for your missing music, is it that there are broken links, or are things missing completely from the library?" I DON'T KNOW ENOUGH TO ANSWER THAT QUESTION. I BELIEVE THAT THE PROBLEM HAS TO DO WITH BROKEN LINKS. WHEN I COULDN'T FIND THE MUSIC THAT I THOUGHT I HAD LOADED INTO ITUNES YEARS AGO, I FOUND THE CD'S AND IMPORTED THEM TO ITUNES. I GOT A MESSAGE ABOUT SOME OF THE TRACKS BEING DUPLICATES THAT ASKED WHETHER I WANTED TO IGNORE OR IMPORT. I CHOSE IMPORT BECAUSE ITUNES DIDN'T TELL ME WHAT WAS DUPLICATED. IT WAS ONLY AFTER RE-IMPORTING SEVERAL CD'S THAT I REALIZED THAT THERE WERE NOW DUPLICATES OF THE CD'S: THE FILES I HAD JUST LOADED AND THOSE THAT I HAD LOADED SOME TIME AGO. THE ORIGINALS MAGICALLY APPEARED AFTER I RE-IMPORTED THE CD'S. I'M GUESSING THAT THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF A BROKEN LINK I DON'T KNOW HOW TO RECOGNIZE A BROKEN LINK OR HOW TO PREVENT ONE. AFTER I REALIZED THE PROBLEM, I FOUND THE "FINDING LOST MEDIA AND DOWNLOADS" QUIDE. I LOCATED THE MISSING MUSIC IN FINDER AND DRAGGED IT TO ITUNES. DOES THIS COUNT AS A BROKEN LINK?
"If the latter and you use iTunes default settings for managing media, you can drag your media folder to Automatically Add To iTunes. It should add anything in the folder but not in the library list but ignore things that are." CAN YOU REPHRASE THIS LAST PARAGRAPH? I DON'T KNOW WHAT "DEFAULT SETTINGS FOR MANAGING MEDIA" MEANS.
FOR "DRAG MEDIA FOLDER TO AUTOMATICALLY ADD TO ITUNES," I THINK YOU MEAN I CAN DRAG /MUSIC/ITUNES/ITUNES MEDIA/MUSIC IN FINDER TO THE ITUNES ICON IN THE DOCK. AND, THAT THAT ACTION WILL REPLACE ANYTHING MISSING IN ITUNES BUT NOT DUPLICATE THE FILES THAT ARE IN ITUNES. IS THAT RIGHT?
thank you for your time and help, limnos.

Recently I was adding music to my Ipod Touch and charging it, afterwards, my Itunes was missing music, does anyone know what happend?

A few days ago, I plugged my ipod touch into my computer to charge it, and also add new music I purchased. When I unplugged the USB cable ( I disconnected it from the ipod first, as I was told to do) I went to look through my music. There was a notification, I don't remember what it said verbatum, but the gist was "177 songs could not be properly synced onto your device". Now, I'm missing music from my itunes library. For example, I purchased two full albums from the same band, now over half the songs from the albums are just gone, they are no longer on my ipod or itunes. Does anyone know what happend, and/or how I can fix this? Please and thank you
P.S. This happend after installing itunes 6, I've noticed many other people are also having problems with it as well

Could be several things. Without more information like what was the wording of the error message I will not even guess.
You can redownload most iTunes purchases by:
Downloading past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore, and iTunes Store

Hard drive on my MacBook, iTunes was not backed up. Purchases were recovered, but missing music is trapped on other devices (iPad, iPod & iPhone). Is there a way to transfer music from these devices (esp. iPhone & iPad) to MacBook?

I had to replace my hard drive on my MacBook and iTunes was not backed up. All of our purchases were recovered, but we are missing music that we now have only on other devices (iPad, iPod and iPhone). Is there a way to recover music from these devices? Also, the missing music on the MacBook that is on the iPhone is greyed out so I can't play it. What's the deal? How can I change that?
BTW- I am going to purchase an external hard drive to make sure this never happens again. I'm am also discovering other missing very valuable data. I'm considering investing in iMatch, too.

