New iTunes 10 - Deleted all my music?

Check your iTunes folder to see if your music files are still there. I doubt iTunes 10 deleted them. In the event that it did, if your music files were purchased from the iTune store, I believe you can log into your iTune account and download again for free...

bigmacman said:

Check your iTunes folder to see if your music files are still there. I doubt iTunes 10 deleted them. In the event that it did, if your music files were purchased from the iTune store, I believe you can log into your iTune account and download again for free...

Click to expand...

Thats Apps only.
Talk to Apple Support, they should (hopefully) let you download your purchases again as it seems to be a fault on their end.

That happened to me too....lost all the music I had downloaded from CDs after I updated to iTunes 10. What I did get back from iTunes store, like apps, was only because I had "purchased" them from iTunes, even if they were free. The rest of my music files and podcasts were lost.

There's no instruction (that I can find) which lets folks be aware that losing their music in iTunes 10 might be a real possibility when updating.

I still don't know why this happened as I've been updating iTunes for a couple of years now with no problems at all until 10 came along.

That happened to me too, but I was luckier than "absentbut", my 42 Gigibytes of music are still intact. I'm just not sure how to get past the welcome page that "nicolainj8" attached in his post. All of the following links are greyed out and only take me to a welcome screen: Music, Movies, TV Shows, Podcasts, and iTunes DJ. Any one know how to fix this please.

Thanks

Me Too

I wish I had seen this post prior to this morning. After installing iTunes 10 all of my music is gone. I had a about 100GB worth of stuff on there.

My Machine:
17in iMac Core 2 Duo
OSX 10.5.8

I had been storing my iTunes library on an external USB 2 drive. After firing up iTunes 10, it sat for a while saying "Updating iTunes Library" and then... it was all gone! I double checked to see if it had been moved to another location (like the default location in /Users/username/music) but no dice. The files have simply been removed.

I called Apple support, which lead nowhere. They indicated that the would file a "complaint". They also offered to restore anything I had bought from the iTunes store, but I don't buy music there. I'm still old fashion, I buy CD's and then rip them to my iTunes library, so this was no help at all. I suppose, however, that this reinforces my argument that physical CD's are a much better purchase given that they can't be arbitrarily deleted without warning. At least I can rip them again... all 700 of them...

Wow, this is a good argument for backing up your files on a regular basis. I have a USB drive specifically dedicated to storing backups.

For the record I have a Dell laptop with Windows XP and the upgrade to iTunes 10 was seamless and did not delete anything. I have a mix of files on my hard drive and some video files on an external USB drive.

I'm quite shocked that iTunes would delete 100MB worth of files in just seconds. Have you looked at using a data recovery tool to get them back? As long as you haven't done much else with that drive the files are probably recoverable. Ripping 700 CDs would not be fun.

Things just don't disappear that easy, check your garbage can and you iTunes Music folder to see if everything is there.

I have seen this happen with iTunes store music when a computer has registration issues that often happen after upgrades. I had an issue like this for an artist that was removed from the iTunes store. It's one reason I turn off auto-sync for my iPod and never trust iTunes with my library.

Another issue I have seen cause problems like this is Apple changing the default location/name of the music/media folder and the app not playing nice with libraries that are not stored in the default location. The reorganization caused by this does not always happen gracefully. But in this case iTunes usually just moved your media files to some strange location.

Retraction

This is very strange. This morning after the upgrade, as mentioned in my post above, the iTunes music folder was completely empty. After I got home from work and fired up my machine, everything was there again. (?) I'm really not sure why, but I must retract my earlier post. I would suggest to anyone who experiences this to try a reboot, which is admittedly what I should have tried initially.

File this under "oops".

Well, here's another oops to add. After trying all the suggestions for finding my downloaded music after upgrading to iTunes 10 AND restarting my computer(which is very important), it dawned on me that 2 months ago I bought a new computer with a newer operating system. My iTunes in the new computer had never contained any music since I didn't do a migration of data from the old! And I hadn't synced my ipod or iPhone since then.

Long story short....grabbed the music files from my old computers' iTunes folder in users and imported all my music files to the new computer in iTunes 10. So far, all music I downloaded from CDs shows up and is working fine.

doh!

It's probably too late to say this, but it's a good idea to back up your library. I back up mine every day to an external.

