Why does Itunes keep losing the location of music files?

Itunes will lose the location of the music files. they clearly listed under the right album and proper order but when you select a song a exclamation mark shows up and a window pops up asking me where it can be located. I don't know, Itunes lost it, I haven't done any maintenance work to the hard drive that I know of other than clean the registry on my firefox search engine.

The "missing file" error happens if the file is no longer where iTunes expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, one of its parent folders, or the drive it lives 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. In the case of a library moved from one system to another there are also potential permissions issues. See Repair security permissions for iTunes for Windows.
Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Ctrl-I to Get Info, then click No when asked to try to locate the track. (Due to a bug in iTunes 12 you currently have to say No twice!) 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, a folder renamed, or a drive letter has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions. If the difference between the two paths is an additional Music folder in one path then this is a layout issue. I can explain further if that is the case.
In some cases iTunes may be able to repair itself if you go through the same steps with Get Info but this time click Locate and browse to the lost track. It may then offer to attempt to automatically fix other broken links.
If another application like Windows Media Player has moved/renamed the files then the chances are that subtle differences in naming strategies will make it hard to restore the media to the precise path that iTunes is expecting. In such cases, as long as the missing files can be found somewhere, you should be able to use my FindTracks script to reconnect them to iTunes. See this post for an explanation of how it works.
i may be able to give some more focused advice once there is a clearer picture of where things are.
tt2

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Why does iTunes keep giving me bogus error messages. "Your internet connection is not working, check your connection and try again." My internet is working fine. iTunes is not working and will not allow me to download tunes.

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This my sound too simple, but I just kept clikning on the arrow next to the selected music and it finally "Kicked" in.
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Here are my issues, maybe you can help... And yes "breaking" and "nightmare" are accurate descriptions of this update...
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you may find that WMP is doing this for you.
There is a setting is WMP that means that it checks the info held in the file (and shown by itunes) against that held at Gracenote and 'updates' the info where there is any disagreement. On my copy its under the 'media library' tab.
Turn this off if its on.

Why doesn't my Sondy PS located my music files in Itues??

I want to use my Sony PlayStation to play my Itunes music on my home theatre system however, I am unable to locate my music files. Is this due to them being saved as Apple Lossless or is it due to proprieity issues between the two devices??

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Why does iTunes not refresh the Music Library if files are updated?

What if have already a nice library SYSTEM built for my music, and every time I add 30-50 files to 30-50 different locations, iTunes requires me to add the same song again... What if I am doing this updating for 3 hours and I can't remember anymore which songs I added to my Brazilian compilation folder? Why can't iTunes update the library with added files? I see this question popping up on a lot of forums. This is very cumbersome. I keep my international music collection organized by country of origin. If I let iTunes consolidate my music, it will put everything into one big folder organized by name of artist. I definitely don't want to let the program do that. I would lose all my work and all my system.
Once I imported the folder system into iTunes though as a reference, it does not recognize if there was a change, music added, music deleted, music reogranized. It doesn't make sense to delete everything from the iTunes Music Library every time I update my music collection.
Where is the solution? I want iTunes to find the changes and apply it to my Music Library automatically.
I can live with my iPod only having the files in one big library, since I mostly use it for shuffle play anyway, but I want to keep my originals in an orderly manner based on style, country of origin, etc. I don't want to end up having all my files renamed and moved.
So I need iTunes to refresh my Music Library by looking at the original folder I imported the list from, and make the necessary changes.

