Missing Song Files

Like many I'm experiencing the problem of 'The song xxx could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?'( aka the exclamation mark problem ). Does anyone know whether this problem only existed after the 7.7.1 update? And does it make any difference which method you use to add songs to the library, ie by dragging, by using the Add Library command or by ripping from CD? The problem I've recently had is when dragging files to add them so I'm now trying the Add Library route.
Any suggestions/comments?
Most importantly, what are Apple doing to recognise this problem and fixing it!

I have posted a message on this same topic elsewhere under this heading that is unresolved at present. The posts to this thread are interesting and may help me solve my problem.
A significant number of my iTunes files on the Mac side of my MBP are missing, and when I attempt to play them an exclamation point appears to the left of the song. When I purchased my iPhone this summer I first synced it with the Mac side but then switched to the Windows side of my MBP before switching back to the Mac side. I did not transfer any of my iTunes files to the Windows side, and I think that Windows iTunes found my music files on the Mac side cross platform. In the process my song files went missing on the Mac side, but every one of those songs that I have checked on the Windows side are there and working.
I would uninstall Windows iTunes except I need it to sync MS Outlook with mobileme. I am thinking about erasing all of the songs from Windows iTunes to see if this fixes the problem. What do you think?

Similar Messages

Anyway to automatically relink random missing song files in iTunes library? Random songs have "!" while other songs in same album folder are fine.

I can manually relink a missing song by navigating to the album folder in my iTunes media folder where all of my music is stored, but there are hundreds of "missing" songs in my 100+ GB Library. Any way to get iTunes to reconcile the library in a more automated fashion? I am fearful of solutions that may introduce a ton of duplicates.
Would also like to know why this has happened so I can prevent it in future. Why are some songs in an album coming up missing and others in the same root folder playing fine?? It's not like my library is missing, 80% of my music is fine.
My MAC iTunes library is organized by iTunes and all new media is copied into the iTunes folder (which I have "living" on an external USB 500GB hard drive, which I sometimes use with my PC Laptop when I travel - I don't do this often and it has never caused a problem before.)

UPDATE: I contact the developer fo the iTunes Track CPR script just to give him some feedback. His reply, "
Thanks for letting me know. CPR needs a good looking at. But have you tried "Music Folder Files Not Added"?
http://dougscripts.com/466"
I used that script and it found all of the MIA "missing" songs and then added them back to my iTunes library (took about 7 hours to auto add about 2000+ songs.) This process also created duplicates, but I was able to use the "Manage Duplicates" feature of iTunes under the File menu to see a list of all duplicates; then I deleted all of the songs with the"!" next to their names (took about 45 minutes.)
So I think in the end this did save me a lot of time and aggrevation.
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction Chris!

Missing Song File

Just now I tried to click on a song in iTunes and I was asked to locate the file within my Mac, but the file was nowhere to be found. But I can still look up this song in my iPod and it plays without any problem. I wonder where the original file in my Mac has gone... I tried Spotlight but no file with the song's name could be found...

I've never had the need to do it myself but, from what I've heard, the aggravation is worth more than 99 cents. However,
*Courtesy of PT...*
Copying from iPod to Computer threads...
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5044027&#5044027
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=893334&tstart=0
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=797432&#797432
Also these useful internet articles...
http://www.engadget.com/2004/11/02/how-to-get-music-off-your-ipod/
http://playlistmag.com/secrets/2006/12/twowaystreet20/index.php
http://playlistmag.com/help/2005/01/2waystreet/

Song files are not found??????

I have vista, I open my itunes library and click on a song and a pop up comes up and says, " The song --- could not be heard because the orginal file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?" I click yes and it opens up my music folder and I have a couple of things but I clicked on one, the one that shows all my musi but.... nothing! What happened. Should I go to my apple store. On my ipod it has all my songs so should I have a new account? help

hi
i have the same issue with missing song files - i identify a few specific ones. However Id id check that my Itunes folder is in the "music" folder.
The 2 changes that happened are:
1. I migrated to a new windows laptop (vista) and did the migration of all files, program s etc... using pcmover from laplink (www.laplink.com)
2. I did a sync with my ipod shuffle on the new laptop,
I have currently 3 computers authorized. however
1. the desktop pc on which I originally did all the purchases as crashed, an di dont use it.
2. the old laptop is not used anymore either
3. the new laptop is my current system and library where i am seeing this issue.
any thoughts from you guys as to why I would be still experiencing this "missing songs" issue.
thx

