You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

📰 Newsroom Update

Billie Eilish is Apple Music’s Artist of the Year for 2024. Learn more >

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

itunes media folder reset back to default in iTunes error. The default is nowhere near my setting.

I installed iTunes and Match on a new PC before turning off my old primary system.

My library successfully iTunes Matched at W:\Data\iTunes\.

The folders below here 'Autimatically Add to iTunes', 'Home Videos' and 'Music' are there and fully populated. 'Music' contians 114GB of the music so far.

I open iTunes tonight and the app has somehow reverted to the default C:\Users\my user\Music\iTunes


Now I held down the shift key and started iTunes to choose library.


What is the "File Name" requested for my location the app lost?


Do I have to choose a new location and import my music again? Where are these steps?


If I do have to start over, is iTunes no longer reliable? I have to import my music and wait for the cloud to catch up every time I open the app?

Sorry I am really confused but it is a new system. The backup process is nto fully implemented and I am about to make a 4th 114 gigabyte copy of my music?

Please help complete this whole recovery and prevent it from re-occurring. All the other answers in the community are incomplete.

Windows, Windows 10

Posted on Feb 8, 2023 3:14 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Feb 8, 2023 4:54 PM

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:

  1. The location of the media folder under Edit > Preferences > Advanced
  2. The location of a sample missing track shown under Get Info > File > Location that begins file://localhost/
  3. The true path to the file whose details you gave in 2


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.


tt2

Similar questions

3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Feb 8, 2023 4:54 PM in response to tjpsnj

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:

  1. The location of the media folder under Edit > Preferences > Advanced
  2. The location of a sample missing track shown under Get Info > File > Location that begins file://localhost/
  3. The true path to the file whose details you gave in 2


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.


tt2

Feb 9, 2023 10:24 AM in response to tjpsnj

Hi,


From the look of things you need to move C:\Users\me\Music\iTunes to your W: drive as W:\iTunes. You should then move the media folder which I think is W:\Data\iTunes into W:\iTunes and rename it as iTunes Media (delete the empty folder you already have on that path first). Now hold down shift as you launch iTunes and use the choose library option to connect to the library on the path W:\iTunes\iTunes Library.itl. The media folder will automatically update to W:\iTunes\iTunes Media due to the bug we're discussed earlier. You may find the library now works straightaway, or you might need to revisit my previous post in the thread to get iTunes to try to repair things. Failing that FindTracks should work.


See Getting iTunes & Windows Media Player to play nicely - Apple Community for more on getting Windows Media Player to share a common media folder with iTunes without doing any damage.


tt2

Feb 8, 2023 5:59 PM in response to turingtest2

The location of the media folder under Edit > Preferences > Advanced

C:\Users\me\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media

C:\Users\me\Music\iTunes\ = the location of the itl and I assume hidden dbfiles.


The location of a sample missing track shown under Get Info > File > Location that begins file://localhost/

Could not locate "get info". 'Show in explorer' message reads

"The song could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?"


The true path to the file whose details you gave in 2

W:\Data\iTunes is the path I configured before I imported the 114GB.

W:\Data\iTunes\Music is where the files are located - were imported to. The import also created the other default folders; Auto, Downloads, Home videos folders and .iTunes Preferences.plist file.

From one of your other posts W:\Data\iTunes\Music is now named W:\Data\iTunes\iTunes Media -- I renamed it as your steps. Made no difference.


C:\Users\me\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media contains no music files. When I 'imported from folder' months ago the files were properly located in W:\Data\iTunes\Music.

The music "Matched" with iTunes Match successfully. Finally got time to import CD's from Christmas and cannot determine where the new stuff will go.


Is iTunes listening to Windows somehow? windows Media Player now lacks import settings. The default path for it is the base path for the iTunes error, C:\Users\me\Music\.

itunes media folder reset back to default in iTunes error. The default is nowhere near my setting.

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.