Mac quit recognizing MP3 files

[milenine]

Several years ago I my employer would do a network scan on our hard drives to search for MP3 files (not allowed). This was at the height of file sharing. I still wanted to have music on my computer so I simple changed the extension on most of my music from .mp3 to .mov and they because faux quicktime movies. The network scan could not find them anymore.

Itunes and my Ipod has read these files for the last 4 years just fine (with the wrong extension). As of recently I noticed that these files are no longer playable in Itunes... Quicktime... Garageband... etc. Even if I copy the files and change the extension back to MP3... they are all just messed up somehow... I am not sure how long ago it happened because it is mostly on my older music. The files are still the correct file size for an MP3 song so I know that there is probably a way to fix this. Anyone have any fix? I can email you one of the jacked files to see if you can get it to play if that helps.

 

[richard.mac]

zip a .mov and attach it to your next reply. have you tried renaming one file extensions to .mp3 to see if it works in QuickTime?

 

[milenine]

I have tried renaming the file extension back to .mp3 and for some reason that does not fix them. I have no idea what has happened... but I bet if I was on an old G4 running an older version of OS X they would still work. An example file was to big to attach so I put it one my website and am providing a link to one of the files that is messed up. 1400 of my songs will not play on my desktop but they will play on the iPod still so I know they are not completely corrupt... Please someone tell me how to fix this. The following link is an MP3 who's extension was changed to .mov several years ago. Right click to download it and try to get it to work.

www.earlphoto.com/thewind.mov

Could this have something to do with the xml index file that itunes keeps in the music folder?

For a recap of my problem please read my original post at the top of this page.

 

[milenine]

update:

I just tried a different media player that doesnt utilize quicktime for functionality... VLC MEDIA PLAYER... it worked even with the .mov extension on the .mp3... so now I just have 1400 songs that don't work in iTunes anymore. I hope this helps some genius solve my iTunes problem. I am guessing that iTunes is looking at some screwy metadata and still thinking it is a movie when it is an .mp3.

 

[richard.mac]

hey i just renamed it to "thewind.m4a" and it opens in QuickTime and even has its own artwork! Cat Stevens!

im guessing the file was originally AAC (m4a) and renaming to .mp3 was fine. but somewhere along the line the .mp3 extension didnt work. this is also good as the network scan wont pick it up.

 

[milenine]

NICE. Thank you Richthomas. That worked for me too! It will play in iTunes now. Now I need a good automatic way to select every song in my iTunes library that has the extension .mov (while avoiding actual movies with that extension) and change them all to .m4a... any ideas on that one? I really don't want to manually change the extension on 1400 files.

 

[richard.mac]

you could use Automator with this action.