Time Capsule and iTunes - Can't Locate Files

Ok, so I have a relatively new Macbook Pro 15" and an equally-new Time Capsule. I put all of my 4,500 songs onto the Time Capsule because I only listen to music and home and also because I wanted to save space on my hard drive. While this set up has worked up until now, I am beginning to experience some problems. Right now iTunes says that it cannot locate the file for any of my songs unless I manually show it where those files are on my Time Capsule. I am not worries about losing the files because they appear to be unaltered, however I wanted to know if there was a way to have iTunes automatically search through my music folder and fix the problem. I know there is a way to download all the music from my hard drive to my computer and then back to the hard drive to fix the problem, but I would really like to avoid having to dump all those files onto my pristine hard drive. Any suggestions? And I am sorry if this has been answered elsewhere, I just could not locate a thread with this EXACT problem. Thanks.

Isn't there a better way around this??? Here's what I want: I want to store all of my itunes library on my Time Capsule to save space on my HD. I understand that I won't be able to access the library out of my home, but that's fine. The problem is -
1) When I am at home, I have to manually mount the Time Capsule by clicking on the folder, waiting for it to connect, and then opening iTunes (even if my computer is already backing up files to the Time Capsule). It's a real pain and adds unnecessary steps.
2) When I am not at home and away from my Time Capsule, I can't even open iTunes at all without it prompting me to locate the library or create a new one. Even if I don't want to listen to my songs, I'd like to be able to open iTunes to use the radio, surf the store, etc.
What is the best solution? It seems ridiculous that a wireless HD doesn't connect automatically, and that you can't open iTunes without a library. Is there a workaround? Can I keep the library database file on my HD but have the actual files (songs, movies, etc.) be on the Time Capsule? Please advise.
Thanks.

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Moved iTunes library to Time Capsule and now can't see music in iTunes

G'day People
I moved my iTunes library to my Time Capsule and pointed iTunes to the new location via Preferences - > Advanced.
However, when I start up iTunes, it's empty. When I check the Preferences in iTunes, the location of the library is correct, that is, my music folder on my Time Capsule.
Has anybody else had this problem or know why my library is blank when, in fact, iTunes IS pointing to the location that holds the library?

I moved my iTunes library
What exactly did you move?
and pointed iTunes to the new location via Preferences - > Advanced.
That simply tells iTunes where to store music in the future.
However, when I start up iTunes, it's empty. When I check the Preferences in iTunes, the location of the library is correct, that is, my music folder on my Time Capsule.
No, that is the location of the iTunes music folder.
The iTunes library contasts of the \Music\iTUnes folder and all contents and the iTunes music. wherever it may be located.
Let's try and fix it.
Again, what exactly did you move?

Time Capsule and iTunes set up not working, please help.

I have moved my itunes library to my time capsule and changed my itunes preferred path to its time capsule location. However when I restart my apple laptop, after having shut it off for the night, and open itunes (time capsule is visible and accessible to the laptop), itunes has reversed the preferred path I set to point to my time capsule to my local laptop hard drive instead. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
I have looked in other discussions concerning lost itunes file paths, however I never had this issue with my wired external drive; and I only start iTunes after I am sure that my computer can access the files on my time capsule. Thank you.
My laptop is a Macbook Pro 2.3 Ghz running Mac OS X (10.5.2)

If you're still experiencing "disconnects," even with the earlier firmware, but not experiencing these at all when directly connecting your computer to the modem, there is a good chance that one of the following may still be the problem:
o Bad Ethernet cable between the D-Link & TC.
o The TC is faulty.
o The D-Link is faulty.
o The TC & D-Link are just not compatible with each other.
o The ADSL signal strength, coming from your ISP into the D-Link, may need "tuning."
I'd start with trying a known good Ethernet cable. If that doesn't resolve the problem try contacting your ISP/ADSL-Provider next to see if they can run a ADSL line diagnostic to verify that there is a good signal to the D-Link; While you have them on the line, see if they can provide you with another modem.
Finally, if available to you, try temporarily replacing the current TC with another TC or another wireless router.

ITunes can't locate files, even though they never move.

