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"refresh" iTunes library

TyWahn

TyWahn

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 25, 2003
404
40
I've been having trouble with my iTunes ever since i relocated my library to a bigger HD.
I have a lot of songs showing up with the little "!" next to the songs even though I know they are there, iTunes does not.
So I have to keep clicking on the file and "locate" it. And they are right where they should be....iTunes is just a little behind.
Is there a way of refreshing or rebuild iTunes so it will recognize that the fils ARE in fact there? Of course I want to keep playlists and all other meta data.
I have already "consolidated as well."
Thanks
 
Same kind of situation here. I keep some movies on an external drive, and they'll get the "!" beside them when my iPod tries to sync up and the drive is not connected.

However, once I connect the drive and try to resync I still get nothing. I have to manually click the files in iTunes to get them to show up again, and that's kind of annoying.

Anyone got a fix for this?
 
One method I've used is to delete your iTunes library (back it up first) (NOT your music folder.... only the library!) and then re-import the music in your music folder. All the "!" will be gone.
 
The problem with that is that you lose all of the metadata, ie ratings/etc.

Right now I'm having the same problem - My itunes library has always been on an external because my MBP never had a hard drive big enough. I ugraded last week for a 500gb so that I can fit my 200+gb library on the mbp. I've moved libraries around before and never had a problem, but this time about a third of the 22,000 tracks have the exclamation point. I've tried everything I can think of to get itunes to find the files (which are exactly where they are supposed to be, but it will not. Doug's scripts do not work because they get tripped up by funky filepaths and delete all the metadata.

Does ANYONE know of a good solution for this?
 
FortunesFool said:
How would you choose to have the file itself hold that info instead of the itunes library?
Click to expand...
The MP3 file already holds album, artist, track, year, genre, etc. information in the ID3 tags. If you let iTunes download the album art, it stores it in a separate folder, not in the MP3 file. If you manually add the album art, it is added to the MP3 file and goes wherever the file goes. Same for lyrics.
 
ggjstudios said:
The MP3 file already holds album, artist, track, year, genre, etc. information in the ID3 tags. If you let iTunes download the album art, it stores it in a separate folder, not in the MP3 file. If you manually add the album art, it is added to the MP3 file and goes wherever the file goes. Same for lyrics.
Click to expand...

That would make sense.

But I think, years ago when I switched from one PC to another, without backing up the library. I lost my lyrics.

I only added lyrics to about 20-30 songs. But on my new PC there weren't any lyrics anymore in those specific songs. I thought how could it be, I mean the lyrics *should* be saved in the file itself (the album cover defintely is)

Could it be that it was different years ago? I haven't added any lyrics anymore, so I don't know.
 
I use the Harmonic widget to automatically add lyrics to any song I play. It does it within 1-2 seconds of the start of the song. The lyrics are added to the MP3 file and travel wherever the file is moved/copied.
 
ggjstudios said:
I use the Harmonic widget to automatically add lyrics to any song I play. It does it within 1-2 seconds of the start of the song. The lyrics are added to the MP3 file and travel wherever the file is moved/copied.
Click to expand...

Awesome..I guess..I haven't used lyrics for some time now as I said. But it was nice to have some lyrics on the iPod of some of the songs. Not that I am a singer..

Thanks for the tip!
 
People having problems did NOT follow the simple procedures needed to move the library.

Search. Dozens of threads on how to do it correctly.

hint: change library location after moving it.
 
Consultant said:
People having problems did NOT follow the simple procedures needed to move the library.

Search. Dozens of threads on how to do it correctly.

hint: change library location after moving it.
Click to expand...

To whom or what are you referring to? In my case, there was no option to move it corretly because my old PC broke. I got my music back from an external back up. Sadly I only had the mp3s and not the needed .xml files.

But if it's the case that the lyrics are stored within the mp3 itself, then that should be a problem.

EDIT: Oh, I just realize, you might be talking about the "!" problem? Then yes you're right.
 
Consultant said:
People having problems did NOT follow the simple procedures needed to move the library.

Search. Dozens of threads on how to do it correctly.

hint: change library location after moving it.
Click to expand...


Sorry I didn't know I had to follow some excat procedure, actually thought everyone used their PC's in different ways. Really who would think that Apple decided to support ONE way of moving your library. Especially considering I can move music around anyway my PC lets me. I have seen post from 2005 with the same problem and I still wonder why Apple does not put a refresh or update button. Apple is so wierd, they do some advance stuff and leave alot of BASIC things out.
 
I've noticed this problem cropping up occasionally in my library. Sometimes my MyBook (where my music is stored) will fail to wake from sleep, although it still appears to be mounted. Then iTunes cannot find my music. I just had to go through about 1000 songs clicking and then "finding" the song for iTunes, because they all had the "!" next to them. Very annoying.

A previous post gave me an idea... what if you were to back up your iTunes library file, create a new library and import all of your music, then delete the new library and replace it with the old library file? Would that fix the ! without losing things like play count, skip, etc (these are not captured in the MP3 metadata, I think).
 
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