Apple Event: May 7th at 7 am PT
I have an old IPod Classic 160GB that was syncd with an old
MS7 PC. Now when I try to open iTunes music it gives me a pop up The song
"whatever" could not be used because the original file could not be
found. Would you like to locate it? have
1250 songs listed and get the same message with each. What to do? The iPod has
all the music. can I sync it with this computer or another one?
If you can, please help!
iPad 2, iOS 9
The "missing file" issue with exclamation marks happens if the file is no longer where iTunes expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, one of its parent folders, or the drive it lives on has had a change of drive letter, or you've moved a non-portable library to a different path (see Make a split library portable for details). It is also possible that iTunes has changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout, or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place, or that you've been too aggressive when deleting duplicates. See Getting iTunes & Windows Media Player to play nicely if you're trying to access your media with any other media players.
Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Ctrl-I to Get Info, then click No when asked to try to locate the track. Look on the file tab for the location that iTunes thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drive(s). Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, a folder renamed, or a drive letter has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions. If the difference between the two paths is an additional Music folder in one path then this is a layout issue. I can explain further if that is the case. If everything is where it is supposed to be try Repair security permissions for iTunes for Windows.
In some cases iTunes may be able to repair itself if you go through the same steps with Get Info, or when playing a track, but this time click Locate and browse to the lost track. It may then offer to attempt to automatically fix other broken links. Although it says something like "use the same location" I think it expects to find the tracks in the same artist & album layout they were in previously, with one systematic change to the path.
If another application like Windows Media Player has moved/renamed the files, or the library has been moved from OS X to Windows, then the chances are that subtle differences in naming strategies will make it hard to restore the media to the precise path that iTunes is expecting. In such cases, as long as the missing files can be found somewhere, you should be able to use my FindTracks script to reconnect them to iTunes. See this post for an explanation of how it works. It might need some tweaking if your media is in a non-standard layout.
If you want me to try to provide specific advice please post back the following details:
Note the addition of file://localhost/ (and the flipped direction of slashes in Windows) is normal for a file that isn't quite where iTunes is expecting to find it.
Should it necessary, see Recover media from an iPod - Apple Community.
tt2
With iTunes closed delete iTunes Media (the empty one apart from Automatically Add to iTunes) then rename iTunes Music as iTunes Media and start iTunes. Can it find your files now? If not try the repair process by locating one missing track as before and see if it does better this time. If not we can move on to the repair script.
tt2
The My Music vs. Music difference is likely not too significant, Windows adds the My prefix in your own profile and when viewing other profiles it can display the folder as <User>'s Music, but the underlying folder name is just Music.
Do you have artist folders stored up in the main Music folder? Does your iTunes folder contain both an iTunes Music folder and an iTunes Media folder? iTunes Music is the older (pre iTunes 9) name for the media folder. Ideally all the content would be in the iTunes Media folder. Normally I'd advise against moving anything by hand but given iTunes is currently confused about where to find things now might be the time to put things in the current layout. See the screenshot in Make a split library portable to see what I mean. I can give detailed advice if you can give me an idea of what you've got stored where.
tt2
Use Edit > Preferences > Playback and look at the entry for Play Audio Using. This will normally be set to either Direct Sound or Windows Audio Session. Changing to the other setting may help. If not set back to the first option and apply once more.
For further advice see Troubleshooting issues with iTunes for Windows updates.
tt2
To turingtest2:
Thank you for your help and advice. I have some trouble in
understanding and doing as you instruct but I’m trying.
Unfortunately for me I am not a Techie, but not completely
computer illiterate either.
I have “located” about 12 files using the “locate” pop-up
that iTunes gives when I try to play a file then it asks if I would like iTunes
to find other missing files in my library. It then tells me that iTunes was not
able to locate any of 1283 missing files. It tells me that files that could not
be found are marked with a !.
1.The location of the media folder under Edit >
Preferences > Advanced
C:\Users\HankHolmes Z11\iTunes\iTunes Media
2. The location of a sample missing track shown under Get Info
> File > Location that begins file://localhost/
C:\Users\HankHolmes Z11\Music\Chopin Piano Classics
3. The true path to the file whose details you gave in 2
(Found in Windows Explorer)
C:\Users\HankHolmes Z11\My Music\iTunes/iTune Music\Music\Chopin
Piano Classics
I did note the flipped direction of slashes.
In iTunes there is an Artists folder.
[Edit>Preferences> Advanced] shows it to be in iTunes Media folder.
In Windows Exploerer> under iTunes Media there is only “Automatically
add to iTunes”.
Under ITunes Music there are many folders including Automatically
add to iTunes, many Artsts and Album names, and a “Music” folder that contains
what appears to be all of the Artists.
Under ITunes Music there is also other folders including
Podasts, including “Previous iTunes Libraries for each year 2009 > 2019,
each individual “year” opening the Artists that were on my iTunes that year.
The iTunes folder inside my user's Music folder contains
folders including iTunes Music which contains the same folders as mentioned
above under iTunes Music.
I have not backed up to an external hard drive or cloud,
although it might have been a good idea. Since it is on my iPod I thought that
that was like an external hard drive, but I guess not? Since the computer that
I have my music is quite old and no longer supported by Windows I am thinking
about “backing up” to an external hard drive or another computer. First, I need
to get this one working!
Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thankyou!! I can find and play my files now. Do you have any tips of how to back up this material and even put it on a new computer? (Windows 10?) I do have an external hard drive.
Thank you very much for your help and advice. It was great. I’ll keep your advice on transferring to a new computer until I can use it. I hope I don’t need to consult you again but I hope you are there if I do!
New problem?? For a
while I was able to play my iTunes music on my computer but then it quit
playing them. When I double clicked them it signaled it was playing and showed
the file in the control bar but it was stationery. I could move the indicator but
then it did not move itself. No sound although it was not muted and was turned
to full sound. When I clicked the pause/off button it indicated this.
I could play not iTunes
music on WMA but iTunes music from File explorer went directly to iTunes and
did not play. What to do?
Hello,
I am having a difficult time understanding your question. Could you please restate your question while providing as much detail as you can?
Done and cured. Thank you!!🤪😁👍🌈
It worked!! Thank you again!!
You're welcome. 🙂
tt2
iPod Classic 160GB doesn't comunicate with old MS7 PC computer