I guess then this is a serious shortcoming of iTunes... Up till this point I owned an RCA Lyra MP3 player and it had no problems whatsoever doing these things. I guess, after seeing how iTunes and iPod works, I'd rather return to Lyra if it had an 80 G version. The only thing that still keeps me with iPod is the capacity.
It seems like that iTunes is a very cumbersome program and it tries to be so much user friendly that it even tries to eliminate the human element. Sometimes, it makes sense to keep files organized in specific manner. Especially when there is work involved and productivity.
I guess I will just delete everything from the play list and read in the main folder every once in a while, leaving the machine working on it during the night or something, then another night, it will refresh my iPod. That's the only solution I see right now.
It is interesting that a huge program like iTunes cannot do what a small one like Lyra can. And I even read in user groups that some people created programs for this problem, but those programs don't work with iTunes 7 well yet, so I am stuck with the manual updating or the brutal deletion and re-reading.
Thank you for the answer. At least I know what not to expect from the program. I just use it for only one purpose: load music onto iPod, then forget about it. It quite an unuseful program for me otherwise.
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Why does iTunes keep reseting my library?

This is the second time this has happened: everything will be working fine (as fine as iTunes 7 can) and then I'll wake up one morning and BAM! - all the songs and delightfully crafted smart playlists will be gone, replaced by no songs and the default playlists iTunes gives you. The music files aren't gone from my hard drive, just the ratings, play counts, date added and last played data and all that stuff iTunes takes care of. I wouldn't be so frustrated, but my smart playlists are either based on the songs' ratings, play counts or how recently they were added.
Last time I had to manually rip them from my iPod using one of those ripping programs (thanks to Apple's refusal to allow iPod to PC synchronising) which took me ages because I'm too stingy to pay for the registered version and had to keep clicking a "buy me" notice every 50 of 3500 songs, as well as changing the date on the computer so the 'date added' data wouldn't be too out of whack.
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It keeps happening to mine as well. Honestly I think it's something that iTunes (or Apple) does if they find out you haven't been paying over 200 dollars for songs from them. I read an artical about that as well. It doesn't help that when I e-mailed the staff about this, they sent me an e-mail back basically saying: If you bought our songs, then we can return them to you... if not, then it ***** to be you.

Why does iTunes keep launching?

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Any help or suggestions?
Thanks!
Merry CHRISTmas,
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I thought at one time you there was a setting to prevent iTunes opening when a device was plugged in, I don't believe that the sync option will prevent that.
In your login items, System Preferences/Users and Groups do you have an item "iTunes Helper" I think this is the application monitoring the devices you plugin.
You could try closing that application in Activity Monitor and plugging your devices in and checking if it stop iTunes opening, also check if it stops it opening through the day. If it does just remove it from your login items after confirming it does not impact on other iTunes uses.

Why does iTunes keep cutting all my songs?

I'm getting sick of this problem. I've got about 15 gigabytes of music. About 700 songs or so have been purchased from iTunes, the rest are from CDs I've scanned in. With the purchased songs, it feels like every third song was an incomplete download! It'll show as the full length, but when I'm listening to it on my iPod Touch 5th gen or on my laptop, the song cuts off. I tried talking to Apple support about it and I went through a million and one different steps to redownload my music library, but it just made the problem worse. Before it was maybe one in every six songs, now it feels like one in every three. It's extremely frustrating to be listening to a favorite song and it gets cut off a minute or two in.
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This can be caused by other software conflicting with itunes. Such as, Sony Vaio users are reporting this issue in droves....other causes can be security software like Norton, Uniblue Speed Up My PC, Zune....
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One quick thing to try is, move your itunes library.itl file out of the msuic folder and put it in a new folder named test.
Press *and hold* the shift key while starting itunes. Browse to the ITL file in the test folder when prompted.
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And you just faked it out by creating the test folder it didn't know about.

ITunes keeps "losing" the filepaths to my library.

My friend had an external hard drive on her computer, and every time she disconnected it, iTunes would lose her songs. So we copied all of her music to her hard drive, and put it in her iTunes folder. Everything was fine; all the file paths were correct, and she could successfully update her iPod and play the music in her iTunes. This was Monday night.
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Close all Apps and see if Activity Monitor shows any processes runnung.
Not that I think this is the cure but have you tried these resets:
SMC RESET
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
Shut down the computer.
Unplug the computer's power cord and ALL peripherals.
Wait 15 seconds.
Attach the computers power cable.
Wait another 5 seconds and press the power button to turn on the computer.
The 5 second timing is important to a successful reset.
PRAM RESET
Zap the PRAM
Shut down the computer.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.

