picolina98

Q: I transfer my music from my old computer to my new one, but everytime I try to play it a pop up th, everyti

I transfer my my music from my old Pc to my new one, but everytime I try to play it  a pop up that said "cant not locate" comes out.  What should I do?

Posted on Jun 7, 2015 11:21 AM

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Q: I transfer my music from my old computer to my new one, but everytime I try to play it a pop up th, everyti

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  • by Brett L,

    Brett L Brett L Jun 9, 2015 11:35 AM in response to picolina98
    Community Specialists
    Jun 9, 2015 11:35 AM in response to picolina98

    Good day picolina98,

     

    If iTunes on your Windows computer is having difficulty locating the music files that you transferried from your previous computer, I would suggest that you troubleshoot using the steps in this article -

     

    Locate and organize your iTunes files - Apple Support

     

    Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.

     

    Safe computing,

     

    Brett L

  • by Chris CA,

    Chris CA Chris CA Jun 9, 2015 11:38 AM in response to picolina98
    Level 9 (79,584 points)
    iPhone
    Jun 9, 2015 11:38 AM in response to picolina98

    picolina98 wrote:

     

    I transfer my my music from my old Pc to my new one, but everytime I try to play it  a pop up that said "cant not locate" comes out.  What should I do?

     

    Copy the entire /Music/iTunes/ folder from old computer to /Music/ on new computer.

    This is all you need to do.

  • by turingtest2,

    turingtest2 turingtest2 Jun 9, 2015 12:33 PM in response to picolina98
    Level 10 (86,976 points)
    Apple TV
    Jun 9, 2015 12:33 PM in response to picolina98

    The "missing file" error happens if the file is no longer where iTunes expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, one of its parent folders, or the drive it lives on has had a change of drive letter. It is also possible that iTunes has changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout, or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place. This last could be triggered by copying the iTunes folder from one computer to another in a way which left out a hidden configuration file.

     

    Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Ctrl-I to Get Info, then click No when asked to try to locate the track. (Due to a bug in iTunes 12 you currently have to say No twice!) Look on the summary tab for the location that iTunes thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drive(s). Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, a folder renamed, or a drive letter has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions. If the difference between the two paths is an additional Music folder in one path then this is a layout issue. I can explain further if that is the case.

     

    In some cases iTunes may be able to repair itself if you go through the same steps with Get Info but this time click Locate and browse to the lost track. It may then offer to attempt to automatically fix other broken links. Although it says something like "use the same location" it expects to find the tracks in the same artist & album layout that it generates, not all in one big folder.

     

    If another application like Windows Media Player has moved/renamed the files then the chances are that subtle differences in naming strategies will make it hard to restore the media to the precise path that iTunes is expecting. In such cases, as long as the missing files can be found somewhere, you should be able to use my FindTracks script to reconnect them to iTunes. See this post for an explanation of how it works.

     

    tt2