Relinking: What to do?

Question

Level 1

5 points

Relinking: What to do?

what do you do if you moved your library to a different drive and can't get itunes to relink the songs?

i have searched far and wide, checked the apple script site, etc. to find an answer to this question about re-linking files with exclamations en mass.

the details:

moved my library (115Gigs) from one external to another.

changed location of the music library via prefs. allowed itunes to do it's thing (it went through and updated the library)

also used consolidate library function

only a small portion of the songs relink ( i think they were the songs on my internal hard drive, which i started filling after my external was full)

i moved the entire library to ANOTHER DRIVE just to test it and see if it would relink. No dice.

what do i do now?

do i have to manually click on EVERY ONE of my 16000 songs and relink to preserve my metadata?

Or do i just delete everything and reload the library? will i definitely lose all of my valuable info (playcounts, ratings, etc)?

doesn't the itunes file contain all of the playcount and ratings / metadata? is there a way to preserve that info?

i thought there would be an itunes script that fixes this, but can't find one.

Please help or tell me where to post this to find help.

thanks! & apple should ABSOLUTELY deal with this totally annoying issue. i bet over 50% of itunes users keep their music on external drives. this is unacceptable!!!

G5 dual 1.8, Mac OS X (10.4.3)

Posted on Dec 1, 2007 2:33 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Dec 1, 2007 2:52 PM in response to kanyfilm

If I understand you, there is a better way. Assuming that you moved the whole of your library, including the iTunes Library file (the index effectively), then you should restart iTunes with the Option key pressed down. You'll be prompted for a library. Point to your new drive and all should be well.

Pete

Reply

Answer 2

kanyfilm Author

Level 1

5 points

Dec 1, 2007 3:08 PM in response to Apple Certified Trainer

i did try that, pete, thanks. it didn't work. the songs were still not linked when itunes restarted. i think that would have worked had i done it the FIRST TIME i started itunes after the move, which i did not.

i did find a script called: iTunes Track CPR v1.3 on dougscripts.com

i tested it and it seems to be working.

wow! that was not easy to find.

Reply

Answer 3

Dec 1, 2007 4:35 PM in response to kanyfilm

Did you move just the "iTunes Music" folder or just the "iTunes" folder?

If you moved your "iTunes" folder I'd suggest only moving the "iTunes Music" folder. Thus your iTunes information stays where iTunes knows where it is. Then you go into your preferences and link it up to your "iTunes Music" folder on your other drive.

If you already did this then I'm not sure what's wrong.

Reply

Answer 4

kanyfilm Author

Level 1

5 points

Dec 1, 2007 5:12 PM in response to AppleEasy.com

yeah i only moved the music folder. guess there is nothing that can be done.

i am using this script, which works OK, not great. still have to manually relink a lot, but it gets the bulk of them.

Reply

Answer 5

Jan 17, 2008 3:21 PM in response to kanyfilm

Did anyone ever find an answer to this. I have a similar problem, my external drive died which housed all the music files (iTunes Library is on my main internal drive). But luckily I have complete back of the files on another drive.

Is there an easier solution to tell iTunes library where to find the actual music files then individually re-linking each song? My library has nearly 12,000 tunes. There ain't enough Mountain Dew get me through that job.

Thanks
Mike

Reply

Answer 6

Jan 18, 2008 8:28 AM in response to kanyfilm

Boy, do I need to add my concern to this!

I think the external drive issue is part of the general 7.6 upgrade problems, at least for me. I have tried all the tricks (repairing permissions, start with the option key, the CPR script, and even moving the "iTunes music" folder back to the main computer), and I cannot get almost 2000 of 7000 songs to link back to the library even though the files are clearly there. The only thing that appears to work is a manual relinking of each song, and that is a pain. I have to tell you, Apple, my CD collection just got a whole lot more interesting now that my iPod is basically stuck until iTunes is fixed.

What a pain.

Reply

Answer 7

Jan 18, 2008 8:49 AM in response to Tom Wetzel

Whoops!

As of today, iTunes now can find only four of 7000 songs. Is there a reason this is getting worse and now even includes songs imported with version 7.6?

Reply

Answer 8

Jan 26, 2008 11:48 AM in response to kanyfilm

Actually i was browsing to find an answer to another problem and came across this, though it is a similar problem my mac somehow stopped being able to link, save as, open from any third party application to any external hard drive or server. Or to be more precise i can navigate to the drive and sometimes to a first level folder but no further, this is a nightmare as all our work is on a central server. If I do a save as from any application it defaults to "documents" (it used to default to the last place saved which was handy) and I can't get back to the actual place the file is. I have had to resort to saving to my desktop and transferring the file, as i said a total nightmare!!!

Reply

Answer 9

jlbtech

Level 1

10 points

Jan 26, 2008 11:59 AM in response to Tom Wetzel

Put your old library file (only) into your ~/Music/iTunes/ folder.

Whatever your other drive used to be called, create similar aliasing on your drive that points to the new drive. See "Make Alias" in finder.

Restart iTunes.

I have resigned to the fact that iTunes really wants its music folder in a certain place and resort to deceiving it using the alias. That way, I can swap out whatever drive and iTunes will never know any different.

Reply

Answer 10

Chris CA

Level 10

82,434 points

Jan 26, 2008 12:07 PM in response to kanyfilm

Move all the songs back to the original location.
Move the music correctly by pointing iTunes to the new location then consolidating.

Reply

Answer 11

Jan 26, 2008 1:05 PM in response to Chris CA

I tried moving all the songs back to the original location already, Chris CA, and under iTune preferences I re-pointed iTunes back to the new location. No luck.

In fact, as of today, iTunes recognizes NONE of my songs in their original location. I am going to begin the process of building a new library from scratch. Hopefully, I will be able to get my iTunes and other downloaded songs back into the new library as well; otherwise, I will be out some serious money and lose some freebies from indie musicians. For all the rest, I was going to update all my library at a higher bit-rate anyway. I guess now is a good time to start that, even though it means I lose all my iVolume settings and my history of number of plays, etc.

I think I've learned my lesson: never, ever, ever download an iTunes update until at least version x.x.1. I have been burned now on 7.5 and 7.6. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

Reply

Answer 12

Jan 26, 2008 1:07 PM in response to jlbtech

The alias idea sounds great, jlbtech. I'll try that with my new library and my old one. Maybe one will work.

Reply

Answer 13

jlbtech

Level 1

10 points

Jan 26, 2008 1:18 PM in response to Tom Wetzel

Oh yeah.. and dump 7.6. Roll that sucker back. It's not ready. See my other post for that. "Rollback Reminder"

Reply