new harddrive, now "iTunes Library.itl cannot be read"

[Mara Dee]

Hello,

I am running 10.6.8 on an iMac. The hard drive was failing, I had it replaced, and I restored with Time Machine. So far so good, but when I open iTunes, I get the message that "the file iTunes Library.itl cannot be read because it was created by a newer version of iTunes." The current version is 11.1.2. I tried going back to the date in Time Machine before I installed the new hard drive, and restored only iTunes, same problem. I also tried restoring to an older version of itunes in Time Machine with no success.

So I cannot open iTunes at all, though it seems my music files are intact, as the library is suitably large in size.

In addition to the Time Machine external disk, I have Carbon Copy Cloner on a second external disk, backed up with the archive method.

I have read about downgrading to 10.7 as a solution, but the links I found for doing that were broken.

I am not terribly savvy with this stuff, if there's anybody that could walk me through a solution I would be grateful!

 

[DeltaMac]

iTunes current version is 11.1.3 - not 11.1.2

I know, seems like a tiny difference, yet the update also updates your iTunes library, and is likely why launching iTunes reports that the iTunes library was created by a newer version (that's all it takes!)
So, run your Software Update, which will then update your iTunes - and should fix the problem… If NO update to iTunes is offered in your Software Update, and you still have only 11.1.2 - then download directly from Apple, and update manually. Get it here: http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/

 

[Mara Dee]

Ok, I did find the update to iTunes 11.1.3 and ran that, now I don't get the message but iTunes still doesn't open. Everything else runs fine. Does it matter that the version of iTunes I started with was 9.1?