iTunes library sorted to "unknown" album on pc and iTunes

What kind of files are they - WAV? MP3?

Yikes! Usually that only happens with WAV files when the itunes database gets corrupted, and the songs get re-added back into itunes with the "Keep itunes media folder organized" option enabled.




It happens to WAV files because WAV files don't have ID3 tags with the album/artist info embedded into each song. iTunes doesn't know what to do with them, so puts them in an Unknown Artist folder if they get re-added to a library.



I've never heard of it happening with mp3 files. Do I understand correctly? The files are in the correct Artist folder, but the Album sub-folders all say Unknown Album and all of a certain artist's tracks are in that?



I don't have specific advice on quickly getting things back to normal, because I'm not sure what it looks like now, or how you had your files organized before in Windows. General advice would be to take it slow and only make changes on one folder until you figure out what happened.



Are you running any other music software on that PC? Take any updates on itunes or any other software?




It sounds like all the MP3 ID3 tags got corrupted. You can verify that with a program such as MP3 Tag. It's a solid download without malware - I've used it often to sort our what hijinx itunes is up to.
http://www.mp3tag.de/en/
If it were my library, that's one of the first things I'd do, is check several files with MP3 Tag to see the state of their ID3 tag.

Yeah im having the same issue

About 6 months ago I spent I whole weekend importing my CDs into iTunes, and I just recently I noticed all the Album info was gone, Album title, year released and all that good stuff is gone and put those songs into a album folder called Unknown.

In windows 7 I can still see this info if I right click on the file a look at the properties, also windows media player can pic up all the lost info but I can get iTunes to show it. I also tried update info but I get a error saying you can only do this for songs Itunes imported and wants me to re import all the CDs.

Since windows can see that info I was able to re organize everything to get them out of the unknown folders and put them back in the correct album folders. I unchecked organize files since that’s what puts everything in the Unknown folder but the info is still not showing up on iTunes.

Any idea how I can fix this without re importing all the CDs again? And how should I keep this from happening again in the future? I am using the latest version if iTunes.

I tried converting the ID tag but that did not work.

Right, if you drag things around in Wndows Explorer, then itunes loses track of the file.



Let's back up a bit....can you tell me the setting of the itunes preference > advance tab for "Keep itunes folder organized"? Is that checked or not?


Another question, if you wave the mouse over that file in Win Explorer, does the little pop-up show the track name, artist, and album name?

I've had the exact same problem. Approx half of my 1600+ albums suddenly lost all their ID3 tag info and appear in either an Unknown Artist > Unknown Album folder. Or still under the correct artist, but Unknown album i.e. AC/DC > Unknown Album. The strangest thing is that Windows (7) Explorer and Windows Media play can still see all the info! I guess that Windows stores it differently. If I try to Obtain Track info from iTunes, it tells me the tracks must have been ripped by iTunes (which they were). Windows properties even still shows the iTunes version that they were ripped with. It has really p **d me off. Best solution I've found so far is to use Tag Scanner to recreate most of the ID3 Tag info and rebuild the missing data. Done A's and B's so far

If anyone has any better ideas I'd love to hear them. I really like iTunes, but this has soured my opinion somewhat.

Since windows can see that info I was able to re organize everything to get

them out of the unknown folders and put them back in the *correct album folders*. I unchecked organize files since that’s what puts everything in the Unknown folder but the info is still not showing up on iTunes.
If you've got the tracks in the correct foldes, e.g. the track names are on the lines of <Some Path>\<Artist>\<Album>\## <Name>.<Ext> then I have a script called TagFromFilename that will update iTunes with the information from the path. Since iTunes has lost track of the files you'll probably have to reimport them first, which means that you'll lose playcounts and original date added information. Not sure of a way around that offhand.

tt2

Hmm, I messed up the quote, it should make a little more sene like this....

Since windows can see that info I was able to re organize everything to get them out of the unknown folders and put them back in the *correct album folders*. I unchecked organize files since that’s what puts everything in the Unknown folder but the info is still not showing up on iTunes.

If you've got the tracks in the correct foldes, e.g. the track names are on the lines of <Some Path>\<Artist>\<Album>\## <Name>.<Ext> then I have a script called TagFromFilename that will update iTunes with the information from the path. Since iTunes has lost track of the files you'll probably have to reimport them first, which means that you'll lose playcounts and original date added information. Not sure of a way around that offhand.

tt2

OK I will give that script a try, yeah windows 7 sees all the info correctly, album title, Year ect, that's how I was able to get everything out of the unknown folder into the correct album folder.

At this point the only reason I would use I tunes is to syn my iPhone, otherwise I would use windows media player.

Bonzo1 wrote:
What if I deleted everything in my iTunes music folder on my pc, reset my iPod and uninstalled then reinstalled iTunes. I could then start over with loaded up my cd's but I might have to use the one time freeby they offer if I lose the purchased songs. I already reinstalled and didn't lose anything but maybe that's because I didn't delete the music library.

There's no point breaking what isn't already broken... I'd hazard a guess that the only tracks affected are ones with a particular pattern of ID3 tags, which will exclude iTunes purchases.

Isolate what is broken from the rest and then decide on the best approach, re-rip or repair? Other posts in this thread suggest that the data is still there, but iTunes isn't reading it it. My personal experience is that iTunes doesn't manage multiple tags very well and handles ID2.4 badly. Perhaps an inspection with something like MP3Tag will reveal what is going on. Alternatively you could try to rebuild the tags using MusicBrainz Picard to scan and relabel them...

tt2