Songs Disappearing from iTunes

Are you using AVG Free for virus protection? That seems to have been a commonality among several people.

My entire iTunes library other than cloud purchases has disappeared, although it appears that the music files are there when I look using Windows Explorer. However, ALL of my dozens of playlists are gone.

I'm holding off trying the several possible remedies that have been posted here until I know more. It would be nice if Apple investigated this and posted the issues and what, if anything, can be done.

Since you keep restoring your library and it keeps vanishing, I'm wondering if something other than iTunes is causing this. If it's AVG Free, then I'll move to another anti-virus product.

Thanks but this isn't causing the issue. After seeing another response my suspicions have been confirmed, I believe AVG is the cause.

AVG is what I thought was the cause as the problems started straight after I downloaded their latest 1 month free trial version. I emailed them the other day but as it's only a free trial version no support is given.

Problem will hopefully be solved once I uninstall AVG.

Thanks, will let you know after a trial period if this is the cause.

I use Norton 360, so AVG is not singled out as being the issue. Syncing with the iTunes program seems to be the magor issue. I have not had any trouble for about a month now, not doing any updates or allowing iTunes to sync. The disappearing issues is also happening on Windows XP, Windows 7 and 8. An Apple representative emailed and tried to say it was a Windows 8 issue while processing the iTunes data, well, not the issue as well as my upstairs neighbor is on Windows XP.

I don't have AVG. this is an I-tunes problem; one that Apple is seemingly publicly ignoring, as to acknowledge that their software is denying countless people around the world access to legally acquired material from which they profit, would cost the company millions.

I don't want to go searching for deleted files, I don't want to go through laborious back-up and lost file retrieve routines - and neither should I have to.

The Apple is going rotten as is reflected in the company's dwindling share price.

I'm having this problem too. My iTunes has deleted everything but the stuff I've bought through the iTunes store twice in the last week. The first time was on April 1st, and I assumed it was some kind of stupid prank being played on everyone. The songs never came back so I went and imported them again. Very frustrating as I had many playlists and had rated everything (thousands of songs).

I also have AVG, and I am on the free trial month for the premium crap. If this is definitely the problem then I'll get rid of it straight away. For me it's not a problem with syncing as I don't have an iPod/iPad etc. so my iTunes never syncs with anything. In the past I've avoided Apple products, and now I wish I'd carried on. I've spent the last ten minutes just trying to find my Apple ID and password because of how ******** the site is. (Told them I didn't know my ID, they sent me an e-mail on how to reset my password. Nice one.)

Anyway. Yeah it's simple to just add everything back but that's still a lot of hassle. And if Apple genuinely know about this problem and just don't care, I don't even know what to say about that.

How can they not know? It's happening to thousands of people around the world. This is just one forum - Google the problem and you'll see.

tuzza_92 wrote:

I also have AVG...

See this post.

tt2

I followed the instructions in the support article here, and it worked perfectly (so far!):

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1967?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

This was really easy, just dragging the library file to the desktop and then copying the correct file from the Previous iTunes Libraries and renaming it. Reopened iTunes and everything was back where it was.

Also, if you have AVG, make sure you have updated.

AVG is not the cause. I uninstalled it yesterday but woke up today to find my music has once again "disappeared" from iTunes.

This is the 5th time in the last couple of weeks this has happened. It's the latest version of iTunes as I only reinstalled it again yesterday. I initially suspected it must have been AVG's new trial version causing the issue as that was the only recent software change I had made but as this has now been uninstalled it can only mean that Apple iTunes is the cause.

I don't keep my music in the iTunes folder as I have less space available on that drive, everything is on the D drive. All the music is still in the D drive.

Nearing my wits end, as others have said, it's not an isolated incident and Apple are obviously aware of it.

I'm now looking at other jukebox options.

In the past Sony VIAOs have also had been supplied with software that can interfere with the iTunes library. I assume that AVG did at least some testing to confirm suspicions that their software was the cause for some people's problems, before issuing a patch that they claim will fix it. The mechanism that I think was involved with AVG could also cause problems with any AV scanner that holds up the renaming of files. If you have installed something else I would recommend that you exclude the iTunes library folder from all real-time scanning processes.

Your best defense against loss of your library is a solid backup. If space is at a premium on the C: drive you may also find that everything works better if you place the library on the other drive with the media folder inside it. See make a split library portable for a "how to". This also makes backing up and migrating the library easier.

It is hard to know what Apple are aware of as they tend to be silent on such matters. Unless you and anyone else with problems actively files feedback or bug reports then they may well be aware that some people sometimes complain that stuff sometimes goes missing but have no real clues as the nature or scale of such incidents. They don't monitor these forums for issues. If you backup the way I suggest then next time you update your backup you would see if any files were to be deleted from the backup set unexpectedly. I've never personally found any proposed update to my backup set that I couldn't trace back to my own activity with the library.

tt2

My music files ARE backed up, but at this point, I have to reload them into Itunes at least twice a day. (This has been happening for a week or more now.) I can as well listen to them on Windows until I buy another player; I'll be ****** if I'm going to keep trying to figure out why Apple has this problem. Enough users are obviously having the problem that it IS Apple that should be coming up with the fix.

If you have AVG then that is probably the cause. If you have your library files backed up then simply replace the main database file iTunes Library.itl from the backup.

tt2

I don't believe it's AVG as I uninstalled it yesterday but when I turned on my PC this morning my music had disappeared again.

There are many others who state they don't have AVG but are also experiencing the same problems. In fact by the looks of other forums and searches it seems to have become an extremely common issue.

I don't believe it's AVG either, and I'm certainly not going to turn off my virus protection to thwart what acts like a virus! In any case, none of the files are disappearing; they are just being removed from within the Itunes Library.

It is actually easy to "solve" the problem. I just click on "Add File to Library" and add all my music back in. The problem is that I've done this at least 20 times by now. I'm stubborn, but not stubborn enough that I'm going to put up with this much longer.

If AVG were the culprit, I'd expect the files to be removed from the Library after an AVG scan or an AVG update. That isn't the case. The files are being removed on a regular basis, so I assume some update is creating the problem; I just can't figure out the timing to get any idea of whose update might be the cause. Likeliest candidate is the Itunes updates, though, so I've disabled those for now.

I've also followed the advice from this thread (http://discussions.apple.com/thread/3678846?start=0&tstart=0) to make the Itunes Library files an exception in AVG's Resident Shield, in case something in there is acting like a virus. I haven't gotten any warnings from AVG, but I'm still not too happy about that work-around because the problem could BE a virus....

Anyway, Itunes still contained the Library when I turned on the computer this morning. I expect my music won't go missing again until later today. In every previous disappearance, all that remains are the few purchases I've made from the Itunes Cloud.

Maybe Apple is trying to tell me I'm not worth it as a customer. I'm sure getting that message.