Missing Songs in iTunes Music folder.

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Level 1

4 points

Missing Songs in iTunes Music folder.

I recently found that I have missing files in my iTunes music folder. The missing songs seem to be random. For instance, Abby Road is missing tracks 3 and 6. My music folder is on my main hard drive and I also have a Time Capsule backup.

When I look for the songs in my backup disk, I find I have to go back as far as 4 months to restore some of them and I just now found a song that was there yesterday but gone today. This leads me to believe that a few songs are randomly being deleted every day. Anyone else with this problem?

I'm using iTunes 10.1 but apparently I've been having this problem for at least 4 months now so I believe it was an earlier version when it started happening.

MacBook Pro 13", Mac OS X (10.6.5), iTunes 10.1

Posted on Dec 14, 2010 3:01 PM

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Answer 1

b noir

Level 9

72,324 points

Dec 14, 2010 8:30 PM in response to silentjoel

When I look for the songs in my backup disk, I find I have to go back as far as 4 months to restore some of them and I just now found a song that was there yesterday but gone today. This leads me to believe that a few songs are randomly being deleted every day.

Just in case, it might be worth running Disk Utility (or your other preferred disk-checking utility) over the disk the iTunes Music folder is stored on. (Every now and then, music files going missing can be a sign of an evolving disk problem.)

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Answer 2

silentjoel Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 16, 2010 8:39 PM in response to b noir

Thanks for the reply, b noir. I verified the disk with Disk Utility and it came back fine. It seems to me that I would be missing other files, other than just iTunes files, if it was a disk-wide problem. I don't really know enough about how drives work to be sure on that, though.

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Answer 3

redcore

Level 1

0 points

Feb 25, 2011 8:02 PM in response to silentjoel

I'm having the same issue. I do not enable syncing (I manually add songs to my iPhone and Nano) and the songs are really random. Disk check came up clean.

I'm going to start logging which songs disappear, when they disappear (or when I find out they've disappeared), when I remove or otherwise modify playlists, etc. Maybe I'll find some correlation.

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Answer 4

Feb 26, 2011 6:35 PM in response to silentjoel

i just opened itunes 10.1.2 for the first time, with my iphone plugged in, and my entire library is missing — including all my app that had been downloaded for my phone?

***?

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Answer 5

silentjoel Author

Level 1

4 points

Feb 26, 2011 7:09 PM in response to redcore

redcore,

I got an answer from AppleCare on this one and it seems to be working as I have not noticed any more lost songs. The first person I talked to had never heard of this but his boss had and told me I needed to create a new iTunes music folder. This is a bit of a pain, but not as bad as going through TimeMachine to replace all the random, missing files (that part took a while).

You have to Option-click (hold option while you click) on the iTunes icon and then click "Create new library". Name it something different from your old one and then drag all your old content into the new library. You will have to do this with the music, apps, movies, etc. Also, keep in mind you will have to export all your playlist info to the new iTunes as well. I didn't export them all so I'm not sure how, or if, you can do them all at the same time. I did File/Library/Export Playlist in the old iTunes... Than had to do File/Library/Import Playlist when in the new iTunes I had created.

Hope this helps

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