itunes media folder keeps resetting back to default

tt2,

Thanks for response. You've posted a lot -- not sure which earlier post you are refering to.

FYI, my music is on D drive: D:\ConsolMusic\Music\...

(Automatially Add to iTunes is also directly beneath ConsolMusic.

The .itl file is saved in c:\[user]\Music\iTunes\

(iTunes Media is a folder in iTunes, and Automatically Add to iTunes a folder one level below that)

Thanks

But unfortunately, this solution only works if the media folder is called "iTunes Media", otherwise you still have to remember to re-assign the actual folder every single time iTunes starts. In fact, if one does not do it, iTunes just creates an "iTunes Media" folder every single time and does not correctly apply edits etc. to the actual media folder. So it is sadly still broken in that regard, even after its latest update.

Thanks for all your help, turingtest2, and I know your advice has helped quite a few people, so more power to you.

But I am talking specifically about the problem of the iTunes Media folder NOT being called "iTunes Media", but something else (in my case "ALAC").

You are talking about moving the iTunes media folder from one drive to another drive, and that works fine, as long as the iTunes Media folder is called "iTunes Media", wherever it is. But my iTunes Media folder was never called "iTunes Media", but "ALAC"), but now this is a problem because the software is broken and cannot remember the actual location of the folder. My current solution is to EVERY SINGLE TIME I open iTunes to got into preferences, got into advanced, set the media folder to the correct one, let iTunes got through thousands of albums, and voila, it works. Until it is re-opened. It is a bug, pure and simple, and one that of really bad coding at that. It should have been corrected long ago.

I had my library on an external drive with a name other than "iTunes Media" for years. This just started recently. I never would have noticed until my C: drive was 99% full of music from the external drive.

I recently (a year ago?) started installing iTunes from the Microsoft store whereas I used to download the installer and update manually. Maybe that's a clue?

Hi,

for question 1:

What is the full path to your media folder?

H:\Files\Music\ALAC

for question 2:

What is the current location of the iTunes Library.itl file?

H:\Files\Music\iTunes

Path for question 2 (iTunes Library) I can change to just about anything, other drives or not, path for media folder (question 1) is set to H:\Files\Music\ALAC (and should not be changed. At all.)

Best wishes

Nick

Yes, I know it's not a problem to have the library working when the media folder is called "iTunes Media", but as I said all along, the problem is when the media folder is NOT named "iTunes Media", but something else (in my case "ALAC"). That is the issue I am having.

My media folder has been called "ALAC" since the beginning of time (no, actually since 2013) and yes, it is not supposed to be called anything else, there is a reason I have it mapped to ALAC. Lots of reasons, actually. Just one of them is that I have various media folders (in the path blablabla\music named according to their content (as in AAC, FLAC, ALAC) etc... which are not supposed to mix and mingle, some other reasons as well (mapping to various music players, backup programs, etc.). Even IF the ALAC folder were called "iTunes Media", it would still not work for the "AAC" folder, which iTunes would then also want to call "iTunes Media" and so on... there are other issues as well, but even if they could all be addressed (some only with tricky workarounds), it should not be too much to ask from iTunes to simply remember its own settings again, a function that is clearly there but is now broken! If nothing else, it goes to show that there are some fairly incompetent programmers at work, as this is not even an exotic function. Setting a "working folder" is standard procedure for just about any program, not just music players, but word processors, graphic programs, whatever.

That is why I know your solution has helped quite a few people, but it does not work in my case. I have more than one (iTunes) media folder and they cannot all be called "iTunes Media". That's just ONE reason why that won't work for me. :-)

Thanks and best to you!

What I want und what I have and what every backup program, every music player, every music server, every remote listening app, every streamer can handle (and iTunes could handle before it became broken) is a SINGLE media folder, in which different sub media folders are set, according to a certain system, part of it is that the name reflects its contents. So I want music/ALAC and music/FLAC and music/AAC and music/MP3 and so on. And I do NOT want these folders ALL spread out into DIFFERENT subfolders, and I sure as **** do NOT want them ALL (or most of them) called "iTunes Media". (And it's not just that I'm finicky about that, though I might too, but this has far reaching consequences, including navigating within all these folders from a NAS with various playing devices. When it comes down to it, I do explicitly really not want ANY folder called iTunes Media (I prefer to know what a folder contains by its name without re-checking where it is in its hierarchy) , but certainly not more than ONE. Any run of the mill music app can do this (and iTunes could and still at least pretends that it can), it is iTunes that is broken there, not question about it.

Got it. And yes iTunes is broken in this respect given it purports to let you choose where to store your media and then doesn't save that preference. Unfortunately there is nothing I can do to fix that.

tt2

This one at the bottom of the previous page?

PS, if you or anyone else is looking for older versions of iTunes many are catalogued here: Troubleshooting issues with iTunes for Windows updates - Apple Community.

tt2

That is excellent, allanwg. Thanks! I did escalate this to Apple as well via a contact form, but so far did not get anything in return. Your call seems to get a much better response. Here's hoping you will get a good answer. Thanks also for the version hint!

Best to you

Nick

Apple Update:

I was promised a call back last Thursday but it never came.

I called in and was promised a call back later on Thursday.

No call received.

I called again Friday and again was promised a call back – nobody called.

Monday 27th April I went online and booked

a callback at 16:15

Somebody called me then had me on hold to find out more, came back and put me on hold again and eventually cut me

off.

I will keep trying folks !

Hi. So I've been thru (most of) this thread - sorry if this is a repeat. My library is located at C:/BillTunes. My library.itl file is also in that folder. Every time I open iTunes, the default folder is identifed as C:/BillTunes/iTunes Media/. For the last few months, I have been changing the media folder location through Edit > Preferences > Advanced, which always takes between 10 and 20 minutes (I have a large library). I ran across the potential fix of holding the shift key down at iTunes start up to choose the library. However, it looks like the library is (and always has been) selected correctly. Yet the default folder is still identified as the /iTunes Media/ folder below where I want it to be. Is this the same problem or does it include a slight wrinkle? How do I get rid of the iTunes Media subfolder in library location path? Thanks.

Hi,

Holding down the Shift doesn't do anything ?

kind regards

I was holding down the shift key, starting the itunes.exe ...

And suddenly ... holding down the shift key and starting it from the windows menu did it ... oops :-)

Tx

As noted earlier see Make a split library portable - Apple Community to put your library in a shape which uses the default media path with respect to the library file (i.e. a folder called iTunes Media in the folder with the .itl file) so that this particular bug doesn't impact your library any more.

Exactly which steps need to be taken to reach the end point depend on the starting conditions. It may be best to copy your library files to D:\iTunes, access them there, reset the media folder to D:\iTunes\iTunes Media, then consolidate, and finally clean up the originals stored elsewhere. It depends if there is temporarily enough space to duplicate the entire media folder.

tt2