missing songs and videos after itunes 7 please help

[swingerofbirch]

I downloaded iTunes 7 to my PC.

The installation took a really long time and during the install the status bar at several times said it was deleting files, I assume it means old iTunes program files.

I've noticed while playing music I am getting exclamation marks and song could not be found next to files that I am pretty sure were there before. Some are TV shows, some are songs.

I followed Apple's advice and went to Windows search, and searched for All files and folders and typed in both "m4p" and "ipg" and no intelligible results came up (just different types of system files).

I could be wrong and these files were missing before, but I really think I would have noticed. It seems like there is no pattern to which ones I have noticed are missing: some are purchased, some ripped etc.

I keep my iTunes music folder consolidated and tell it to add music to the iTunes library, so I really am at a loss.

So I could have a better idea, does anyone know if there's a way to see how many items WERE in my iTunes library before the installation? Like through a log file? That way I could compare to now to see if these were lost after installation.

Also, I am not too familiar with Windows..would system restore be helpful in this situation?

Many, many thanks.

I've already e-mailed Apple, BTW, but I'm not expecting a lot of response from them, so if you guys can help it would be appreciated.

 

[swingerofbirch]

bump

/i didn't want to bump; but i've been antsy all day.....is it bad form to bump?

 

[balamw]

While it is bad form to bump, this apparently also happened to Wil Wheaton who blogged about it http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/. iTMS allowed him to redownload all his purchases.... So, it's not just you. Personally I did a full backup before installing it.

B

 

[needthephone]

Sorry to kep posting this, I'm not against apple but there is a lot of press about these problems

http://www.smh.com.au/news/digital-music/new-itunes-version-a-lemon/2006/09/14/1157827068657.html

 

[swingerofbirch]

I contacted Apple twice yesterday, once to ask if I could redownload the shows in higher def, and once to ask if they knew of problems with losing files after installing iTunes 7.

They responded with one e-mail which surprised me. Their e-mail made very little sense---I mean the sentences were just not finished lol. But they said that they have made everything I ever purchased available to be redownloaded (I assume all the videos were upgraded to 640x480?).

The funny thing is that I was only missing two songs and three videos I purchased from them. I'm also missing some stuff that I ripped myself.

I'm getting my new iMac sometime next week so I'll wait to download them on there. Then I have the rather confusing task of amalgamating this music library along with two others I have in storage! Hehe.....

EDIT: They said some files I purchased are no longer available or have been modified and so will not be redownloadalbe.

They make it sound like a really gracious effort on their part, saying they are making a one time exception, but I'm still curious as to why installing iTunes 7 should touch the iTunes library at all? I mean it seems like a pretty basic thing, that yes, it will install a new app, but you can safely assume they wouldn't modify the iTunes library, or at least if they did would put the displaced files SOMEWHERE on the hard disk.

 

[balamw]

FWIW I just noticed three exclamation points for files on my iTunes at work. These were MP3s downloaded from Amazon.com so were not iTMS purchases.



B

 

[swingerofbirch]

Yeah about half of my missing songs/videos were not Apple purchases either.

They don't seem to be anywhere on my PC either....I actually had a sinking feeling while iTunes was installing because it took so long to do, and I have had so many problems with this computer (it is running Windows afterall), and I just thought oh god, I shouldn't have installed this, but I didn't want to cancel in fears it would also mess something up to do that.

I'm just hoping that there aren't files that are missing, that aren't showing in the playlist. Because as large as my collection is and as fuzzy as my memory is, I don't think I'd ever know.

I haven't seen the forums where people have discussed this, but do the songs at least appear with the exclamation point that have gone missing?

Or are there instances where they don't appear at all?

EDIT: I am trying to go to http://discussions.apple.com/

and it keeps saying it is too busy, anyone else having this problem?

Is it that a lot of people are complaining?

 

[swingerofbirch]

Maybe a little headway.

I found
C:\Documents and Settings\User Name\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\Previous iTunes Libraries

Under there, there is a library from 9/12/2006.

I am assuming iTunes made this back-up right before it installed iTunes 7?

If this is the case, would I be able to create a new user, install iTunes 6, then substitute this library, open iTunes and be able to manually see how many songs I had in my library?

What I basically want is to find out if there are songs or videos missing that I don't even know are missing, which I feel I might be able to accomplish in this manner.

Then I can go into iTunes 7 on my regular user account and compare the number of songs minus ones I have added since installing iTunes 7.

It might be worth noting that I have obsessive compulsive disorder and part of that is a huge fear of losing things, even things that don't seem to have much meaning--like in real life I don't throw things away that many people would.