Try PhoneView: http://www.ecamm.com/mac/phoneview/
iTunes Match is not a backup strategy. Do not rely upon it for disaster recovery. For that you need to use Time Machine or "clone" software.

ITunes stops working when I try to import missing music files

I don't know why, but every time I try to import missing music files into iTunes, a pop up suddenly comes up saying iTunes has stopped working. Does anybody know if it may just be a bug in the program or anything like that? Because of this, I am now having to manually reimport the missing files which takes forever!! Please help!!.

Hello, onedirectionlover1993.
Thank you for the question. Try the steps in the article below as they may help you resolve the issue that you are experiencing with iTunes becoming unresponsive.
iTunes for Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8: Fix unexpected quits or launch issues
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1717
Cheers,
Jason H.

HT201272 i seem to be missing music from my itunes account - it was there earlier this week and when i plugged in my phone to download music, itunes seems to have updated my phone but not my music and it is no where to be found

i am missing music from my computer and iphone - i plugged in my phone earlier this week to download purchased music. when i looked at my phone it updated all information on my phone but my music was missing along with apps - i have no music at all and only the very recent songs i purchased are on my computer in my itunes account - i cannot find my previously purchased songs.

You'll have to update your OS on your Macbook.
Click on the black Apple logo at the top left of your Mac screen. Then click on Software Update.
support.apple.com/kb/ht1338

How can I force Itunes to show me the missing music in my library?

How can I force Itunes to show me the missing music in my library? Somwhere I found that if you Select all, Ctrl-I it would do it. But it did not help. I need to find the broken ones! Help!

Create a new, regular playlist named All music.
Drag everything under Library > Music to this playlist.
Create a new Smart playlist.
Match all rules;
Playlist is Music
Playlist is not All music. This contains all songs that cannot be found

TS3430 Missing music, I had close to 700 songs and now there is only in the 300's

NOT ABLE TO LOCATE MISSING SONGS ? I 'm running Windows 8 , I've tried to do a search for Music folders, also searched in ITunes , looked in my recycle Bin "NOTHING"
before my music went missing I was trying to download load music into my Ipod nano, which was un successful. it seems to be most of all my Beatle's songs
Please help me to find the missing music.
Thank you

Thanks - having looked up XFA I now understand this so have to ask a supplementary but important question before I consider spendign more money - if I had a tablet with Windows 8.1 installed would Adobe reader be able to open an XFA file on that or is it a problem across all versions on mobile platforms?

HT201272 i can't find the option to re download my missing music

aI have missing music from my library since updating itunes. How cn I download it?

Downloading past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore, and iTunes Store

I am missing music I've bought on my computer but i have it on my iPhone?

I am missing music I bought on my laptop but I have it on my Iphone? I've bought quite a bit of music latly and Im trying to organize and keep track of it all but a lot of it seems to be missing from my macbook please help

I'm guessing this is a problem unique to me as there have been no replies at all... Thanks a bunch folks

I am missing music I've purchased and my playlists keep disappearing

I am missing music I've purchased and my playlists keep disappearing. The folders are there but empty. Need help

Hey Steve, I took it to the icore south africa and they tried that but it didn't work, then they did a complete reset but unfortunately they cannot restore the machine since it keeps restarting every 2 minutes while doing the restore.
They said to me that the machine needs to be replace but they cannot replace it as it was not bought in South Africa. Is there some way or place I can contact in the US that I can ship the item back to and get it fixed or replaced ?

I bought an album on my iPhone and it never transferred to my iTunes account. It has disappeared now and I'm not allowed to buy it again. How can I find my missing music album or have the option to purchase it again?

I bought an album on my iPhone and it never transferred to my iTunes account. It has disappeared now and I'm not allowed to buy it again. How can I find my missing music album or have the option to purchase it again?

