Itunes - original file cannot be found

[soulflexin]

ok ppl,

i have a large library and just in the past day, many of my songs have become greeted with the following:

'the song "blah-- blah" could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?'

i have not moved any files to another location since the last successful play and when i locate the file it is still in the original location. any suggestions on the possible problem and a way to bulk fix this? please understand, i have many different playlists and i cannot just delete my library or i will lose the content of those playlists...

 

[Gray-Wolf]

Try doing an import then, picking the folder where they are located.

 

[soulflexin]

ok, i just tried that. what happened was the imported files were added to the library as duplicates. the files in my playlists still come up with same message 'original file cannot ...'

 

[soulflexin]

WTF
now its happening to more files. even when i relocate the song and reopen itunes, the file still cannot be located and i need to go through the whole process again.

i thought mac is supposed to ****ing reliable for this ****.

 

[tharpshooter]

help!!!

WTF
now its happening to more files. even when i relocate the song and reopen itunes, the file still cannot be located and i need to go through the whole process again.

i thought mac is supposed to ****ing reliable for this ****.

I've had the same problem multiple times with different libraries. I've searched forums for hours and never been able to find answers about how to reconnect groups of files (instead of one at a time) when the ! suddenly appears. The songs have never been moved, the only possible anomaly is that the external HD where they are all stored was not connected when itunes was opened (this usually seems to be when this problem starts for me).

I find it unbelievable that apple does not have an automated fix for this problem similar to when this happens in Final Cut Pro or other media applications. You simply "reconnect media" and direct the program to find one file. After finding one file you are asked if you want to reconnect all of the other "missing" media that was identified in the same location.

Sure, it is easy to simply drag the entire music folder into itunes to start your library over without losing any music; but you do lose a huge amount of data in playlists, ratings, and counts that are very valuable to some users.

Has anyone ever found a way to automate the reconnection of files so that you do not have to do it individually for thousands of songs?

Is apple ever going to make an easy fix for this very common serious problem?

 

[rumourguy]

ok ppl,

i have a large library and just in the past day, many of my songs have become greeted with the following:

'the song "blah-- blah" could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?'

i have not moved any files to another location since the last successful play and when i locate the file it is still in the original location. any suggestions on the possible problem and a way to bulk fix this? please understand, i have many different playlists and i cannot just delete my library or i will lose the content of those playlists...

I had this happen to me in Vista. are you in bootcamp?

 

[Nevering]

Wtf

I have the same problem.

Why do I have to do this for every file ?
Why can't there be a scan of some sort?
If I locate one song why can't it pick up the rest for the same group in the same folder.
Did I miss something or is Itunes lame?