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itunes library lost link to files

Hi!

I observe a strange behavior from iTunes (Mojave/iTunes 12.9.5.5):

All my music-related files are on a external hardiest in a folder „iTunes“, the music-files in a subfolder „iTunes media/music“)

after a reboot of the computer (with the alt key pressed, but booted into the normal startup-volume), iTunes lost the connection to everything, asking for a valid music-library (I pointed to the correct library), and showing all files as not present/to be downloaded from the „iTunes-cloud“. This does not go away, even though the library is reattached to the app...

what can I do to have the app back to when it knew where the files are located? Downloading everything and replacing those files with the originals (to not lose playground etc.) isn‘t really a way to go...

Mac mini, macOS 10.14

Posted on Apr 29, 2021 4:39 AM

Best reply

Brittany1416

Community Specialist

Posted on Apr 30, 2021 8:40 AM

Hello daveveveve,

It sounds like your Mac isn't able to locate your iTunes files after restarting your Mac, correct? We'd like to help.

Since you mentioned that this occurred after restarting your Mac while holding the Option key, can you let us know if restarting your Mac using the steps under the "Restart" part of this page affects the issue? Log out, sleep, restart, and shut down Mac

Also, does it seem that the external hard drive isn't being detected at this time, or do you receive an additional error stating you don't have permission to view files on your storage device, when you're trying to access the music files? If so, the information and steps here may help: Use external storage devices with Mac

Thanks!

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itunes library lost link to files

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