DavidField

Q: Music on my NAS no longer apears in iTunes since upgrade to iTunes12

Since updating to iTunes12 only the music from iTunes cloud appears. None on the music stored on my NAS appears. I have reset preferences to look at the NAS as it had defaulted back to the Mac but the library has disappeared. The music is still on the NAS in the iTunes folder

iMac, OS X Yosemite (10.10)

Posted on Jul 5, 2015 12:56 PM

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Q: Music on my NAS no longer apears in iTunes since upgrade to iTunes12

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  • by Limnos,

    Limnos Limnos Jul 5, 2015 2:21 PM in response to DavidField
    Level 9 (53,936 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 5, 2015 2:21 PM in response to DavidField

    Preferences do not get iTunes to "look" in a location, they only tell iTunes to put new media in the location you indicate.  If you had your library.itl file on the external, start iTunes while holding down the option key and tell it to use that .itl file on the external.  If it starts up again with a mostly blank library then your library file probably did not make it through the update process intact and will have to be restored.  See iTunes 12.2 "lost " library issue - https://discussions.apple.com/message/28513415#28513415   for brief instructions, or  ASC user turingtest2 help document: Empty/corrupt iTunes library after upgrade/crash - https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-6561

  • by DavidField,

    DavidField DavidField Jul 8, 2015 9:59 AM in response to Limnos
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 8, 2015 9:59 AM in response to Limnos

    THank,

    Unfortunately it didn't work. I had to drag all my music back into itunes from the NAS to restore the library. I did change the preferences back to - do not copy into media folder , just incase  the files were duplicated. I have however lost my playlists.

     

    Where are the library files and playlists stored?

  • by Limnos,

    Limnos Limnos Jul 8, 2015 10:37 AM in response to DavidField
    Level 9 (53,936 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 8, 2015 10:37 AM in response to DavidField

    The copy of playlists and media iTunes uses are in the iTunes Library.itl file. Another copy is in the .xml version.  When you upgrade iTunes the installer puts a copy of the library file in the "previous libraries" folder and converts the library file to the new iTunes version.  The second process does not always succeed which is why one of the rebuild/rescue steps is to take the old copy and start iTunes from that.  Alternatively you can rebuild playlists by importing the .xml into a blank library which will also load media locations and playlists but does not include some information such as ratings, date added, and play count since this kind of adding treats the files as new additions.

     

    Using iTunes with NAS is risky. There is something about some NAS that mean the file information translation between iTunes and the drive in the NAS does not always go well, and doing an upgrade always carries a a degree of risk in itself, so you have compounded these.

     

    If you are going to start changing iTunes preferences settings you need to learn how iTunes works.

     

    About iTunes library files - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201610 - Does not mention that a complete working library also includes other files and folders also in the iTunes folder.

     

    More on iTunes library files and what they do - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes#Media_management

     

    What are all those iTunes files? - http://www.macworld.com/article/139974/2009/04/itunes_files.html

     

    Where are my iTunes files located? - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1391

     

    iTunes 9 [and later]: Understanding iTunes Media Organization - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3847 - plus supplemental information about organizing to new structure https://discussions.apple.com/message/26404702#26404702

     

    Image of folder structure and explanation of different iTunes versions (turingtest2 post) - https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-7392 and making an iTunes library portable.