Q: New Laptop, Existing Library Location Issues
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Aug 29, 2016 8:29 AMby turingtest2,The "missing file" issue with exclamation marks 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, or you've moved a non-portable library to a different path (see Make a split library portable for details). 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.
Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Ctrl-I to Get Info, then click No when asked to try to locate the track. Look on the file 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. If everything is where it is supposed to be try Repair security permissions for iTunes for Windows.
In some cases iTunes may be able to repair itself if you go through the same steps with Get Info, or when playing a track, 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" I think it expects to find the tracks in the same artist & album layout they were in previously, with one systematic change to the path.
If another application like Windows Media Player has moved/renamed the files, or the library has been moved from OS X to Windows, 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 for an explanation of how it works. It might need some tweaking if your media is in a non-standard layout.
If you want me to try to provide specific advice please post back the following details:
- The location of the media folder under Edit > Preferences > Advanced
- The location of a sample missing track shown under Get Info > File > Location that begins file://localhost/
- The true path to the file whose details you gave in 2
tt2
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Aug 29, 2016 9:36 AMby G_C_71,Thanks for the feedback and offer of assistance; I'm at the office won't be able to get those details for you until later tonight but I will and will post. I'll warn you I'm not highly technical
Nothing changed with the files on the NAS drive vs. the working setup with my previous laptop. Brought new laptop home, fired it up. Connected to NAS drive, downloaded iTunes onto new laptop, opened up NAS library.itl and this location issue exists. My old laptop was Vista and new laptop is Windows 10 so don't know if there is something different there.
I know exactly where the tracks are and they work fine if I manually fix, but iTunes has not offered to locate the rest of them (although I only fixed a couple while testing out what was going on but have seen other posts where that offer kicked in after doing many manually fixes).
I also saw on another post you were heavily involved in the suggestion of deleting the sentinel file and restarting iTunes and it worked for at least on person in the comments - is that worth trying?
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Aug 29, 2016 9:48 AMby turingtest2,The automatic fix seems to kick in somewhat randomly. First I think iTunes needs to be aware that at least a few tracks have broken links. Then try alternately Get Info > Fix link and Play track > Fix link. Each time you launch iTunes it will assume that every track is available until it finds out otherwise.
I don't think deleting the sentinel file will help in this case, but if you want to try make sure you have a backup of the .itl file first.
Is the .itl file located on the NAS as part of a what should be a portable library, or did you copy it (and its support files) from the old computer to the new one?
tt2
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Aug 29, 2016 10:44 AMby G_C_71,Thanks tt2,
I'll try doing multiple manually song fixes and see if it kicks in the offer to fix all. If nothing, I'll try delete sentinel and restart (will keep a backup of .itl)
The .itl file is located on the NAS along with .xml, music folder, etc.
I didn't copy any of the iTunes program from old laptop to new laptop. For the new laptop I just simply downloaded iTunes and opened + shift selecting the .itl file on the NAS.
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Aug 30, 2016 12:34 PMby G_C_71,tt2,
Minor update; haven't forgotten. Last night I was able to trigger the iTunes automated attempt to relocate missing songs and it began the locating missing files process. With 65,000+ songs on a NAS drive this was a lengthy process so it was about a 1/3rd completed when I went to bed. Woke up this morning to see if successful and iTunes was closed, etc. and it looks like my new laptop did some updates around 3am (argh!) and restarted the laptop (I assume) which is why iTunes was closed. I started the process again of iTunes locating missing files automatically before I left for the office this morning and will see if this process worked and located all the files or not.
Will update later whether I need your further assistance or not; thanks again.