My iTunes is set to copy new files to a dedicated music folder on an internal storage drive and to keep this folder organized. I have never moved this folder or edited anything within this folder.
Now, one day I start my iTunes and I'm greeted with thousands upon thousands of little exclamation marks telling me that iTunes can't locate the files. I made sure that the drive letter didn't change and that every file was still in there. There were too many songs missing to manually locate each song, so I highlighted my entire library and deleted it (while keeping the files, obviously). Several hours after re-adding my music library, everything was good and like it once was.
Not even a day later, I re-open iTunes to find that all the exclamation marks were back and that it could not locate any of my files again. This time I decide to go through all the steps properly by clearing the folder where the xml files are located, uninstalling iTunes, moving my music to an external hard drive and making sure there was no trace of iTunes left.
Ready to start again, I installed iTunes, set where I liked my files to be stored and set my other preferences (including "organize my iTunes folder" and "copy new files to iTunes Folder"). I then re-added my music and spent a day waiting for it to copy to the new iTunes folder. After this I deleted the folder that contained my originals and was left with a fresh install of iTunes and all my music was where I wanted it.
This worked for almost a whole month before thousands of songs went "missing" again. I simply don't know what to do. I can't keeping re-adding my library again and again because a few thousand songs went missing. Each time I do it, it just takes longer and longer and i'm sick of it.
Any help with my problem would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Presumably the location of the iTunes media folder is still correctly set in preferences when this happens?
One thing you can do to investigate this is to select a track that can't be found and go to Get Info>>Summary tab.
This will show you where iTunes thinks it is and the name of the file. Now find the file in Windows Explorer and compare the location and file name are they the same?
A thing that occurs to me is that you have other software on your PC that is able to move/rename files. Do you have anything like that?
Windows Media player has a check box that allows the renaming of files in Options, it's worth looking for that.

Itunes can't locate files after I listen to it on the Ipod

It seems that every time I listen to a song, I notice that Itunes can't locate it anymore. When I go to Itunes and look in my music folder, there is an exclamation point next to the song. When I click on it, the error message reads "cannot locate file, would you like to locate it now". At first it was only one or two songs, now it's over 50! These songs are still on my Ipod,just no longer in Itunes. I know how to recover the music b/c it's in my hard drive, I just don't want to sit there and find all these songs all over again. Help please.

I too have been having the same problem... I am a new ipod owner and same with itunes. And being a new owner and user I got the new itunes. It has done the exclimation point since the first day I got it. But mine is simple to fix. I mearly just exit out of itunes and re-open it. I dont evn have to wait at all. It shows the exclimation point with about 20 of my songs and it hasnt gotten in my way yet. But the main problem that makes me mad is that my ipod is only 2 weeks old but I tried to get some of my friends music and she has the older version of itunes and my ipod ONLY works on the new version. Very frustrating if you ask me.
Hp Windows XP

Time Capsule and iTunes working with external HDD

Hello all.
I have a situation I would to share with you and see if there is a solution.
I have a PC and a Macbook Air. I had a Time Capsule which had my iTunes library but the drive failed and I lost everything. However when it was running things weren't going great. Because the Time Capsule was a bit clever, it only spun the HDD when TIme Machine was backing my MBA.
This meant that I had trouble accessing my iTunes library because it wasn't always available. So I would have to locate the library on most occasions and on even more occasions iTunes lost the links with my media files and had to go through the time consuming 'Find files' process.
I was wondering if an answer to my problem would be to store all my music and other media on an external HDD (like the GoFlex). The I could plug it into my PC, then my MBA and if I wanted to make it avable to both I could plug it into Time Capsule and it would 'broadcast' it to both.
I was wondering if anyone had tried this and how it worked, Would iTunes see the HDD plugged directly into the MBA as the same as the HDD being plugged into the Time Capsule?
I look forward to hearing your suggestions.

Scipio7 wrote:
it shows 3GB out of 3GB instead of 3GB out of 40Gb total.
Where are you seeing those values?

Time Capsule And Snow Leopard - Problems Accessing Files / Folders

Hi all,
I am having a problem accessing the time capsule drive and my networked Macs drop boxes etc from the finder. They were working fine, possibly before 10.6.1 and are very intermittent at the moment. If I goto 'go' then 'network', it shows all connected devices fine however accessing them seems to be sketchy. For example, from my Mac Pro upstairs, I can see the time capsule and macbook fine, I can connect to them fine, even screen share with no problems, however when I try to access the drop box, or anything at folder level, I get a spinning type icon in the lower right of the finder by the new zoom bar that just keeps spinning and nothing happens. I have this problem accessing the 'data' folder on my time capsule from both the Mac Pro and the MacBook unless I access it from the drive it mounts on the desktop, I get straight in that way! It's quite infuriating really. Anyone else having this problem? Just to update, I have both Macs connected to the time capsule for time machine and backups are working fine. It would seem that you do eventually get into the folder you try to access, but takes forever for some reason.
Cheers.
Message was edited by: Judda

I couldn't access files on a drive attached to my TC recently, and I fixed the problem by repairing permissions on my main hard drive (the one in my computer.) This option is in Disk Utility. Not sure if that will work for you but it's worth a shot, it doesn't hurt anything! A lot of people recommend repairing permissions every time you update your operating system.

