Missing iTunes Music Library.xml

[mersea]

Its actually lost. I have no idea how my iTunes library is working, because I cannot find this file.

I was trying to set up Corripio (a nice little app that downloads album art from the iTMS for those of us without a credit card and therefore account) and it asked me to locate my iTune Music Library.xml file, since it couldn't find it in the default Music/iTunes folder.

I can't find it anywhere! I've changed my iTunes Music folder (the one with all the songs) to a shared folder, but I tried poking around in there to no avail. I even did a Spotlight search and the only .xml files that popped up where the 'iTunes 4 Library' found in the Previous iTunes Librarys folder...

I can export a file, which I have done in means of a backup, because I'm wondering just how my iTunes is remembering all my playlists, etc. And yes, I've quit iTunes and restarted and it works normally.

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[PYR0M310N]

i had a quick look through the library to see if there are any files like that in there but i couldn't see any.

 

[clevin]

 

[mersea]

Its not there!

 

[Lixivial]

I see that your iTunes Music folder is a shortcut, perhaps the original folder is residing in the same directory as your iTunes Music Library.xml.

Find out where that iTunes Music Folder is residing and you may find your .xml file. You should be able to do this by right clicking on 'iTunes Music' and clicking 'Show original.' Also, you may be able to find it by opening Terminal.app and typing in

find / -name "iTunes Music Library.xml"

You may have to preface it with a sudo, but it shouldn't be in a location where you have no permissions to access it. By the way, love the iBook icon.

 

[mersea]

I know where the source to my library is, I placed it in a shared folder so other users could access it, and I've tried looking for it there...

I just tried the Terminal command and all it came up with was a bunch of file paths with "permission denied", along with the backup I made.

I tried typing it in with sudo, but.. all I got was another users iTunes file and again, my backup..

This is really wierd...

 

[iMeowbot]

With iTunes running, try

lsof|grep 'iTunes Library'

This will point you to the main library file, and with any luck the xml version will be right beside it in the same folder.

 

[mersea]

It doesn't return any results :S It just thinks for a bit and then returns a new command line. I tried restarting iTunes but it didn't help.

 

[iMeowbot]

That is odd.

There is one other supported default location for the database files, and that is in the folder ~/Documents/iTunes/ Barring that spot, something plain old freaky is going on

 

[Lixivial]

The last thing I can contemplate it being, if it's not in ~/Documents/iTunes, is that when mersea made a backup, s/he moved it instead of copying it. Applications can be notified that a file's been moved and react accordingly (I just tested it with the file in question by moving it to my desktop, and iTunes launched without incident).

It's easy to figure out, really, just copy it [the backup] to a flash disk or somewhere off the filesystem, delete the backup and see if iTunes comes up blank. Then, if it does, just restore it from the flash disk.

Otherwise... quite odd.

EDIT: Errr, I take that back, actually. It seems that, upon close, iTunes does recreate the xml file and I didn't actually move my iTunes Library file. Nevermind.

 

[mersea]

The last thing I can contemplate it being, if it's not in ~/Documents/iTunes, is that when mersea made a backup, s/he moved it instead of copying it. Applications can be notified that a file's been moved and react accordingly (I just tested it with the file in question by moving it to my desktop, and iTunes launched without incident).

It's easy to figure out, really, just copy it [the backup] to a flash disk or somewhere off the filesystem, delete the backup and see if iTunes comes up blank. Then, if it does, just restore it from the flash disk.

Otherwise... quite odd.

EDIT: Errr, I take that back, actually. It seems that, upon close, iTunes does recreate the xml file and I didn't actually move my iTunes Library file. Nevermind.

Yah, plus I made the backup after I realized the file was missing because I was scared I'd lose all my playlists. I tried selected the backup I made in Corripio (the only reason I went looking for my .xml file) and it said that "The iTunes Library has been modified blah blah", so it wasn't really the .xml file used by iTunes.

And yes, I did check ~/Documents/iTunes, it was one of the first locations recommended by the official Apple support docs...