iTunes help -- please, it keeps happening.

dcfaithful

I'm hoping someone can give me a better suggestion than what I'm not willing to resort to.

It all started about a month ago. I got on my computer, opened iTunes to listen to music and whatever I clicked on couldn't be found...so, this happened for about a week and then one day they just all start playing again no problem.

Twice now, I have opened up iTunes and the majority of my library cannot be found. It jus happens out of nowhere. Everything is being played from the same location so I do not understand why iTunes all of a sudden can't locate it.

I don't want to have to re-upload everything to the library. Would it be easier to uninstall iTunes and then just re-install it.

Anybody have any suggestions on how to fix this annoyance?

intodeep

I am far from the expert but HeavyHands shared this article in another thread for me to check out about moving my library:
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/moving-your-itunes-library-to-a-new-hard-drive/

It may have some items you can try. For instance Consolidating your itunes is really easy to do and it is supposed to put all of your itunes music in your itunes folder hopefully making it easier not to get lost.....

May want to read the article and see if you think doing that would help.

best of luck

Starfall

dcfaithful wrote:

Anybody have any suggestions on how to fix this annoyance?

Are you using Windows or MacOS, and is your music located on a removable drive or on the main hard drive?

dcfaithful

Starfall wrote:

dcfaithful wrote:

Anybody have any suggestions on how to fix this annoyance?

Are you using Windows or MacOS, and is your music located on a removable drive or on the main hard drive?

I'm using Windows XP. All my music is located on my C: drive and it's also backed up on my external hard drive. I changed the source to the C: drive and still no luck. All my music is still there and intact but currently if I want to listen to an album, I have to delete the old non-retrievable files in iTunes and re-open the folder...not hard, but just tedious.

Starfall

I think what's happened is that iTunes thinks that some of the music is in the removable drive, and some are in the C drive. The Consolidate Tracks suggestion should fix that.

If that doesn't work, then my only other suggestion would be to make sure all your music files are in the default C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\My Documents\My Music\iTunes folder - and then check your Preferences (Ctrl + , and then the Advanced tab) in iTunes.

If the iTunes folder is showing elsewhere, click the Reset button and then restart iTunes.

dcfaithful

Starfall wrote:

I think what's happened is that iTunes thinks that some of the music is in the removable drive, and some are in the C drive. The Consolidate Tracks suggestion should fix that.

If that doesn't work, then my only other suggestion would be to make sure all your music files are in the default C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\My Documents\My Music\iTunes folder - and then check your Preferences (Ctrl + , and then the Advanced tab) in iTunes.

If the iTunes folder is showing elsewhere, click the Reset button and then restart iTunes.

Awesome dude, thanks so much! I've been cursing iTunes lately because of this!

I even tried reinstalling and no dice.