Time Capsule and iTunes

Hey there,
first of all please excuse my bad english. I'm from germany and I don't practise my english as much as I should.
Well, I bought my first MacBook Pro in June this year and I must say it's really great. I am planning to buy a Time Capsule (1 GB) now. I'd like to save my entire iTunes Library on the Time Capsule, but yesterday somebody told me that Time Capsule does not support iTunes-Server. But I don't really understand what that means. Isn't it possible to access my music, movies and podcasts via Time Capsule? Is there any problem with that? Is there any difference between using Time Capsule and using a "normal" external harddisc?
I would really appreciate if somebody could try to help me with that issue.
Thanks a lot.
Greets
Cord

I use this setup at home. My entire iTunes library is on my Time Capsule and it works like that.
But due to the TC drive going to sleep, there are two VERY annoying drawbacks:
1. The TC goes to sleep after something like 1 minute. This means that the TC has to spin the hard drive each time a new track starts in iTunes, generating a few seconds of delay. I'm desperately trying to find a way to increase the TC drive sleep delay, with no luck so far.
2. Be sure to have your TC drive mounted BEFORE lauching iTunes. Otherwise iTunes won't see the library path and will automatically set it to your home directory without any warning. You'll then need to re-set your library path in iTunes preferences. Annoying, I tell you.

I set up time capsule and now can't connect wirelessly

I got home with my new Apple and Time Capsule last Friday and was unable to connect to the net. I called Cox cable and they came out and got me up and running. The yellow light on the Tine Capsule kept blinking but I was able to connect and thought it was just a glitch.
Today I added a printer and, after a few headaches, got it up and running. Then I tried to set up the automatic backup process and thought I was OK. Now, however I can't connect wirelessly at all. I keep getting the message "None of your preferred networks are available." I have a neighbor with a wireless network and it sees that, so something is going on. I also am able to connect directly to my modem and get connected. The yellow light is still blinking!
I have tried re-starting the computer, turning off both the modem and Time Capsule, but nothing works. I am beginning to think I have a defective Time Capsule but the store I got it from is two hours away, so if anyone can offer a suggestion, I would be most grateful.

I just went through the same deal. I'm not exactly sure how I did it, but I eventually got it to work, and even have Back to My Mac in play. For the next ten minutes, anyway.
So here's the deal. These are some of the things I did that you might try.
First, there is a big issue regarding how you presently connect to the internet - DSL modem? Cable modem? A dixie cup and a piece of thread? Time Capsule is both a router and a wireless base station, so whatver you're using now might be performing router duty as well, and screwing things up. I replaced my AT&T 2Wire device (modem, router, and wireless base station in one box) with a DSL modem. Oh, and when I was prompted, I assigned the public IP address for my broadband connection (the one that begins with 70.xxx.xxx.xxx) to the TIme Capsule, instead of having Time Capsule get one of those 192.xxx.x.xxx or 10.x.x.x IP addresses from DHCP.
The modem has to operate in "bridge mode." Whatever the heck that means.
Also, in configuring time capsule, I initially used an ethernet cable attached to a computer (in this case, my MacBook Pro). It seemed easier to get it going that way, and once it had managed to connect, it made it easier to get on just using the wireless connection.
When you're prompted, you want to create a new network, although it might be helpful to take it one step at a time and keep your present network up and running and let Time Capsule join that deploying - initially - just the wireless backup capability.
Oh, and regarding restarting all the hardware, I did that too. But with Time Capsule, if you're not already doing it, you should not just restart the device, but do a reset. On the back of the device if you look carefully toward the right you will see a little pinhole. Get a paper clip and depress the little button inside that little pinhole until the front light begins to blink rapidly. That resets Time Capsule and was the only way I could get the thing to bite at the beginning.
So much for Mac's just working. Although once they do . . . .

I've had a new hard drive installed and reloaded all my stuff via time capsule and now can't connect to the internet although it say Airport is connected. How can I fix this problem ?

Just had a new hard drive for my iMac and reloaded all my stuff via time capsule, all works fine apart from Safari which won't connect to internet. Airport is connected but each time Safari comes back saying there is no connection....any help gratefully recieved.

So you have the apple rotuer called a time capsule and you have complete the frist time machine back up? but there is not internet access ?
If so.
Opem airport utiltiy on your Comptuer :
What is the IP ? > if its 169.254.xx.xx > its a self assigned
Try power cycling the Internet source for up to 1 mintue and make sure all the lights turn off.
In Airport Utility Version 5.5.3 / 5.6.1
Gi > Intenret > conncetiong sharing > Is it off bridge mode change it to share a public Ip address
In airport Utility version 6.0/6.1
Edit > network > rotuer mode : Should be DHCP and NAT unless you use PPPoE to conecnt to the internet then this is automatically invoked.

Moved my iTunes library to my new 2TB time capsule, now iTunes can't find the Time Capsule.

