iTunes on external drive issues

[iSaint]

I'm having iTunes/external drive issues, as the OP is having in this thread. I've attached a screenshot.

I'm using a 40gb external drive I pulled from an old Compaq to store my iTunes Library on. When I open iTunes, random songs, and even albums, will appear but not play. I get the "Would you like to locate it?" message when it can't find the file. I can close iTunes and reopen, and a completely different, random number of songs will 'disappear.'

Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

 

[emw]

I'm grasping at straws here a little bit, but you say you're using an older 40GB drive from a Campaq. How is it attached? There have been reports of iTunes "skipping" on songs on external firewire drives, perhaps this is related.

It's almost as if when iTunes opens it checks the directory location for the files, and either the directory on the HD is corrupt, or the firewire bus is overloaded or something and it's losing the data.

 

[iSaint]

It's actually a Bytec USB 2.0 external enclosure. It was only $30 or so,.

 

[emw]

I wonder if the USB connection (is your iBook 2.0 or 1.0?) is just too slow or something.

 

[aswitcher]

I'm having iTunes/external drive issues, as the OP is having in this thread. I've attached a screenshot.

I'm using a 40gb external drive I pulled from an old Compaq to store my iTunes Library on. When I open iTunes, random songs, and even albums, will appear but not play. I get the "Would you like to locate it?" message when it can't find the file. I can close iTunes and reopen, and a completely different, random number of songs will 'disappear.'

Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

Mine works fine through FW to LaCie.

So you pushed your library over there through Preferences?

Your not using iTunes locally on your Compaq HDD as well as the external?

 

[xyian]

Actually, I've been having issues with this lately as well.
I use an Azio USB 2.0 enclosure and am wondering what's
going on with it. Hopefully this is a quirk in the latest incantation
of iTunes.

 

[adk]

Actually, I've been having issues with this lately as well.
I use an Azio USB 2.0 enclosure and am wondering what's
going on with it. Hopefully this is a quirk in the latest incantation
of iTunes.

Did it work in earlier versions of itunes? I mean, USB2 should be fast enough for itunes.

 

[mad jew]

How much do you like your play counts and playlists? Maybe try grabbing the iTunes Library data file and the iTunes Music Library.xml file (on your internal drive, in the iTunes folder in Music) and dragging them to the Desktop as backup. Then, making sure you don't actually move any music files (which shouldn't be difficult), open up iTunes again (it'll be blank) and re-add all of your music. See if it works better.

Now, if this doesn't work, then close iTunes again and put the two files on your Desktop back into the folder you got them from, replacing the newly made versions to retain all your old playlists etc.

 

[2nyRiggz]

Does itunes look to the HD 1st for your songs? i have mines on an external HD as well and sometimes when i unmount my HD and open up itunes i get the same thing.

What i do is go into itunes perference and change it back to point at the external HD.

Bless

 

[iSaint]

How much do you like your play counts and playlists? Maybe try grabbing the iTunes Library data file and the iTunes Music Library.xml file (on your internal drive, in the iTunes folder in Music) and dragging them to the Desktop as backup. Then, making sure you don't actually move any music files (which shouldn't be difficult), open up iTunes again (it'll be blank) and re-add all of your music. See if it works better.

Now, if this doesn't work, then close iTunes again and put the two files on your Desktop back into the folder you got them from, replacing the newly made versions to retain all your old playlists etc.

Didn't work. Replaced old files with success...

Nearly 500 songs were not appearing when I rebuilt my iTunes library. I have about 4700 songs.

Does itunes look to the HD 1st for your songs? i have mines on an external HD as well and sometimes when i unmount my HD and open up itunes i get the same thing.

What i do is go into itunes perference and change it back to point at the external HD.

My preferences are set to have the iTunes library on the external drive. If I open iTunes while not connected to the external, all of the songs have the error/exclamation point.

Actually, I've been having issues with this lately as well.
I use an Azio USB 2.0 enclosure and am wondering what's
going on with it. Hopefully this is a quirk in the latest incantation
of iTunes.

The System Profiler doesn't show what version USB I have. I'm sure it's 2.0, though.

Your not using iTunes locally on your Compaq HDD as well as the external?

No, the entire library is on the external.

I want a new MB or old PB with a larger harddrive so I can have my music on my laptop and use the external as a backup.

Here's a shot of my Sys Prof USB info:

 

[rockstarjoe]

I have started having this problem too. Last night I ran one of Doug's Applescripts that checks for "MIA's" in my library, and out of 22,000 songs roughly 3,000 had dead links. I have not touched my Music folder, so this seemed pretty strange to me.

HOWEVER, I think I may have a clue that could help us. I opened my XML file (which iTunes spits out when it closes) and did a little digging, and here is what I've found. For some reason iTunes seems to be having trouble with long file paths. Since I have iTunes set to keep my music organized, the path is Artist > Album > Songs. If the Artist or Album name is too long (and I haven't yet figured out "how long" is "too long") the path gets cut off at the end. So when you try to play the song, iTunes looks at the path and can't find the file. Once I browse to the song and "show" iTunes where it is it corrects the path and from that point on it appears correctly in both iTunes and in the XML file.

So, anyone have any other knowledge on what could be causing iTunes to truncate the paths? I really don't want to re-import everything and lose all of my playcounts!