Moving iTunes to new account, new disk location, exclamation marks

I have been using an iTunes storage that was copied (rsync) from one computer with one user to another computer with another user. Using ACL's I had made certain that both users could access the library and that worked.
But somehow my last couple of actions have damaged this setup and I don't know how and I don't know how to get a working setup back.
The setup normally was that ~/Music/iTunes for users was a symlink to /Users/Shared/iTunes. Thought it says shared, it is just used by that one user. I have located that on /Users/Shared because the home directories are protected with FileVault and I did not want to burden FileVault with the entire iTunes library. This worked fine.
On the laptop (which was my main iTunes workhorse) I had a rsync command to sync my iTunes stuff to a server (as backup) as Portable Home DIrectories would not sync it as it was located outside the home directory. This worked for years.
Now, instead I want to move this library to another dedicated server account (music) which is then shared to the laptop/desktops using Home Sharing. This I created and it worked. A few weeks ago I migrated from an old 10.5 Server to a new 10.6 Server and it still worked.
Now, yesterday, I decided to clean stuff up. Originally I had been using my self-compiled rsync that could handle extended attributes (from the official rsync distribution). But I noticed that some songs were not synced to the server. So, I tried Apple's own rsync and that did better, it synced all kinds of files that were missing on the server end. I used ditto and rsync to move stuff around on my machines with the goal to have the iTunes folder on /Users/Shared/iTunes owned by user music but through ACL's also accessible for other users in case I had to move stuff there from other machines.
Now, today I started up iTunes as user music on the Server and though my whole library is visible and all my playlists and smart playlists and settings are there, every song has an exclamation mark because iTunes cannot find it. If I locate the individual songs it works fine, but then iTunes cannot find the rest on the basis of that. And locating thousands of tracks by hand is not an option.
Starting over again also seems problematic. I can start again, but them I lose all my playlists and smart playlists etc.
Any tips on what might work to get this broken setup repaired?

This solved my problem:
- Remove rsynced iTunes directory and re-rsync from other computer
(This this not help, but maybe without it the rest would not have helped)
- Remove iTunes Preferences
- Restart iTunes
(Now it worked again, I had to make a few fixes)
- Deauthorize and reauthorize computer
- Reconnect to iTunes Store account
- Reset preferences
Message was edited by: Gerben Wierda

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Message was edited by: brookap

I have a very similar problem. Hope I don't confuse people trying to help us since the solutions may be different.
I had my iTunes path directed to a 2nd internal hard drive. Everything was working fine - except I found that purchased Apps were still being downloaded to the Mobile Applications folder on my main hard drive instead of the 2nd internal drive. I decided to retry directing the iTunes path to my 2nd internal drive, hoping that might get iTunes to save my Apps there. Big Mistake. Suddenly, there were no Apps showing in my iTunes Library Apps window at all. I verified the downloaded apps are still in my main hard drive's Mobile Applications folder, but I cannot get iTunes to display them in my Apps Library window anymore.
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Moving iTunes to new account, new disk location, exclamation marks

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