(!) How to locate the original file for missing songs?

song could not be used because original file could not be found. Would you like to locate?
I got this message when I last tried to synch my ipod. The message said there were 100 files which could not be found.   Actually more than 100 songs show the exclamation mark that says the file can not be found.
Previous posts on this issue suggest the underlying file has been changed or moved out from the ITunes organisation. Well the last time I synched my ipod on Lion a few days ago it was fine. On Sunday I wiped my hard drive, carried out the upgrade to Mountain Lion as a clean install, and used Migration Assistant to bring my user data over. After that I ran cclean and disk utility permissions and disk verification. Then this happened.
I migrated my iTunes Library to an external hard drive six months ago. That was disconnected during the upgrade so I am not sure why the files can’t be found now.    Anyway, I want to recover the missing files . I could not find them by name, album or artist on the external drive. So I thought I would find them in Time Machine backup #1. I couldn’t!. Nor could I find missing songs on my alternate Time Machine backup #2. Both Time Machine backups are set to include the external drive. Songs recognised in iTunes are visible in the backups, but not the ones that are missing.
I have a third backup volume which was a clone of the Lion setup before I did the upgrade, but I can’t access this or Mac for a few days.
I did have some permissions failures after the 10.7.4 upgrade which resulted in creating 2 new standard user accounts. Maybe I’v e got some files across these users? But in that case I’d have seen problems before the upgrade?   I notice a fair number of these are compilations imported from CD about 4 years ago. Bu tnot all.
(1). Is there a smart way to list all the files that are missing?
I can scroll through all of ITunes Music to see where there are exclamation marks. I’d like to only list these missing songs.
(2). How can I locate the missing media files?
- a search on Name / Album / Artist hasn’t found them in live drives or on TM backups. I’ve still got the missing songs on my iPod, however.
Once I can answer these questions with your help I’ll know what would be the best way to try to recover, and to work out what went wrong. I’m shocked that I can’t find them in backup.   Eventually I can restore audio from original source. If they were photos that went missing from library and backups then I would have no way to get back!
(3) could this happen in iPhoto? (shiver)

Thanks for taking the time to look at my problem. Shared is empty and I didn't back it up - I only transferred the standard and Admin users to the clean install of Mountain Lion.
But I got some valuable insight into how the iTunes library is set up from your article on split Libraries. I'd like to see it in the Tips for iTunes for Mac.   My Itunes library was set up in pre-Itunes 8 structure, and as I'd moved it to an external drive it didn't get migrated to the new structure in recent upgrades, perhaps?
I found your article extremely useful : https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3991. That gave me the means to restore the missing files more quickly than getting the original CDs out and re-importing them to iTunes.
So I've now restored the missing files and started the backups rolling ....
I still don't understand how they went missing. However the best backup was the Ipod itself.

Why am I missing songs after reorganizing files?

This morning did everything I usually do but iTunes couldn't locate any song files. So I rebooted and still had the problem.
Went to Edit/Preferences and saw that folder location was pointing to the default folder on C:, but my music is on an external drive (F:).
So I changed the location to the correct location and it refreshed the library. Then it asked if I wanted iTunes to reorganize the files. I said yes.
Once complete, I had a whole bunch of exclamation marks in the left column! I've confirmed that the song files are actually in the correct place. And it's very random which ones are lost - 2 or 3 songs from albums - the rest of the songs ARE there. Very strange.
I have over 20k songs, so going through and manually "reattaching" each file is not even an option.
Any ideas out there???
Thanks!
Mike

From iTunes 9.2 onwards if you attempt to Get Info. on a lost file and then cancel when asked to try to locate it, the summary tab should show you where iTunes "thinks" the file should be. If possible move missing files back to where they ought to be then close & reopen iTunes to reconnect them.
That's fine for an obvious error, say the iTunes Media folder has been relocated, but since you seem to have a random selection of located and unlocated tracks you could try my script SwitchLinks.vbs.
Select one or two tracks to begin with, double-click on the script to run it and use the No option so you can check that is identifying the right files to reattach to. If that goes OK then create these lost and found playlists and run the script on your missing tracks in larger groups.
Lost & Found
Create a playlist called Found, select everything in Music and drag it into the Found playlist. Create a smart playlist called Lost matching All the rules Playlist is Music and Playlist is not Found. Your lost tracks will be in this playlist.
Alternatively, if you are not bothered about play counts, ratings, date added etc. then you could try iTunes Folder Watch which can scan your library for missing files to be removed and scan your media folders for new files to be added.
tt2

Missing songs / won't add or import files / corrupt id3 tags?

