Okie i just bought a new 320gb External Western Digital HD today. So when I transfered all my music files onto the external HD. Next I relocated and showed iTunes where the files where at and now it prompts me to show 5126 music files where their new destination is at. Is there anyway that's faster than doing each individual file one by one? Because that would take for ever.
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I need some help with Itunes
- Thread starter 10th Wonder
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I hope someone has the answer to this because it would sooo much help me figure out what i've done wrong right now. Or If I've done anything wrong when I moved the files to the external HD. I honestly thought once you showed iTunes where it was at you would be alright, but i guess that's not da case or whatever.
15 minutes on a Sunday is not a very long wait for a response - give it some time.
I don't know what you're asking exactly - do you want to use BOTH your external HD and internal for your music library?
Do you want to use ONLY the external HD for your music library?
Or do you have some in location A: and others on location B: - and want to use both libraries?
Anyhow - you can go into itunes and set your default music directory to the external - just by changing it's default path under preferences. (itunes / preferences / advanced tab / itunes music folder location...)
If you want to gather up all the odds' and ends music wise - you can "consolidate" your libraries - but this may give you duplicate song titles should you have dupes on your drive. I have a psychological issue with Dupes - so I wouldn't do it.
I don't know what you're asking exactly - do you want to use BOTH your external HD and internal for your music library?
Do you want to use ONLY the external HD for your music library?
Or do you have some in location A: and others on location B: - and want to use both libraries?
Anyhow - you can go into itunes and set your default music directory to the external - just by changing it's default path under preferences. (itunes / preferences / advanced tab / itunes music folder location...)
If you want to gather up all the odds' and ends music wise - you can "consolidate" your libraries - but this may give you duplicate song titles should you have dupes on your drive. I have a psychological issue with Dupes - so I wouldn't do it.
Is it all the tracks or just some of them that are affected?
When I moved my library before I had something similar happen, pretty much all of the tracks were fine except for a batch of mp3's. Never figured out what caused it and I just had to go through them one by one.
If its all of them that it can't find then it would suggest something else is wrong, ie iTunes is looking in the wrong location for them.
When I moved my library before I had something similar happen, pretty much all of the tracks were fine except for a batch of mp3's. Never figured out what caused it and I just had to go through them one by one.
If its all of them that it can't find then it would suggest something else is wrong, ie iTunes is looking in the wrong location for them.
Possible Solution...
I had the EXACT same issue... Let me run down a few things. I have a PowermacG5 running Leopard (10.5.1). I purchased a new 1TB drive (external) and was going to consolidate my library on it to simplify my link to Apple TV.
Low and behold, after copying the library over to the new drive and redirecting iTunes to the new library I had the same issue. Here's what I discovered.
The new set-up for iTunes likes to have all of it's folders in the "iTunes" folder. This is a big departure from the folders being inside the iTunes music folder inside of the iTunes folder.
If you have not done to much tinkering trying to fix things, you should be able to redirect the library where you want it. Just be sure all of your music 'band folders' are in the iTunes folder and NOT the iTunes music folder contained therein.
I had done so much tinkering and moving and copying, I had to restore the library and leave it as is until a few kinks get worked out.
Something RATHER ALARMING I have found in Leopard is a huge frickin bug... Sometimes when you copy files, you lose some of the files you copy. POOF! They are gone. I was hoping this was tied in to Apples addressing a 'finder data loss issue', but it is not fixed via 10.5.1.
** ANOTHER WARNING FOR MY FELLOW Apple TV USERS **
Sometimes after you have copied a video file into your iTunes library and you change something as innocuous as the file name in iTunes, or the type of video file (i.e. Movie or TV Show), or even something as simple as adding custom album art to your videos, IT HOSES THEM. They become unplayable. I was hoping the files themselves in the iTunes folders were ok, but upon trying to open the files in Quicktime Player, they are hosed there also. When trying to play in iTunes, you simply get a white screen with no audio. Fortunately, I had not deleted the original files for Battlestar that I had spent FOREVER encoding off of the DVDs.
Any questions, feel free to e-mail. bmrbob@comcast.net
I had the EXACT same issue... Let me run down a few things. I have a PowermacG5 running Leopard (10.5.1). I purchased a new 1TB drive (external) and was going to consolidate my library on it to simplify my link to Apple TV.
Low and behold, after copying the library over to the new drive and redirecting iTunes to the new library I had the same issue. Here's what I discovered.
The new set-up for iTunes likes to have all of it's folders in the "iTunes" folder. This is a big departure from the folders being inside the iTunes music folder inside of the iTunes folder.
