Exclamation marks next to songs in Itunes!

There is a much easier way...Even easier than VQM's way...It's very close, but you don't have to drop and drag files (at least not on my Windows 8 PC). I found this step by step video and it was so fast and easy (which is what I really needed!). Here is the link to the video 🙂 Bonne De Chance 🙂

http://youtu.be/KLA5JtDECus

Yes the holding Option down worked for me too. Not only did I have these random exclamation marks pop up but I knew that I had copied about 50 CD's to my library which weren't there anymore and I had no idea where they went. I held down the "option" key while I opened Itunes and this gave me the option to search the Itunes Files. I did this and located the original file which I chose and "voila" when it reloaded all of my songs / albums where there, together with all of the ones that I had copied which had disappeared. The only thing that went wrong was that I had a heap of audio books on my computer and all of these are gone. I'm not sure why or how I get them back but I am relieved to have all my music back.

If anyone knows how to get the audio books back I would be grateful

A little late to the party, but I found I had exclamation marks on half my songs in Itunes and now I have almost all my songs marked with exclamation points after following Don's suggestion, but now I also only have one song each instead of two. I found the file in my external drive but this didn't work for me. I went back and tried a second time but nothing changed. Now almost my entire library is unplayable. Holding the option key while starting Itunes didn't work. I just looked back on the external drive and the file that I asked to be transfered, the Itunes library, is in ghost print and not clickable so I can't try again. Any idea on what else can be done?

Ok, after a long time fooling around here, what worked for me was to click on a song to play, and when it the banner up asking if Itunes should try to locate the song, I clicked yes to that, and it took me to the general location of the Itunes folder and I had to search through the artist files and find the exact song, click on that and another banner came up asking if I would like Itunes to use the location of X Song to find others and add them to the library. I clicked yes and it Itunes seems to search and move that entire album, maybe more, and finishes with a banner telling you how many songs remain missing. I've been going down the list clicking, hunting, agreeing and watching the exclamation points disappear but it's going to be a long process. I tried to go back and have Itunes import the entire library from the external location, but no go. Seems it will only go song by song with the option to have Itunes use that song to find others. Geeze. Here's an opportunity to make some money, techies. Thanks to all for posting. I tried all the suggestions and came up with this version that worked for me.

I have this problem too. Did you ever get an answer?

Yes! I finally got an answer. After hours of trying everything posted plus some, I did something really simple and it worked. I disconnected my external drive (which has a back-up of my Itunes Music on it) and then turned my computer off. I turned my computer back on, waited for the reboot, and confirmed that the external device did not appear under devices. I then opened Itunes and highlighted all my music files in the music library, and then hit delete. The banner came up asking if I was sure I wanted to delete and instead I hit cancel which unhighlighted the list, AND removed all the exclamation marks. By disconnecting the external drive, Itunes was forced to look for the music on the Mac hardrive where it all still existed after I moved a copy of the library from the external to the mac when I first started having issues with the exclamation marks, and all the duplicates are gone too.

My entire Itunes Music Library is intact with everything still there, uploaded cd's, downloaded music, etc., and it all plays fine. For me and my system, disconnecting the external drive forced Itunes to look for the library on my mac hardrive, which it did, and it put everything back in order. I have a back up of my library on the external drive and maybe that confused Itunes regarding location when I first moved the music library there when I was running out of space on my mac hardrive. I did not change the location in Itunes however and so the exclamation marks showed up at some point when I next had a look at the list. I moved the library back onto my mac hardrive with a copy on the external and when I asked for the location information, it had more than one place to identify and it became confusing. Unplugging the external was they key. Don't know what will happen when I attach my Terrabyte drive back to the Mac, but I think it will be nothing. Now that it has identified the location, the list is good. I'm not a techie, just tenacious. I have no idea if this will work for anyone else, but here you have it. Thanks for asking, and I hope it works for you.

therippedopffclient wrote:

Lucky you guys. I lost about 150 songs to the exclamation icon and I have been in contact with cust serv for over 3 months. Every thing I was advised I did it, the 2 attempts to re download the songs were fruitless and in a nutshell, after 3 months the only real solution isL I LOST MY MONEY, NO REFUND ISSUED!!!!! and I STILL DO NOT HAVE THE SONGS, NO WAY TO RECOVER THEM!!! I complained to BBB and my request was dismissed by Apple.

I am seriously considering switching my Apple equipment to a brand I can trust. I alerted my friends in Facebook and also via e-mail about this.

And I am not talking for the sake of it. I have a document with all the e-mails involved in this ordeal as well as screenshots I have been sending to itunes to show them I could never recover the damm songs, but everything was just a merry go round and the songs never appeared, neither my money

Be aware!!

If a song that you have purchased from the iTunes store appears in your library with an exclamation mark it means that iTunes cannot find the file where it is expected to be. Options are to find the song and put it back where it came from, or attempt to play the song then locate the track when prompted, or delete the current entry from your library, close iTunes, reopen, then redownload from iTunes Store > Purchased > Music > Not on this computer.

Note, iTunes will not redownload tracks when it can see you have a entry for it in your library, even if that entry is no longer connected to an actual file. I suspect this is the reason for your lack of success.

Since you had successfully downloaded your content in the past you are not entitled to a refund. If you purchase a physical CD and it doesn't work at the time of purchase then you go back to the store for a refund or a replacement, but if you lose it 6 months later then the store has no obligation to you.

To avoid disappointment back up your data!

tt2

Thank you so much. Mine is up and working now because of you.

I agree with therippedopffclient. There is very little that I like about Apple as a company. Their support stinks, hence all of the forums and user groups doing the job that Apple should be doing. BTW, Version 11 of iTunes stinks.

I'm having the same issue, only in a slightly different way: I'm getting the exclamation point indicating the file doesn't exist, but this is for a song that was purchased on my iPod touch (1st gen). I also haven't yet had a chance to download the file onto my computer. Would it be possible to try and download it onto my computer claiming that it wasn't downloaded after it was purchased?

Great! Any way you can give me the green up arrow for some points for helping solve that issue for you? I would love to have a point! LOL! If ya feel like it, of course. 😁

The gift of points is the hands of the original poster of any thread, not those that have chimed in with the same problem. And you're not supposed to ask... 😉

tt2

Thanks for the insight! Too bad, though I would give points to everyone in this thread if I could! Have a wonderful day! I appreciate your time.

You're welcome. 🙂

tt2

That youtube video was the most help I've gotten so far! I'm still missing over 1300 songs, but I have recovered thousands. I've got almost 40 days worth of music & this has been driving me insane! Thanks for posting the video!!! Now if I can just find the rest!!!🙂