itunes randomly 'not finding' songs

[Trouserpants]

Sorry I can't be more specific about this but I really have no idea what's going on and what's caused it...
I've been doing a big sort out of my itunes, correcting metatags, getting album art and whatnot... and now suddenly half the songs I try to play get the little grey exclaimation point and "original file could not be found" dialog. The thing is, the files are all still there, where they should be, and I can even relocate the items to where they have been all along.
Why is itunes doing this? Do I have to manually re-locate all of the 'missing' songs or is their an easier way? What can I do to prevent this happening again? Help please

 

[Tilpots]

Check out a website called Doug's AppleScript's for iTunes. The one I'm thinking that may help is called something like "Track CPR". I don't know what you might have done to cause the issue so I can't tell you how to prevent it, but try the above AS and it could help with those pesky (!). Good luck.

 

[richard.mac]

do you have iTunes copy songs to its library when adding? this is an option in Advanced preferences. if not you could of simply moved some of your songs in Finder and now iTunes cant find them. do a Spotlight search for them. theres also a chance you may have deleted them.

in the future either let iTunes handle your library by copying songs to its library when adding or just leave your songs where they are in the Finder.