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iTunes losing my Songs

T

TyleRomeo

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 22, 2002
888
0
New York
ok when i click under browse in iTunes 4 it states that I have 1067 artists but then when i check out the hard drive that organizes all my itunes tracks it only has 1036 folders.

Itunes also sometimes loses a song thats in my libaray. I see a little "!" with a circle around it and it says the song is missing, then i go locate the song on the hard drive and then it plays it. What gives iTunes?

Tyler
 
One thing to keep in mind, is iTunes sees different artists for compilation & soundtrack albums, so that is likely the reason why u show more than u think.

As for losing the links, it could be a variety of things: changing the song titles, changing locations, etc. Do u notice it after doing something specifically?
 
Originally posted by eyelikeart
One thing to keep in mind, is iTunes sees different artists for compilation & soundtrack albums, so that is likely the reason why u show more than u think.

As for losing the links, it could be a variety of things: changing the song titles, changing locations, etc. Do u notice it after doing something specifically?
Click to expand...

no its really weird, it happens to random tracks, ones I havent edited for quite some time, I have over 6,000 songs so on random I dont notice what songs are not being played, but at least once a week I see a track that iTunes thinks is missing and then I have to tell where the song is. sometimes i will scroll thru my music and its 10 tracks that are magically missing. so strange.

Tyler
 
yeah, mine does that too. and it is totally random which songs get "lost," but they're never things that have been moved or edited in a long time. my songs are all on an external, so i thought that had something to do with it, but now it looks like i am not the only one.
 
That's never happened to me so far. I was going to suggest a hardware problem with your disc or bad preferences. Have u tried reinstalling iTunes by chance?
 
I think iTunes 4 is just buggy. Mine is....and it's not as bad as before....I wiped my drive and started over (not related to iTunes4 though).

So I reinstalled iTunes. It's not too bad any more, but it doesnt keep the song playing highlighted any more...which is weird.it sometimes does...

Before though, it had major issues ...It'd just leave artifacts of the GUI all over the screen and it would stay over any apps until I quit iTunes.

That sucked.
 
Originally posted by eyelikeart
That's never happened to me so far. I was going to suggest a hardware problem with your disc or bad preferences. Have u tried reinstalling iTunes by chance?
Click to expand...

I had the same issues with iTunes 3, i thought 4 would fix it but apartly it hasnt.

Tyler
 
Exactly the same thing is happening with me as well. I'll get a "!" next to some tracks - the same track will be missing from the Library and and Folderss as well.
This started with iTunes 3 and has continued through to iTunes 4.

To get the track back I have to locate it and play it. The "!" is then removed and iTunes sees the track/file again.

Regards
Marcus
 
wow i've never had a single problem with any version of iTunes. everything has worked perfectly for me since day one of iTunes 3 and now iTunes 4.

any chance that problems could be related to "messy" computers--ie: some people just throw files around everywhere and mess with stuff constantly, making prefs and permissions messed up.

i know i've always tried to keep my stuff very organized and keeping my mac "clean"
 
Ditto

Same thing happens to me, did with all versions of iTunes, no reinstalls, permissions up to date, all tracks in music library folder. Bizarre but no huge problem.
 
Re: Ditto

Originally posted by Tom800
Same thing happens to me, did with all versions of iTunes, no reinstalls, permissions up to date, all tracks in music library folder. Bizarre but no huge problem.
Click to expand...

You never change the name of any folder that they're nested in move anything or mess with preferences?

It's really odd as I have never had this problem either unless I have been messing with them on the drive.
 
Originally posted by mnkeybsness


any chance that problems could be related to "messy" computers--ie: some people just throw files around everywhere and mess with stuff constantly, making prefs and permissions messed up.

i know i've always tried to keep my stuff very organized and keeping my mac "clean"
Click to expand...

I bought a 200GB WD hard drive just to dedicate to my music collection there is nothing else on the drive but thousands of folders created by itunes 4 and I still have they missing track file issues. and since everything is organized with my id tags i have no issue finding the missing track, its just a pain the ass to do it every once in a while.

Tyler
 
Ok, so I've decided to sort out my music library because of this problem. I'm having to put an average of two tracks in every playlist (album) right. The "!" will only appear on certain tracks once I've either attempted to play them or selected/deselected the blue check box.

One curious thing I have found is that some tracks have been copied by iTunes twice - I've got the full set of files for the Lord of the Rings in a folder called the Lord of the Rings, but a couple of these files have been duplicated into a folder called Howard Shore (artist). These files are NOT the ones that wouldn't play...

Do you think I could delete the Howard Shore folder without iTunes going bannanas?

Regards
Marcus
 
Originally posted by St. George
Do you think I could delete the Howard Shore folder without iTunes going bannanas?

Regards
Marcus
Click to expand...

It won't go bananas but it will be missing the Howard Shore files. I would recommend editing all the files you want out and then reimporting them by deleting your playlist and then dragging and dropping your music folder back on to the iTunes window.

I had a similar problem a while back but found it was from when I did a backup and and reinstalled. Somehow some of my long file names had gotten truncated and had some weird symbols instead of the full file name. Needless to say iTunes wouldn't recognize the truncated files unless I found them for it. I ended up doing a search for the symbols in my iTunes folder and rediting them before readding them to my playlist.
 
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