Lost Music

Itunes 10 just deleted 60 GB of my own music I had copied over 2 years.
Names are there, art work is there but absolutely NO MUSIC
HOW DARE APPLE DESIGN SOMETHING LIKE THIS. THIS IS AKIN TO OUTRIGHT THEFT! Maybe it is because I do not buy from their store!! I will now look for an alternative to I tunes. Ed

How come all people having problems are all newbies?

How come no reputable users or DJs using iTunes to catalog music have problems?

Sheddy said:

Itunes 10 just deleted 60 GB of my own music I had copied over 2 years.
Names are there, art work is there but absolutely NO MUSIC
HOW DARE APPLE DESIGN SOMETHING LIKE THIS. THIS IS AKIN TO OUTRIGHT THEFT! Maybe it is because I do not buy from their store!! I will now look for an alternative to I tunes. Ed

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Good job admitting theft.

The only problem I have is that iTunes will randomly place new songs I added in another folder instead of the default location. I have to keep shifting them to the default music folder.

All I can say is that's why I back up all my music on an external hard drive. And by the way had I have never had any problems upgrading itunes. Also I NEVER have anything set to auto sync in regards to music. I once new a guy who had a 160gb ipod and he loaded 70 plus gigs on to it and had the auto sync turned and then he was like well its on my ipod and i don't need the music any more. So he deleted all the music. He had loaded all the music from his huge music CD collection. The next time he went to update the pod booom all the music was gone. I did tell this person to turn off the sync and back up all the music. When he bought the pod. (by the way I work at Best Buy and he was asking about putting music on the pod) The next day after all his music was deleted he came back and tried to rip me a new hole. I plugged his pod into one of our computers and saw that he still had auto sync checked. Well after a few minuets of trying to explain to him why his pod did what it did he got irate and demanded me to return his pod. I directed him to costumer serves where I am sure he got his money back. I tell you this story to teach a lesson. PLEASE BACK UP ALL YOUR MUSIC!!!! No matter what you think **** happens. All though not to be mean I think most things are user errors, but then again you never know even if you think you are doing everything correct **** HAPPENS!!!!

iTunes deleted my files?

iTunes library manager has simply misplaced the folder(s) for the music. Use Explorer or File Browser and do a search for MPA ("*.MPA" for the PC or Music Files if you use a Mac) and find the folder these files live(d) in. They're still there.

Once you find the location, open the iTunes library Manager and "Add to Library" again.

This seems to happen to the PC more often than the Mac simply because the programmers of the Windows version of iTunes make a common mistake of moving where the program likes to keep the library databse.

same issue

Yup, same issue here but I consider myself an advanced user. All common problems. Upgrade to itunes v10.x > migrated from iPhone 3Gs to iPhone 4.

Like others, Apps transferred, calendar, address book and safari links.

Music? None in the Mac>users>documents>itunes folder. Content gone and same as on the new iPhone4.

Other posts suggested re-downloading the music purchased from iTunes. I can't find how to do that nor reach anyone at iTunes/support to lodge a case/complaint.

However the post "How to re-download iTunes purchased music?" has some suggestions to try. May work for the iTunes store purchased music.

Itunes10 deleted all my files my previous ITunes Library when installing

This is truly terrible.They surely tested ITunes10 over and over before sending it to millions of people. Didn't they? Now i lost my attenfully collected files! The save treatment of somebody else files is one of the most important issues of een update. This Itunes 10 dissaster cannot be mistake. I think it might be done on purpose to force people to buy more in the itunes shop.
Ive lost my trust in Itunes.

CaptMM said:

Yup, same issue here but I consider myself an advanced user. All common problems. Upgrade to itunes v10.x > migrated from iPhone 3Gs to iPhone 4.

Like others, Apps transferred, calendar, address book and safari links.

Music? None in the Mac>users>documents>itunes folder. Content gone and same as on the new iPhone4.

Other posts suggested re-downloading the music purchased from iTunes. I can't find how to do that nor reach anyone at iTunes/support to lodge a case/complaint.

However the post "How to re-download iTunes purchased music?" has some suggestions to try. May work for the iTunes store purchased music.

Click to expand...

OMG! I upgraded it to itunes 10 - 10.2.1 and it just deleted ALL my music too! 3 years of building up a music library, my life, has just gone in a blink!!! took me five minutes till it finally sank! and then I was devastated!
BUT I went on Finder and typed .mp3 in the search space. and ALL my music was there!!
so people, try that! maybe your music is not all gone, just removed from itunes app!

now you will just have to worry about putting it all in place!