Q: Songs Disappearing from iTunes

Me, too. Just discovered one album missing (fwiw, by Anaïs Mitchell, since some people have commented that diacritical marks trigger disappearing files). I don't even know how to find out whether anything else is missing.

From now on I'm keeping all my iTunes receipts in my email folder. Receipts for any music I buy online, for that matter.

Grrrrrr.

(Also, I'm not sure when they updated the commenting system here, but it's been a while since I last commented, I had to re-log in, and now it's showing my prior username as "taken" and inaccessible to me also. Double grrrrrr.)

Help!!!!!

This really is amazing now, I am having this problem daily now; just todau I have spotted 6 albums which I had imported from CD, are now completely missing. No sign of the songs/folder anything to do with them. Without being too boring these are by an electronic musician Johannes Schmoelling, and I dont have the CDs any more nor can I buy them any longer. This is a disaster!

I have had days where purchased music (both tracks and whole albums), have disappeared. The artwork is still in the library, but clicking on the song brings up the file no longer available would I like to locate it message. But there is no file.

It's not too bad for the items in the cloud which you can redownload, but for the items like Ive mentioned above that are from CD they are lost forever.

I emailed itunes support over this and got a reply basically telling me how to redownload from the cloud. I want to know why or how items are randomyl being deleted from my library.

Does anyone at Apple/itunes read these? And if so is there any solution forthcoming?

I can't explain how distraught I am over music I had which I cannot any longer get, which has simply disappeared.

Glyn

Go to (Finder) /yourname/music/itunes music/music  folder and look for "unknown artist" folder and/or "unknow album" folder. They are not lost unless you deleted them to the Trash bin. If they are there, make a copy with the Finder, before you do anything else.

Then in iTunes look for unlabelled or numbered songs at the bottom of the list: click on them and "getInfo": put the name of the artist in and (if any) put the name of the album in, click ok, then they "disappear" to their place in the alphabet, or the artist name in the Artist view, or the Album name in the Album view. It explains itself when you do it.

As an afterthought: if the format of the songs cannot be read in iTunes, iTunes put them in a Folder called "not added" in which there is another folder called by the date that you imported the music: make a copy, then convert the music to mp3 and create a new folder named with the Artist Name, in which you put a subfolder with the Album Name, and put the songs in there. Then you move this Artist folder into a folder called "Automatically Add To iTunes", which is in the "iTunes Music" folder or the "iTunes Music/Music folder".

You then find them in the iTunes Music Playlist and in iTunes GetInfo you add the necessary Artist and Album names.

Hi

listen thanks for your efforts, sadly though I dont appear to be getting anyhwere as yet. I'm struggling finding a folder anywhere called unknown album/artist. I also can't as yet find a folder anywhere called not added. Is this me, or is it really really good at hiding hiding??

G

The path may be yourname/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music  for some reason it is on my machine. I think iTunes changed it to allow for Media storage rather than just Music

Nope. They're not in there (I looked before I posted here). Also did a Spotlight search of the whole drive, not there either.

While I was searching, just out of curiosity I searched on both "Anais" and "Anaïs" (with and without the umlaut), and Spotlight brought up the album I'd newly re-purchased on BOTH searches.

So, there is something weird about the way MacOS treats (ignores?) diacritical marks ... that may indeed have something to do with this ...

@glynfromathy, any chance that when you ripped the CDs, the artist name went in as Schmölling and not Schmoelling as you spelled it?

Not that paying twice for the same music is MUCH of a consolation, but it's better than not having the music at all ... have you looked on DA Music or Schmoelling's own website?

http://www.johannesschmoelling.de/ (click "Online Shop" on the left - at a quick glance, appears to offer his entire discography)

http://www.da-music.de/Schlager/Suchen?modus=qs&inpr=schmoelling

@ glynfromathy

@ steve taylor1

Where the files are is - I think - depending on how many earlier versions of iTunes or OSX you have updated from or upgraded from, when you did not do a clean install.

Disturbing.

If Spotlight brings them up, they are there. Go to the file in Spotlight and see where they are. Add them to iTunes.

No, I bought and paid for the album AGAIN.

Spotlight now brings up only the "new" re-purchased album.

Spotlight did NOT bring it up before I re-purchased the album.

That's why I'm keeping my receipts from now on.

theystolemyusernametoo wrote:

 

No, I bought and paid for the album AGAIN.

Why didn't you simply log in with the original AppleID and redownload it?

-> Downloading past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore, and iTunes Store

Ugh. Because Apple DELETED it.

I DID log in with the original Apple ID (I only have one, all they made me change was my forum username, NOT my Apple ID).

Even though I'd bought the album from iTunes to begin with, it would not let me download without paying for it AGAIN.

Because it was DELETED, and not by me.

It was worth $10 to me to have the album again WITHOUT having to hassle with Apple Support. I can't even seem to get people on this forum to read my posts before they reply ... and since no one posted earlier in the thread that Apple Support allowed them to re-download albums for free when they had deleted all record that the people had ever owned the albums to begin with ...

THAT IS WHY I AM GOING TO KEEP ALL MY RECEIPTS FROM NOW ON.

Sorry for yelling. Going to ignore all further irrelevant posts.

Did you move to another country perhaps? In different countries not all iTunes product catalogs are the same, media-rights and so on.

Indeed it is.  I was told by the support I paid a chunk of cash for that they hadn't heard of this issue before.  A clear lie exposed by a simple Google search.

My i-pad still has all the 'lost' songs on it and the 'expert' advice I was given was to back this up which would restore the lost songs.  I insisted that the person checked with a supervisor before I did this just in case it just deleted all the songs rather than restore them to i-Tunes.  Thank goodness I did, because he came back and admitted that backing up the i-pad would indeed delete the songs!

This is a major flaw in the I-Tunes platform and I can't believe Apple is getting away with it.  It feels like buying a car with an inherrent fault that locks you out of it and the only solution from the the 'garage' is to buy a new one.

I for one have stopped making i-Tunes purchases and I regret the day I bought into the Apple dream.  OK, my £20-30 a month won't bother them - but if a million others did the same thing then they might just throw a bit of cash at solving this unbelieveably bad flaw.

Sort it out Apple or risk the reputation