When selecting a song to play in iTunes, I get an error message indicating the song could not be used because the original file could not be found.  Would you like to locate it.  I have no idea where to look since the library hold all my files.

When selecting a song to play from iTunes library, I continually get an error message indicating the original file could not be found.  Then asks, would you like to locate it?  Does anyone know how to fix this?   I'm not even able to play the songs I purchased due to this error message.  Any ideas how to remedy this problem? 
Thanks

It would help to have more background about your iTunes collection such as if you keep it on an external drive, or if you have moved or renamed anything recently.  iTunes is very sensitive to you renaming or moving files or folders involved with your media.  iTunes only keeps a reference to where a media file is located  and then goes to look for it when you try to play it. If you have changed things since it was added to itunes then it's like me sending you to look for a friend in my addressbook but that friend has moved.
The other possibility is your computer is starting to lose files.  Again, the computer uses a reference database to tell it where on the drive to look for a file. If that database gets corrupt then it starts losing files.  Use Dsk Utility's first aid to verify your hard drive.

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