If you have not done to much tinkering trying to fix things, you should be able to redirect the library where you want it. Just be sure all of your music 'band folders' are in the iTunes folder and NOT the iTunes music folder contained therein.
I had done so much tinkering and moving and copying, I had to restore the library and leave it as is until a few kinks get worked out.
Something RATHER ALARMING I have found in Leopard is a huge frickin bug... Sometimes when you copy files, you lose some of the files you copy. POOF! They are gone. I was hoping this was tied in to Apples addressing a 'finder data loss issue', but it is not fixed via 10.5.1.
** ANOTHER WARNING FOR MY FELLOW Apple TV USERS **
Sometimes after you have copied a video file into your iTunes library and you change something as innocuous as the file name in iTunes, or the type of video file (i.e. Movie or TV Show), or even something as simple as adding custom album art to your videos, IT HOSES THEM. They become unplayable. I was hoping the files themselves in the iTunes folders were ok, but upon trying to open the files in Quicktime Player, they are hosed there also. When trying to play in iTunes, you simply get a white screen with no audio. Fortunately, I had not deleted the original files for Battlestar that I had spent FOREVER encoding off of the DVDs.
Any questions, feel free to e-mail. bmrbob@comcast.net
15 minutes on a Sunday is not a very long wait for a response - give it some time. Sorry, I just wanted it solved soon.
I don't know what you're asking exactly - do you want to use BOTH your external HD and internal for your music library?I only want External HD to be for my music library.
Do you want to use ONLY the external HD for your music library? Yes
Or do you have some in location A: and others on location B: - and want to use both libraries?Nope i just want it to be at location A in the external HD
Anyhow - you can go into itunes and set your default music directory to the external - just by changing it's default path under preferences. (itunes / preferences / advanced tab / itunes music folder location...)
If you want to gather up all the odds' and ends music wise - you can "consolidate" your libraries - but this may give you duplicate song titles should you have dupes on your drive. I have a psychological issue with Dupes - so I wouldn't do it.
Okie I basically moved my ENTIRE iTunes Music Folder to my External Drive and i want it to be kepted there only. So I can have space for my internal HD. I've done this already.... (itunes / preferences / advanced tab / itunes music folder location...). But when I play my music it prompts me to show where it's at. When I have given it a new directory to all the music files.
Also when I moved my iTunes Folder to the External HD somehow it made a new iTunes Library file as well too.
It sounds like you moved your music before telling itunes the new directory.
(hence the new library being created)
So after it's moved (in itunes) and physically - go to the preferences/advanced menu in itunes and click "reset".
Reboot and re-open itunes, to see if it's now recognizing the new location.
Try consolidating your Library if that has no luck.
And/or repair file permissions under Disk Utility.
(hence the new library being created)
So after it's moved (in itunes) and physically - go to the preferences/advanced menu in itunes and click "reset".
Reboot and re-open itunes, to see if it's now recognizing the new location.
Try consolidating your Library if that has no luck.
And/or repair file permissions under Disk Utility.
Is the iTunes database still on your internal HD?
If so, that could be the problem - move that to the external hd as well, so you should have a folder structure on your external hd like this:
/iTunes/
/iTunes/Album Artwork/
/iTunes/iTunes Library
/iTunes/iTunes Library.xml
/iTunes/Music/
/iTunes/Music/artist/
/iTunes/Previous iTunes Libraries/
Once you've done that, start up iTunes whilst holding down the ALT key and keep the key down until prompted to choose an iTunes library. Click on Choose Library and select the /iTunes/ folder on your external hd.
In future you can start iTunes as normal. It will probably create a new iTunes folder on your internal hd at some point but you can just ignore it (there won't be anything in it).
If so, that could be the problem - move that to the external hd as well, so you should have a folder structure on your external hd like this:
/iTunes/
/iTunes/Album Artwork/
/iTunes/iTunes Library
/iTunes/iTunes Library.xml
/iTunes/Music/
/iTunes/Music/artist/
/iTunes/Previous iTunes Libraries/
Once you've done that, start up iTunes whilst holding down the ALT key and keep the key down until prompted to choose an iTunes library. Click on Choose Library and select the /iTunes/ folder on your external hd.
In future you can start iTunes as normal. It will probably create a new iTunes folder on your internal hd at some point but you can just ignore it (there won't be anything in it).
Thanks guys, I am goin try that right now and last-night i just went to sleep. To see if i got any answer's that could solve my problem. But what BIG-TDI-Guy said is true, I moved it be4 telling where i was gonna put it. I thought that after i move it from my internal to my external everything would be alright. Also another thing I erased the music files off of my internal so that's not the problem then.