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.

User profile for user: eric5571
eric5571 Author
User level: Level 1
4 points

Using umlauts in iTunes/Music - files disappearing

Hello all,

I'm having a frustrating problem regarding music files in Music (formerly iTunes). I'm a bit old school here - this is regarding mp3 files that have been in my library for literally years. I am running Music 1.4.2.83 and due to the size of my library, my music files are all located on an external drive. There is now a problem with special charaters, in particular umlauts.


Several months ago, I attempted to play an album by Röyksopp and was met with silence, track after track. I checked info (cmd+i) and noticed the file location was missing. When I checked my external drive, every song I attempted to play was completely deleted. I was forced to re-download all my Röyksopp albums WITHOUT the ö. This appeared to temporarily fix the problem even though I don't like this option.


This morning I'm attempting to download a Björk song and the same thing is happening. When I add the umlauts in her name, the file completely vanishes from my external drive. What's more, simply clicking on any Björk songs within Music causes the file to disappear. WTF? This is extremely irritating. Please see screenshots showing correct file location without the umlauts, and then what occurs when I re-add the umlauts.


My library is over a decade old but this problem is new. What is going on here? What is a work-around? I don't want to lose any more files. I have a lot of song titles and artists with special characters and now I'm kinda afraid to access them.


Thank you in advance!


Posted on Jan 30, 2024 9:37 AM

Reply

Similar questions

1 reply
User profile for user: evilgit
evilgit
User level: Level 1
8 points

Apr 20, 2024 7:06 AM in response to eric5571

Exact same issue here. Frustrating because it doesn't even give you the option to relink the song, no exclamation point. When I try to play it, it just hesitates and moves to the next song it can find. And that same location path /Macintosh HD.

I don't want to have to reimport them as new because then I'll lose my metadata, playlists, rating, count, etc. But I don't see any other solution.

To find them I selected all songs in my library, changed the BPM to "99" and then created a smart playlist with BPM does not equal 99. Since it can't find the files, it won't change the BPM....

Reply

Using umlauts in iTunes/Music - files disappearing

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