Hi guys,
I have a fairly large iTunes library, with approx 20,000 items. A few years back I moved my iTunes Music Folder to an external HD as space was tight. Within the last year that drive started behaving oddly, so to ensure nothing was lost, I moved my Music Folder to a 2nd external drive. I remember testing this at the time and all was working fine.
Fast forward to present.
The original external HD didn't die as I expected and it has remained plugged into my computer and is used for storing some unrelated files. While doing some other testing today I disconnected this original drive. iTunes started giving 'Song Not Found' errors. I double checked my iTunes Preferences and the Music folder is definitely set to the newer of the 2 external HD drives.
Further testing revealed that iTunes seems to be fairly arbitrarily sourcing some songs from the old HD and some songs from the new HD, despite the files being located in both places. Even more strangely, files added since the move to the 2nd external HD have been correctly added to the newer HD. However, for some reason iTunes is insisting on looking for some tracks on the essentially retired 1st external HD.
Can anyone suggest a reason why iTunes is effectively using two music folders on separate HD's despite the files being available on the newer hard drive? Everything I have tried so far has failed to solve this problem. I have so far tried:
- Hiding the Music Folder on the old HD
- Switching the music folder location in the iTunes prefs to a new folder and then back to the correct folder on the newer HD
- Disconnecting the old HD and when prompted when trying to play a song, pointing iTunes to the correct location on the new HD
- Recreating the library (I have since rolled this back - using Time Machine - as it didn't work.)
Ideas welcome!
I have a fairly large iTunes library, with approx 20,000 items. A few years back I moved my iTunes Music Folder to an external HD as space was tight. Within the last year that drive started behaving oddly, so to ensure nothing was lost, I moved my Music Folder to a 2nd external drive. I remember testing this at the time and all was working fine.
Fast forward to present.
The original external HD didn't die as I expected and it has remained plugged into my computer and is used for storing some unrelated files. While doing some other testing today I disconnected this original drive. iTunes started giving 'Song Not Found' errors. I double checked my iTunes Preferences and the Music folder is definitely set to the newer of the 2 external HD drives.
Further testing revealed that iTunes seems to be fairly arbitrarily sourcing some songs from the old HD and some songs from the new HD, despite the files being located in both places. Even more strangely, files added since the move to the 2nd external HD have been correctly added to the newer HD. However, for some reason iTunes is insisting on looking for some tracks on the essentially retired 1st external HD.
Can anyone suggest a reason why iTunes is effectively using two music folders on separate HD's despite the files being available on the newer hard drive? Everything I have tried so far has failed to solve this problem. I have so far tried:
- Hiding the Music Folder on the old HD
- Switching the music folder location in the iTunes prefs to a new folder and then back to the correct folder on the newer HD
- Disconnecting the old HD and when prompted when trying to play a song, pointing iTunes to the correct location on the new HD
- Recreating the library (I have since rolled this back - using Time Machine - as it didn't work.)
Ideas welcome!
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