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Lost iTunes library; itl invalid

C

Cavara34

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 14, 2012
89
3
Hello,

After restarting my Macbook I've found, with devastation, that only a fraction of a very large iTunes library has been restored. While I still have the media, the playlists are gone and the artwork which I painstakingly uploaded over the years appears not to return when I reupload the songs. The notes added to many songs and podcasts are, I fear, gone as well.

I found a previous itl which I renamed, dropped in the iTunes folder and attempted to import but only get the message: "The file 'Itunes Library.itl' cannot be imported because it does not appear to be a valid exported file'."

In many years of using iTunes, this has never happened before and I'm incredibly depressed. Any help would be warmly appreciated.
 
You said: "After Restarting..." - do you mean rebooting, resuming from sleep, or reinstalling OS X? Maybe upgrading to 10.8?

Do you use Time Machine or any other backup/clone system?
 
Thanks for responding.

I've restarted the system and reinstalled/update iTunes. Reinstalling the OS seems unlikely to help but might be a last resort.
 
I was trying to establish what happened that caused the library to go bad, not suggesting fixes. Was there some "event" that initiated the problem?
 
Everything was normal until I restarted my computer after it froze. When I reopened iTunes, about 10% of the songs in my library showed up, the playlists were gone, etc. When I tried to reopen an itl from the previous iTunes library folder, it refused to recognize it. I renamed the itl and coppied it to the main iTunes folder but that didn't help.
 
Cavara34 said:
Everything was normal until I restarted my computer after it froze. When I reopened iTunes, about 10% of the songs in my library showed up, the playlists were gone, etc. When I tried to reopen an itl from the previous iTunes library folder, it refused to recognize it. I renamed the itl and coppied it to the main iTunes folder but that didn't help.
Click to expand...

So, No Time Machine or other form of backup? If that's the case, you now know why you might want to set that up.

Rather than trying to import the previous library file, try to open it directly.
Hold down the Option Key while starting iTunes, and it will allow you to select a new library file. The Export/Import uses a different format (.xml instead of .itl).

That's the best I can think of, maybe someone else has a better solution...
 
Unfortunately no Time Machine (won't repeat the mistake) and opening the xml failed. I may have no choice but to reimport all the media and try to reorganize everything. Thank you for your time.
 
Cavara34 said:
Unfortunately no Time Machine (won't repeat the mistake) and opening the xml failed. I may have no choice but to reimport all the media and try to reorganize everything. Thank you for your time.
Click to expand...

Did you try to open the Previous library using the Option button while opening iTunes?
 
I'm afraid so. The only xml file I can find just generates the same 10% of tracks sans playlists.
 
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