Had my iTunes library on my older 1TB Time Capsule. Just bought a 2TB Time Capsule. Moved all the music from the old to the new. But, iTunes tells me now it can't find the server. I've checked the location of the library on the iTunes preferences, to point iTunes to my server. I keep getting an error message that iTunes can't find my server. I've already added the folder on the server to my login preferences, like it was with the older Time Capsule.
I did everything exactly as before but now iTunes can't find my Time Capsule.
Should I have just pointed the login to the server and not the exact folder? I've been working on the solution for an hour now.. Please, can someone here help me?

What happens when you try to sync the iphone to the new computer?

Transferred songs to external hard drive, now iTunes can not locate files??

I transferred all my song files using various tutorials on the site, I consolidated my library, etc. The external harddrive was referred to as "F:" when I did this.
Later when I downloaded a few podcasts with my external HD disconnected, they were stored on my c: harddrive. At that point I had iTunes files on both my C: drive and F: drive (with the F: drive being disconnected at the time).
Now my external harddrive when connected is referred to as "G:" by my pc, and iTunes could not find any of my songs previously transferred to F:. I went to preferences/advanced again and selected G:/iTunes as my new folder location, and now only SOME of my songs are located by iTunes, not all. I'm completely confused.
Any advice? Thanks.
Completely frustrated,
Andy
Windows XP

Just a refining comment: iTunes recognizes some, but not all, songs that were transferred to the new hard drive, following iTune's instructions to change the directory then consolidate the library.
I am baffled why iTunes recognizes some songs, but not others, within the same folder....
The easy solution would be to use "import folder" and re-import the entire iTunes files on my harddrive, and then delete the duplicates, which would include the ones non-findable by iTunes. But then my playlists would be affected. I guess I'd have to re-build my playlists manually, using the new imported files in place of the files that iTunes can't recognize, prior to deleting all the duplicate non-findable files.
Argh, I hate pc's...thru & thru...any suggestions before I spend a few hours re-building my playlists and deleting the non-findable song files??
Thanks...

Time Capsule and iTunes library storage

My time capsule is attached to my iMac by yellow ethernet cable to my DSL router. This was set up by Apple over the phone and works fine. My Time Machine regularly backs up with little or not glitches and I also store my vast iTunes library on the time capsule as well.
As long as nothing much is happening (ie backing up), the iTunes library can locate and import onto my various iPods (including the kids ones' too) without any problems.
FOr some reason, it has decided that none of the tunes that are located in the iTunes Library can be found without manual input from me highlighting each and every tune/movie/song/podcast to get rid of the "!" by the tune.
Does anyone know an easier method of getting the Library of iTunes to locate these songs on its own. They are in the Time Capsule, the set-up has been working fine, but suddenly I have "lost" a huge amount of stuff which I will manuallly have to highlight, start and then move down to the next one, which is very very time consuming.
Hoping for some useful answers.
Many thanks
Frances

I connected it to the TC and wanted to start accessing my iTunes library from the FreeAgent (via Airport Extreme). This can be done right? From what I understand it can be done, but I just have to make sure that I access the HDD before I open iTunes. If I was to do it the other way then iTunes would default back to the HDD on the MacBook. What do you think?
Sorry for posting this twice.
Message was edited by: Austin Nichols

Err - iTunes can not locate files

I recently had to reload itunes and start again. Once I downloaded iTunes and started up my external harddrive it almost as if automatically imported all of my files to the library. It took awhile but I was in heaven as I wasn't having to do the work.
Now iTunes is failing to recognize content from my external harddrive. It says it can not locate the files, but if I ask File< Get Info it knows where the files are. I did not move the files. If I locate them manually then the file does work. Is there an easy fix for this? We just finished syncing all our iPods. I don't want to have to start that process over again. Thanks for any help.

Try going to edit-preferences-advanced- then change the location of your iTunes library to your hard drive.
Hope that helps.

3500 songs in iTunes with exlamation points - iTunes can't locate files but they are there!

Hi,
Since a few weeks, 3500 of my 10000 iTunes songs have exclamation points. When I try to play a song, I get an error message stating that iTunes can't find the song. If I search for it, it's on my Mac. So the files are on my hard drive, except that iTunes can't find them.
As it's weeks of work to manually relink the songs to their location on my hard disk, is there anybody who could help me with this?
Many thanks in advance!

Hi Esteban
As you see the exclamation mark represents a missing link to the file and the subsequent unable to play the track.
If you select one of those files and look at the info(CMD I or Get Info) and go to the Summary tab that identifies where iTunes thinks it was stored. From here you can navigate in finder to that location or do a search for what iTunes states the filename is e.g. (01 Track 01.mp3).
So either the file is deleted, renamed or moved.
Regards
Mark

Time Capsule and iTunes - Can't Locate Files

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