Just upgraded to Sonoma. Apple Music is giving an error that it 'can't find my music file', even though I have the app open and all the albums and artist info are there. What happened?
iMac 27″, macOS 14.5
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:
See also FixLinks - an AppleScript to repair broken links in Music - Apple Community.
tt2
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:
See also FixLinks - an AppleScript to repair broken links in Music - Apple Community.
tt2
I just went to 'change' the file location to the same path and now it's all working.
Strange.
If it gets wonky again I'll report back.
Media folder on desktop -> Artists -> Albums -> Songs (double click any song and it is removed from the album list/folder and starts playing in the Music app.
Music files are all 'm4a' format.
I have to go to my Finder and look at 'Recents' to grab the m4a file and drag it back over to the album in the Media folder in order to get it back on the track list
I upgraded from Monterey
Good to hear it is working now. I recommend making a backup. Then you might review Managing your Mac media libraries - Apple Community. You wouldn't normally have the media folder on your desktop.
tt2
It would appear that the folder "Media" on my computer has all my music files.
I can go there to double click on any song and it starts playing in the Music app ... but then the song gets moved out of the Media folder and onto the Music app.
This infers there must be a way to drag and drop my entire 'Media' folder onto the Music app, no?
What exactly is the original and subsequent path of a track that you've fixed this way? Is it moved, or copied? What did you upgrade to Sonoma from?
tt2
The location of files according to the Music app is:
/Macintosh HD/Users/mike/Desktop/Media
Music won't play but I can see all my albums, artist info, etc.