Hey Folks,
I can't seem to get some songs/files to add or import to itunes...
My computer crashed while itunes was open. When I rebooted the itunes library was corrupted and all playlists and songs were missing.
... no problem...
I'll just add the itunes folder right... Which is what I did.
Problem is now a good 20% of the songs are missing. They are on the harddrive in the itunes music folder, but won't import or add to itunes.
I suspect maybe it has something to do with corrupt ID3 tags?
Anyone know the answer to this mystery?
Thx

I assume adding artwork is a tag-affecting change - but I can't
add on this track - it just reverts to the black image.
I take it the tags themselves are hidden. I see no direct
editing options for them although I read than they can be
set to different types - and there are utilities available to
clean, fix, re-set, etc.
Ok, now I see your edit - this isn't an mp3, it's .aiff.
Message was edited by: Tom Meade1

Song Files are missing?

i downloaded the version of i tunes 7.5 and now when i try and play my songs they have a little exclamation point next to them and it says something like; "could not locate this file would u like to locate it?" i click yes and it takes me to My Music folder. When I click on the folder that holds the folders with my songs that i bought in them nothing appears. I bought a new song on i-tunes as a test and it plays fine. Did something go wrong in the download? I tried dowloading it again and nothing changed. I am afraid to completely unistall I-Tunes because it might get rid of all my songs, i don't know what will happern when i plug in my i-pod nano (newest edition). I am afraid it will sync and delete all my songs on it.
HELP!

SOunds like your iTunes Library.itl file got corrupted. iTunes doesn't know where the actual song files are, any more.
Article: How to re-create your iTunes library
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93313

When trying to locate songs in my iTunes library, often when I find the song it asks me if I would like it to find other missing files. Sometimes it can't find other missing songs. How do I make sure that it is looking at all of my hard dirves?

Locating missing songs in my iTunes library. How do you make sure that all drives are being looked at for the missing songs?

To import music into your iTunes library on the computer go to iTunes>Help>iTunes Help>Add items to iTunes and follow the instructions
Delete the "songs" that do not play in your iTunes library and reimport them.

I'm suddenly missing audio files. Can they be recovered?

A number of tracks in my iTunes Library seem to be missing. These tracks appear with an ! symbol to the left of the track name. I'm a Mac guy but this is a problem on my wife's Windows machine. I think I had this problem in the past on my Mac with both iTunes and iPhoto files (latest vesions of software and OS). I think there is a way to rebuild libraies on the Mac but how do you do it on a Windows machine?
Hope you can help.
John

The "!" symbol means that iTunes does not find the song file in the location it was expecting. This usually occurs when the file, or one of its containing folders, has been moved, deleted, or renamed.
If you or your wife remember changing something, then change it back. If not, then find the files with the help of Windows Search, and don't forget to look in the Recycle bin too.

HT3819 Bought new iMac & moved (or thought so) music from old PC to new Mac. Now several hundred songs are orphaned on old PC; , I can "see" them with both machines turned on & iTunes open. "Missing" songs show in iMac Shared folder. How do I move & retir

Bought new iMac & moved (or thought I had) all of my music from the old PC to the new iMac. Have discovered several hundred songs are orphaned on old PC; I can "see" them with both machines turned on & iTunes open. "Missing" songs show in iMac itunes Shared folder. How do I move them all so I can then & retire the old PC?

From things you are saying, such as "shared folder" and having both machines on, it doesn't sound to me like you truly moved the whole iTunes collection.
iTunes: How to move [or copy] your music to a new computer [or another drive] - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
do not confuse moving your whole folder and library with moving just media files as in
iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449
Quick answer if you let iTunes manage your music: Copy the entire iTunes folder (and in doing so all its subfolders and files) intact to the other drive. Start iTunes with the option key held down and guide it to the new location of the library.
Macworld - How to transfer iTunes libraries between PC and Mac - http://www.macworld.com/article/46248/2005/08/shiftitunes.html

When syncing my iTunes to my iPad from the laptop, I get a list of missing songs; they are in the library, but not in the music folder on my HD. In particular, I uploaded 3 CDs at the same time, all are in my library - but two are missing from the folder.

