iTunes can't find music on my new computer, songs are 'unchecked' & won't play

Almost everything for a diagnosis, but can Finder (or you searching by hand) find "09 Le Moulin.m4a" and if so where is it?

tt2

I can't seem to locate it anywhere.

The files ought to be on the external drive somewhere if you haven't yet copied them to the internal...

If all else fails see Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device.

tt2

Thank you. I don't understand why they are showing up in my iTunes library, if I have not transferred them to the internal yet. I also don't know why I can't find them as individual files on my external drive.

In any case, what do I do should I actually locate them?

Thank you again for your assistance.

Also. I don't see any individual music files on my external drive. This is all there is there:

Would you just re-import all of the files from the external drive to the iTunes library? Or would you go the recvery medthod with the iPod?

Message was edited by: gyggyg

You've obviously managed to transfer the database for your library. It remembers ratings, play counts, playlist membership etc. and where it last saw each file. You've probably got the media somewhere too. If you can find it then if should be possible to reconnect it to the library by placing the media where iTunes expects to find it. Because there are a number of factors it is easier for me to give specific instructions when I know where things are than to enumerate generalized steps for all the different scenarios...

tt2

Drill down into iTunes Music...

tt2

I understand. I just don't know why I can't find the individual song file anywhere. I've looked in all the probable places and done an overarching search, but maybe I am just missing something? Hmm. Would it help at all to know the mapping of a song that works? I'm thinking not. Kinda stumped.

When I look in iTunes Music all I see are songs that actually are playing/locatable by iTunes. What are missing are those songs which cannot be located. Or did you mean to dig elsewhere?

gyggyg wrote:

Would it help at all to know the mapping of a song that works?.

If it is a song that you brought over from the old computer then yes. Perhaps the initial selection was unrepresentative. I'm not as familiar with OS X as Windows, but I suppose there is the potential for file & folder permissions to hide content from you when the drive is populated with one account on one computer, and then viewed from a different account on another.

tt2

It seems like all I have are the .itl and .xml lists. I don't find the actual individual media files anywhere, which is odd.

gyggyg wrote:

When I look in iTunes Music all I see are songs that actually are playing/locatable by iTunes. What are missing are those songs which cannot be located. Or did you mean to dig elsewhere?

Is there a folder inside iTunes Music called Music? If so is the lost content hiding in there?

tt2

gyggyg wrote:

It seems like all I have are the .itl and .xml lists. I don't find the actual individual media files anywhere, which is odd.

What? Every folder is empty? 😕

In your case the tracks should be at iTunes Music\<Artist>\<Album>\##<Name>.<Ext> though a more recently created library would use iTunes Media\Music\<Artist>\<Album>\##<Name>.<Ext>.

For reference the .itl is the library, though you need to keep the media too. The .xml is a subset of data in a structured text file for third party apps to use. Often when you update iTunes there are changes to the database format, and the old .itl is backed up into the Previous iTunes Libaries folder when a new one is created.

tt2

There is no folder inside iTunes Music called Music.

Thank you. I'm baffled by the fact that I can't seem to locate the media. I have no idea what could be amiss.