Songs Disappearing from iTunes

glynfromathy wrote:

and ripped CDs that I NO LONGER OWN, AND CAN NO LONGER PURCHASE.

If you no longer own the CDs, you do not have a legal right to keep the RIP'd files.

SOMEONE AT APPLE PLEASE TAKE NOTE, AND IF YOUR AT ALL DECENT REPLY TO ME EITHER HERE

This is a user-to-user forum.

IS THERE ANYBODY ON HERE WHO KNOWS HOW TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT THIS?

Maintian regular backups of important info on your computer.

Don't get rid of CDs you have RIP'd.

HI

whatever; I disagree. I bought the music, I do have a leagl right to the files, and Im not that boithered if I'm wrong, the files were put onto my computer, and were very happy there thank you. now someone or something, NOT ME, has removed them from my MAC without my permission and unbeknown to me. Is that right? I do regular backups, but as you'll read elsewhere many many many people are losing their music regardless of doign backups.

I also have a right to copy the music to my library and then sell the CDS, IF I WANT TO.

A naff reply and totally not what we're talking about. The music is being removed by somehting other than the person who put it into the library, that is wrong, end of......

And I wouldnt be so angry if I hadnt lost pots of stuff! And what about the itunes purchases, what is the point of buying them, downloading them, and then again through no fault of mine, finding that they've mysteriously been removed from my MAC, and having to redownload them? The point of that is?? And I know its a user to user forum, but this in my eyes is a serious problem, and everywhere on this page i see Apple this APple that, Apple logos etc etc, so they need via this user to user forum to take a peek at it, acknowledge and do soenthing about it. However as I write this, I have already had a reply from Apple support, basically telling me previous itunes purchases can be redownloaded from the cloud, and that anything else in my library that gets REMOVED WITHOUT MY KNOWLEDGE OR PERMISSION is quite simply not their problem. Wonderful!

now someone or something, NOT ME, has removed them from my MAC without my permission and unbeknown to me. Is that right? I do regular backups, but as you'll read elsewhere many many many people are losing their music regardless of doign backups.

Granted that it geting deleted in teh first place is na issue but simply restore from your backup.

The reasons backups are created is that stuff happens.

I also have a right to copy the music to my library and then sell the CDS, IF I WANT TO.

and by all legal accounts, you are NO LONGER entitled to keep those files.

Why do you think you get to make money off the artists product? You don't own the copyright.

The music is being removed by somehting other than the person who put it into the library, that is wrong, end of......

It's a bug or error. iTunes isn't doing it because it is programmed to delete files randomly.

Hi

the missing files arent in the backup, they have gone!

And actually your last line is exactly right, it is a bug or error I guess. A huge bug or error that is causing people to lose their music. Ok there are legalities regarding copyright ownership etc, but I'm talking about a whole load of people that put their trust in Apple and iTunes to mind their tunes for them. I'm talking about a customer care thing, acknowldge the problem, apologise to people, sort the **** thing out.

I'm quite sure it's not that iTunes has programmed this to happen, but it is happening! and me, you and they know that it shouldn't. I've just had a reply from Apple Customer support and nowhere in that reply does it say "sorry about that, there is a bug or error in the programme, don't purchase anymore music, and don't rip any more CDs to your library, until we have sorted the bug/error out"

Everybody, been in contact with Apple regarding the missing files. They do confirm this is a problem but have no solution. It is recommended that you back up your music/movies/etc. to a external hard drive rather than use the drive that the iTunes program resides in.

Billy Burnett

Los Angeles

Hi Billy

that's fine, everytime I contact them, no such addmitance that there;s a problem. And like I said to them, if there is a prob, why don't they tell people to stop buying fron the store and ripping music from CD until it's sorted out.

Read the fine print on any music purchase. It is a LICENSE, not a purchase. Only the copyright holder owns the song...the rest of us license its use. You can buy a CD, rip songs, then sell or transfer the license to someone else. It's copyright infringement and ASCAP and BMI have been very successful in getting court decisions from college students, mothers of 4, and grandmothers. In the case of one mother of four, a jury awarded $1.92 million.

As for the loss of the songs otherwise, I agree completely. I "upgraded" to iTunes version 11, everything appeared fine, then I shut down my PC for the night. When I booted the next day, my entire library was gone, including dozens of playlists. The actual songs appear to be on my hard drive but they don't display in the library. The only thing that displays are my cloud purchases. I have HUGE amounts of time invested in just the playlists, a cost I'll have to eat if I can recover everything and recreate them.

Right now I'm not sure of the best way to proceed. I've been told to use "Add Folder to Library" to repopulate the library, but I'm not sure if that will work and, if it will, whether I have to do each folder one at a time. I've read other very lengthy instructions on what to do. The simplest suggestion I've gotten is to use Windows' System Restore feature and go back to my PC setup the day before I upgraded to iTunes version 11. I'm afraid that might mess up something else.

