iTunes hangs while "importing iTunes Music Library.xml"

[memphismac]

I've used iTunes for years, and tonight I'm seeing this error for the first time ever.

I open iTunes, and I get a dialog box that tells me it's "Importing 'iTunes Music Library.xml". And it just goes, and goes and goes.

I've got 102GB of music, kept on an external drive. I use smart playlists and play count A LOT.

Somebody tell me I don't need to re-create my entire library. Please. I don't want to lose those play counts.

 

[memphismac]

Just got this...

The file "iTunes Library" does not appear to be a valid iTunes library file. iTunes has attempted to recover your iTunes library and renamed this file to "iTunes Library (Damaged)".

 

[JamesMB]

Maybe it's not iTunes, but the external that is having issues.

 

[memphismac]

I clicked "ok" to let iTunes open.

Library size dropped from 7.3MB to 6.3MB.

iTunes processed some artwork, and now it's analyzing the song volume of about half the songs in the library.

Play counts seem to be mostly intact.

Only 17 of the 782 artists listed in my iTunes Music folder show "Date Modified" as tonight.

 

[memphismac]

Dropping a few artist folders from the iTunes Music folder into iTunes, it's obvious that some of the files were dropped out of the library.

The restored library showed about 82GB of music, while the actual folder had 103GB. It's looking like about 20GB will need to be re-imported, thus losing all play count and last played data.

Bummer.