Transferring Music library from one external drive to a larger one...Music app crashed and re-opened during Consolidation

Hi.

Restarting the consolidation process should be a case of picking up from where it got to. Each track in the library is examined in turn, if it is inside the current media folder nothing happens, if outside a new copy is made inside, and the library updated to point to the new copy. That said the fact that you're reporting exclamation marks is a worry. These occur when Music cannot find the file at its expected location. Here is some more on this topic...

The "missing file" issue with exclamation marks happens if the file is no longer where iTunes or Music 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, the drive it lives on has had a name change, 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 or Music have 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, (see the iTunes Media Organization section of Managing your Mac media libraries - Apple Community for details) or that you've been too aggressive when deleting duplicates at some point.

Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Cmd-I to get Song Info, then click No when asked to try to locate the track. Look on the file tab for the location the library thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drives. Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, a folder renamed, or a drive label 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 Mac - Apple Community.

In some cases the library 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 you want me to try to provide specific advice please post back the following details:

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

See also FixLinks - an AppleScript to repair broken links in Music - Apple Community.

tt2

Did you move files by hand before using the consolidate command. Macs can usually cope when you move things around within the same volume but not if you move them from one volume to another. You can either move the back and use consolidate the way that is intended, or use my script to attempt repairs. Chances of success depend a bit on the layout of the media. If iTunes/Music was managing it previously then the media should be in a conventional layout of the form <Media Folder>[/Music]/<Artist>/<Album>/[D-]## <Name>.<Ext> and it should be OK, but if you had you own way of organizing things then the script would need to be adjusted accordingly.

tt2

1. Possibly. You can try holding down option+cmd as you launch Music which opens it in safe mode, and may do some optimisation on the library.
2. I don't think there is a workaround within Music for consolidating a selection of tracks, its all or nothing. I have my own AppleScript for this that includes some custom naming rules I like to use. Doug's Scripts has some tools for manipulating filenames but as far as I can tell nothing that does quite the same job.

tt2

You cannot edit the location of a track using Music > Get Info. If a file isn't at its expected location Music should let you know, giving you an opportunity to reconnect to it by browsing to the current location and selecting the appropriate file. Location should show on the Get Info > File tab, either the actual location, or the last known location preceded by file://. I'm not sure why that is broken for you.

1. The default location for the Music media folder is ~/Music/Music/Media where ~ is your user's home folder, normally on the system drive. See Managing your Mac media libraries - Apple Community for more on the standard layout of things.
2. Have you enabled Home Sharing? Unlike iTunes, which had to be running, Music can continue to support a shared library with the app closed. Clearly the drive the media lives on remains active and cannot be disconnected while you're sharing the library.
3. You would hope that it/when there were any errors with the artwork cache on a device they would be cleared up by a subsequent sync. Sadly that doesn't appear to be the case. Sometimes you can resolve things by removing affected albums from the device, then adding them back, but it that doesn't work you may need to remove all music and start over. To ensure the artwork cache on the device is cleared it may help to remove the Music app, then reinstall it.

tt2

To the OP, please help me as i am one step before you. I have my music library on an NFS drive, which is failing. Trying to move it to a new NFS drive - how do I do that? I've tried a couple of times, and it doesn't seem to even do the copy. Not to the point of consolidating, can't find an article anywhere with instructions.