When syncing my iTunes to my iPad from the laptop, I get a list of missing songs; they are in the library, but not in the music folder on my HD. In particular, I uploaded 3 CDs at the same time, all are in my library, and all synced to the iPad - but the music from two of them are missing from the music folder. Questions are (a) where might they have gone? and (b) is there a way of "reverse loading" them back to my hard drive from the iPad? Thanks in advance!

Hi dones49,
It sounds like your issue here is that iTunes can not find the files for some of the songs you have brought into it. This happens occasionally even if the songs have not been moved from the location that iTunes places them on import or purchase. When you try to use the song, iTunes prompts you to find the file, as you have seen.
To find the file, use the information in this article to navigate through the iTunes media folders -
Locate and organize your iTunes files
If you are still unable to locate the files, you may need to download them from the iTunes store again, or rip them from your CDs. See this article for assistance with downloading your past purchases -
Download past purchases
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Brett L

How to highlight or make a Smart Playlist of missing music files?

I recently converted my library from Mac to PC and out of the 45000 songs there are around 1500 missing. It'll take forever to search my library for the ! next to each missing sing. Anyway to simply get all the missing songs in one list?

You really don't get it, do you.
I really do: You can't bring yourself to say "OK, my solution is not practical or helpful". You're dancing all around it.
I wasn't meaning to "lecture" you but I was - and am - really annoyed. I'm sorry, but I honestly felt that your solution was more about you feeling a need to be technically correct when clearly it was an unhelpful answer and I'm not going to go along with that. And it looks like you're not going to admit your solution was unhelpful.
I might seem to be over-reacting but the thing is it's not just this thread.
I have noticed that there is a lot of this going around on these forums and it's annoying because it derails perfectly sensible questions and wastes a lot of time. It's happened quite a few times to me and the common thread seems to be those who engage in this behaviour have a whole lot of "discussion board points".
What you should have asked is, "Is there an available field in the tags of a movie file that I can use in a Smart Playlist to select for only HD movies". And I would have given you a one-word answer. NO
Yes, I should have. Technically. Semantically. I suppose. Sure.
But anyone can get that from "How can I make a smart playlist of only HD movies?" without assuming I'd want to first manually select all the movies. That's the purposes of the joke quote which seemed to be lost on you. I wasn't just randomly quoting you know, I was making a point.
If only you'd given me a one word answer. Now that would have been helpful.

Can I just drag and drop song files into iTunes?

I have about 50 folders on my PC (Windows 7), each containing between 5 and 15 songs. These are under My Music/ on the PC.
On my Mac, I have about 1000 songs with about 25 Playlists. Some of these Playlists on the Mac contain the same songs as in the folders of the PC.
I want to transfer the songs from the PC to the Mac. I did not want to go through them one by one on each computer to see which of the files on the PC were already on the Mac.
I can look at the PC (My Music) folders and the Mac (iTunes) Playlists side by side on the Mac.
If I see a missing song on the Mac Playlist folder, can I just drag and drop that particular song from the PC folder into the Mac Playlist?
If I see that a Playlist does not exist that would need to be available for the specific folder contents on the PC, can I create the Playlist on the Mac and then, drag and drop all of the songs from the PC folder to the new Playlist?
Would this be the easiest way to accomplish the transfer of the songs?
Thanks

If I understand that all correctly then yes.

Where are my missing songs

My iTunes library no longer has many of the songs that were once there. This is not my imagination. For example, I have ten versions of "Stardust" in my iPod, which were of, course, downloaded from my iTunes library. However, I now only have two versions there. This is only one example. I suspect that there may be over a hundred missing songs.
I have searched for the songs with "Spotlight, but that didn't help. Are there any other ways of searching for missing songs?
Finally, how do I find the total number of songs in my iTunes library and in my iPod Nano? I would like to see just how many missing songs there are.

Tygerlylly wrote:
To find out the number of songs in itunes, open it, and click on music and it should say the number of items in music at the bottom of the itunes window in the frame. You can also look at the song files in your itunes folder in itunes music. Then you can check and see if the actual files are there whether or not they are showing up in itunes.
I found the total number of songs thanks to you. The figures so small and out-of-the-way, that I've missed them time after time. However, I couldn't follow your next tip. I don't see any "iTunes folder," and I don't know how to access it. How do I find them?

Missing Song Files

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