Hello bubblegirl2,
Thank you for the details of the issue you are experiencing with your purchased album.
First, I recommend trying to download the album from you list of past purchases. Use the steps in the section titled "Download previous purchases on Mac or PC > iTunes Store" in the following article:
Download past purchases
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2519
If you have tried those steps and still do not see the album, it may be that the album is hidden. Follow the steps below in iTunes on your computer to check if it is hidden and unhide it:
To unhide your purchases
Open iTunes on your Mac or PC.
If you're not already signed in, choose Store > Sign in.
Choose Store > View My Account. (You may be asked to enter your password again).
On your Account Information summary, scroll down to the "iTunes in the Cloud" section and click Manage.
Choose a content type by clicking Music, TV shows, Apps, or Books from the top.
Click the Unhide button next to the item you would like to restore.
Note: If the item you are unhiding is not already downloaded on your computer locally, it will begin downloading automatically.
iTunes Store: Hiding and unhiding purchases
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4919
If you are still not able to download the album, you can report the issue with this purchases using the steps in this article:
How to report an issue with your iTunes Store, App Store, Mac App Store, or iBookstore purchase
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1933
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Sheila M.

How do I recover lost or missing music on my ipod touch

How do I recover lost or missing music on my Ipod touch? Restoreing it did not work.

- Restore from backup. See:
iOS: How to back up
- Restore to factory settings/new iOS device.
If still problem, make an appointment at the Genius Bar of an Apple store since it appears you have a hardware problem.
Apple Retail Store - Genius Bar

How do I search for missing music on my hard drive?

I recently bought a new pc and restored my files from a Norton backup. iTunes restored less than a third of my music library; I know the files are still here because I can play songs via a Windows search. How do I find my missing CDs?

Enable the menu bar with CTRL+B.
Use File > Add Folder to Library.
tt2

Missing music files on iTunes

Some iTunes music files on my PC have become corrupt or disappeared and I would like to know how to force a sync from my iPad to overwrite replace these files. iTunes recognises that an album exists and what the tracks are but fails to find them when I want to tranfer them to my iPhone.

This happens if the files are no longer where iTunes expects to find them. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the files, or that the drive they live 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. Or if you post back both paths I can usually spot if it is a layout problem and suggest an easy fix.
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

Missing music files since iTunes upgrade 7.7.043

I have several problems right now with my iTunes. It appears that maybe it could be related to my recent upgrade to iTunes after reading through other posts about lost files.
My problem is that I have all my music on an external drive which used to read as the E:/ drive. I just recently signed up for wireless internet with Verizon and have an USB modem. When I first installed that and then opened my iTunes all of a sudden my external drive became the F:/ drive. So then all of my music in my library could not be found. So I changed the location of my iTunes library to the F:/ drive.
So I reinstalled my music into my library and unfortunately doubled my music because it duplicated all of it. So I slowly began the process of deleting duplicates.
I got to about H in my albums...and the next time I opened iTunes to continue this tedious process....the files couldn't be located. With those lovely ! symbols next to each song.
So now I have duplicates of my music....26,000+ songs and they can't find their files.
I then decided before I delete everything...I would reorganize my iTunes library because for some reason all my music seems to be in multiple folders. But during this process I was not able to locate almost half of my music files.
This was my last attempt tonight...I opened iTunes while pressing the Shift key and created a new iTunes library and imported my iTunes folder. I now have 10,000 songs but am missing about 3,000. Is it really possible that iTunes lost some of my music. Can I get my music off of my iPod?
Any ideas...or am I screwed?

After weeks of working out what the problem was I finally found out. In my case I had recently purchased Paragon NTFS for Mac so that I could write to an NTFS formatted external hard drive. This was where the issue was when iTunes tried to write to the external drive where I keep my iTunes library and iTunes media folders. Every time I tried to download a song from iTunes, it could not write to my external drive and said that the file or folder was in use. The Paragon NTFS for Mac software 'driver' was causing this to happen and as soon as I turned the driver off on the Paragon software admin tool, my problem was solved! Seemed like the driver was locking out iTunes when trying to write. So if anyone else has this issue, turn off the driver when using iTunes. If you are not running Paragon, then perhaps you have a similar conflict with another application.

Missing music

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for