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I've been having the same problem on my iPad and iPhone. I talked to Apple customer service this morning. They had me do the following on both devices in the Settings:
* Sign out of iTunes & App Store
* Sign out of FaceTime
* Sign out of Game Center
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Things seemed to me fixed for a few hours until I went into the iTunes Store app on my iPad and added a movie to my Wish List. When I went back to the Music app, the dreaded "Sign In to iTunes Store" popup started showing up again on both devices. Suspicious!
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Why does it keep ejecting the DVD-R and won't burn?

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They are COMPUSA DVD+R 4X 4.7GB
Bingo - DVD+R ... 'plus' media won't work in your machine. You need DVD-R discs - Sorry.

Why does itunes keep dropping my devices and files

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Why? Sony Viao by any chance? That comes with some media scanning software which has a habit of interferring with iTunes when it save files, resulting in a corrupt or missing library. Anti-virus software may also possibly be a cause on occasion.
See this User Tip for an effective backup strategy.
I've also written a script called DeDuper which can help remove unwanted duplicates. See this thread for background.
tt2

ITunes keeps losing library location

ok, so I moved all my tracks to my timecapsule - have pointed iTunes at the location multiple times, but every time I restart it I have to locate the library again.
Am on latest version of iTunes & it is driving me nuts now. I want my iTunes to just work - don't want to have to keep telling it where to look every time & want all my music on my timecapsule (due to amount!).
I also seem to lose random amounts of music that I've paid for & dl to my iPhone - even though I have it set to sync to iCloud and it seems to do this - yes never appears properly in iTunes - what the heck?!
What do I need to do?!

The external drive has to be fully mounted before starting iTunes. I don't have experience with a TC but from reading other posts here, storing items on networked drives can prove uncertain as to whether or not they can be detected by iTunes at times once a component has gone to sleep and woken up again. There may be workarounds depending upon the exact circumstances. Some people have ensured connecting with a NAS by putting it in their Login items in System preferences. You might be able to come up with some sort of script that makes sure the TC is fully recognizable, then starts iTunes.

Why does iTunes keeps coming up empty even after successfully restoring from a previous library?

So, the other day, I opened up iTunes to find that all of my music and movies (all media at all) was gone. Well, darn. I looked in my previous saved libraries and the most recent file was from a minute or so before I discovered the problem - so, an empty library. Awesome. Next, I tried a system restore as my computer had recently installed some updates and I wasn't sure if that might or might not have effected this in anyway (I'm not the most tech-savvy person in the world). Successfully did that, but to no avail. So, I went back to my previous iTunes libraries again and the next most recent one was from last November. ****. Well, I figured, that's the best I can do. So I tried that.
Ok, so I had a library from a while ago, missing everything I'd added since November, but I still had all the files on my computer so I figured, I'll just go and add everything again. This was going to be a long and boring process as I had spent a lot of time in iTunes adding song details and album art and making playlists, etc, plus re-downloading everything new from the iTunes store on my slow connection would literally take weeks. But, I figured, I didn't have much of a choice.
So a few days passed, things went along normally, I shut down and started up my computer normally a few times, always checking iTunes with no change at all. Then, yesterday, I opened iTunes up in the afternoon and that same restored (from November) library was there, but I left for a few hours, not shutting down my computer, came back and everything was gone again.
Ahhh, just thinking of this now, I should mention that I'm running iTunes 10.7.0.21 because I hate iTunes 11... now I'm wondering, would this cause me to have the problems that I'm having?
Everyone's been telling me just to re-import everything and that it's no big deal, but I don't want to go through the process of re-importing and re-downloading and reorganizing 3500 media files if they're all just going to disappear again!

Wow, this is just what i DO want to happen!
What do you use? I heard that LimeWire does this with iTunes on a Mac, but couldn't get it to work in this way on a PC...
Glad you sorted it out though.

Why does Itunes keep losing the location of music files?

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