Songs from iTunes library disappear

I am having the same problem! So I wish someone could help us with this problem? Can anyone answer why songs disappear, as well as albums?

Could you possibly tell me what the customer services rep said to you?

I've had an ongoing issue with iTunes on my mac for a long time now. Most of the time, things are fine, then one day, I'll be browsing through my library and notice certain songs have an exclamation point next to them, telling me that although they are in the library, iTunes can't find the files. I don't touch my iTunes music folder, ever, so there is no chance of me moving or deleting them. Still, I do a thorough search of my hard drives for the missing files, and they don't show up.

The REAL KICKER is that these files are ALWAYS files I've purchased directly from the iTunes music store, and Apple DOES NOT allow you to re-download previously purchased music. I'd estimate I've lost about $25 worth of music over the last couple of years. It actually took me a while to realise that something was wrong, cos at first I thought it was my fault.

If your problem was anything like this and the iTunes store customer services rep helped to shed some light on the issue, I'd be very grateful if you would share that info in here.

Many thanks.

Could you let us know what iTunes support told you that fixed the problem? I have the same problem... songs that were on smart playlists have deleted themselves from my iTunes library. These are NOT songs that I have purchased, but rather songs from CDs I own that I have added to iTunes. Most of the song files themselves are still in my iTunes Music folder, so I can re-add them to iTunes when I find them missing. But, my rating stars are gone when I re-add them.

Thanks.

Wow, I thought I was going crazy. I purchased some songs from Amazon and went back to iTunes a few days later and they were gone. I blamed myself and figured I must have been overly zealous in pruning my music in iTunes and deleted them. Luckily I was able to re-download them from Amazon. This scares the **** out of me. I have spent hundreds of dollars on music from iTunes and Amazon. What the frick is going on? Hello? Apple? You there?

On another note, I can't log into my account at the iTunes Store. Something is going on. I purchased an album last Saturday and only downloaded half the songs, even though it said all were downloaded. I've been emailing customer support and still do not have any resolution. Something is seriously wrong here with iTunes. Anyone hear anything?

I just called tech support on the SAME issue, and their "solution" was to run a check disk on the drive. Come on!

Ridiculous. Nothing else on the drive ever disapears, its obviously an ITUNES issue. Unfortunately, the solution in my opinion is to turn off "Allow Itunes to Organize your Files" because in my opinion, that is probably what is deleting things. Where any of you using that function of Itunes? Id be curious if other people have this issue even with that turned off.


If I find anything else, I will write in.

I have wondered where do the songs go on cd's I have loaded into the system. I just always presumed that songs I have copied from cd's and also those purchased from Itunes would stay in the system. Doing a spot check on cd's I know I have copies - at least 10 albums are missing and many albums are now partial albums. What the heck gives???? Where is Apples comment on these problems??????

I just realized this was happening to me too. It's just iTS purchased content that gets the exclamation mark as well. I do let iTunes manage my music for me automatically. When I go to the folder where the "missing" track is, but it will have the name of a different iTS purchased artist and song. When I remove the title from iTunes but not delete the song and then I re-add the song to iTunes it will show up as the original song it is supposed to be but then it won't play and come up as missing again. These songs have played fine in the past. I just noticed it with the itunes 8 upgrade but it might have been going on longer. The only reason I discovered it is because I've been trying to troubleshoot why my genius keeps timing out on step 3. I'm losing purchased music due to iTunes and can't seem to stop it from happening. It appears randomly

I totally have the same problem. Random songs I have purchased "can't be found" and will not upload to my ipod.

I don't know why this question is showing up as "answered." It seems people are still having the same problem.

It could be that the iTunes Store is saving your purchased music to a folder thai is not the folder where your other music files are located. I use an external hard drive to store my music, but when I purchase something from the store, it saves the music file in a folder on my computer's internal hard drive. It's okay for a while, but if I have to restart the computer, iTunes looks for all music in my external drive. If the song's on the internal drive, I get the exclamation point.

Could that be the problem?

I have had the same problem since updating to iTunes 8. I tried importing the library again but now I only have about half of the music in iTunes,

I too am having this itunes disappearing files problem, sometimes from amazon, sometimes from emusic, sometimes from my own imported mp3s.

Add me to the list. I have a large collection of both ripped and purchased tunes. Before I purchase I typically do a quick search to ensure I haven't already got the song in my library. With the addition of the the "genius" I've been adding new songs. This is where I know that I've previously owned the song but alas its MISSING?? What the heck? I've searched to no avail. Want proof I owned the song? Well then listen to the last few CD's I burned for my car - the songs are there - but no longer exist in my library. C'mon Apple - we love itunes...if its a bug just let us know you've got our back!

Seriously, what did they say?
Add me to the list of people who have had this problem recently.
You would have thought I would have learned my lesson the first time it happened, over a year ago.
Several purchased songs just disappeared...Customer Service made an exception, and allowed me purchase again, with some wied credit system. I don't remember the details.

I mean, how difficult is it, really? They have a list of our every purchase. The iTunes software creates a pre-made playlist of all the music it recognizes as "purchased" How about they just replace any songs that disappear, automatically?

There is no way this isn't a side-effect of DRM. How about just making the whole store's catalogue into DRM-free, iTunes Plus, with higher data rates?

Anyway, I'm too angry to call Customer Service right now! I want my Barry White back, G'dammmt!