I do have a complete backup on my iPod, something I used a few months ago when I got a new PC. I had to download a software program (can't remember the name) to do this.

Yeah im having the same freaking problem😠!!!!! The strange thing is that its the second time this has happened and Im really starting to dislike apple for many reasons, and I especially hate the forget password answers thing too becasue I have like 7$ left on an account and i cant change my password to use the money without filling those answers out which were never givin to me to fill out in the fist place. Im now done buying anything online with apple and apple cant do a **** thing about it.👿

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I just discovered this problem too. i was syncing my phone and one of my songs that i was listening to that morning was gone. it had to have happened within the last few days since i last synced. i found that several whole artists had been deleted (somewhere in the vacinity of starting with TO, but also several in TH. god knows what else.). they were not songs purchased from itunes, but imported or carried over from another hard drive. fortunately, i never delet anything, so i have the older stuff that was on my other hard drive, but i'm adding new music all the time as i fall in love with sound tracks. i have over 50 gb of music and constantly adding. and their only solution is to back it up? sorry, but that's the cop-out to everything. whenever there's a problem with a computer everyone just says "should have backed it up better." geeze. I already keep everything on an external because i don't trust the cumputer itself. is nothing sacred?

still every time i remove a song it askes me if i want to just remove it or delete the file, too. why should it ask me if it's just going to delete stuff without me knowing? it might be a bit rough, but i'm going to see about removing the programs permission to delete files. there's got to be a setting somewhere for that, right? even if i have to take away all of it's permissions to modify the file system. that'll suck. probably (unfortunately) start with telling itunes not to organize and copy the music. that'll REALLY suck.

grr. this is honestly just a vent forum now since after a year no one seems to be any closer to a solution (other than getting them to admit it's a problem). But 25 pages of vents has got to mean something, right?

Ok, this is what worked for me, but I can't promise it will work for any of you as well.

There was something corrupting my itunes Library.itl file. I use the free version of AVG and Malwarebytes on my Win 7, 64 bit machine. I recently did an upgrade with AVG over the weekend and after everything was finished, I rebooted my computer. When I logged back in and launched iTunes, everything was gone. Seriously? How? I checked my preferences and the iTunes media folder location was set to C:\Users\Username\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media. I went ahead and reset the folder location again and left the two boxes below checked. Still, no music was there.

Fortunately, before I upgraded AVG, I did a backup of my contents to an external hard drive, which included the iTunes Library.itl file. I was able to copy over the .itl file over the new one that was created. For Win 7 users, this is located on C:\Users\Username\Music\iTunes

So if you have the .itl file backed up or stored somewhere else or even an older version of the file, copy it over the one that is present in your folder. Re-launch iTunes and the music files, playlists, etc should be there.

I have only started having this issue with the current version of iTunes (11.0.2), so it could be a problem with the program itself. However, it may just be a problem related to the computer. Whatever it is, I really hope Apple will take note of it and do some research before releasing the next version of iTunes.

This took me a little while to figure out and I know it has frustrated a lot of people, including myself.

In my case it wasn't that the library was corrupted, the files were actually deleted from the hard drive. The library was fine, it was trying to reference files that no longer existed.

I posted this a month or more ago, and never got a straight answer. I finally figured out the myiPad library was still intact, so I'll have to set my phone and pad to sync together. Once I download ALL my music then I can seperate the two again ie.. Apps etc. I wish Apple. Would get their heads out of their a***s or tree trunks and take care of loyal customers! Samsung is making so incredible products. POST THAT APPLE!

Well it has been a couple months now that I got my iTunes library back to what it was before the disappearing of songs. I am now up to 201,535 songs and climbing on my iTunes library. I have declined to do any updates to the iTunes program to what it is now 11.3 fearing what happened when I updated to 11.2 version. I also do not let it sync automatically. So far no deletions have occured, but everytime I do input songs, I am always backing up, which I think now is becoming a hassle. It seams also while being in contact with Apple, they are there to help but, but still have no definate solution. Do the updates, disassciate your computer, associate your computer, you know just like calling you ISP provider when you have internet trouble. If this keeps up, then I too am going to look for a more reliable way to store and play music.

95+% of my songs have "disappeared" from my iTunes library 4 times in the last 2 weeks. All my music is still saved on my hard drive so I haven't lost anything but I have to keep reloading everything.

I can not find any solution for this and Apple don't seem to have any options to resolve.

I have uninstalled and reinstalled iTunes 3 times without fixing the problem.

Can anyone help?

Cantabkid,

Make sure the the Prevent iPods, iPhones, and iPads from syncing automatically is check under Preferences in iTunes.

Open ITunes

Click Edit
Click Preferences

Click on the Devices Icon
Check mark Prevent iPods, iPhones, and iPads from syncing automatically

Click OK

Seems to be working for me, oh.... and don't do anymore updates until iTunes get their acts together on this issue.