Purchased Music Not in Library

Question

Level 1

134 points

Purchased Music Not in Library

I'm seeing a bizarre problem in iTunes 11 for Mac that I can't seem to pin down. I use iTunes Match as well, in case that's relevant.

Ever since I upgraded to iTunes 11 a few days ago, when I purchase new songs from the iTunes Store the computer appears to download the song(s), but they never actually appear in my iTunes library. They don't show up at all, even as "cloud" tracks or real tracks. They're just not there. My iPhone, on the other hand, seems to receive them instantly. So, after making a purchase there are only two ways I can receive my tracks: (1) sync with my iPhone, which causes the tracks to sync back to my Mac, or (2) go to the iTunes Store --> Purchased --> Not on my computer and download them from there. Even when downloading from there I only have about a 50% success rate.

I have tried repairing permissions and several restarts; those didn't work. I have also tried creating a new iTunes library. The problem doesn't seem to occur with the new iTunes library, just the old one (which contains all my stuff).

When the problem happens, the purchases songs don't appear in my iTunes at all. Not even in the "Purchased" playlist. I can't search for them either. Nowhere. But, if I go to the iTunes Store-->Purchased or reach for my iPhone, there they are. Very odd.

I buy a lot of music from the iTunes Store, typically using my Mac rather than my iPhone, so this is important to me. I'd appreciate any advice that anyone can offer, no matter how simple you think it is. Thanks.

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.7.5), 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB RAM

Posted on Dec 11, 2012 1:04 AM

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Answer 1

Gus NYC

Level 1

65 points

Dec 11, 2012 2:59 PM in response to jrkagan

I am having exactly the same problem.

It doesn't happen with Apps. Just with songs (individually or in an album).

What should I do!

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Answer 2

jrkagan Author

Level 1

134 points

Dec 11, 2012 3:32 PM in response to Gus NYC

Same here. It doesn't happen with apps, just songs. I don't remember this ever happening with the last version of iTunes so I think it might be related to iTunes 11.

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Answer 3

Dec 11, 2012 3:38 PM in response to jrkagan

Same problem here.

iTunes appears to download the tracks, but they don't show up in the library, or in the "purchased" playlist, or in the Finder.

This is new to iTunes 11.

The only way I have found to get them is to go back to the Store, click "purchase," and the store informs me that I have already purchased this track, and would I like to download it again. I confirm and get a successful download.

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Answer 4

jrkagan Author

Level 1

134 points

Dec 11, 2012 3:58 PM in response to deniallabs

Other people are not having this problem so there must be something we are doing differently. It's also interesting to me that the problem seems to go away if I create a new iTunes library (the new library won't have the problem, only the old one). Maybe it's something about our libraries that were imported from iTunes 10.7?

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Answer 5

Dec 12, 2012 7:56 AM in response to jrkagan

I'm having the same problem.

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Answer 6

jrkagan Author

Level 1

134 points

Dec 12, 2012 4:08 PM in response to jrkagan

I just noticed a new symptom. There is also a movie in my library that I thought was deleted (original Lord of the Rings, probably added 3-4 years ago). When I try to delete it, iTunes crashes. This happens every time I try to delete it, and each time I try, the movie is not actually deleted.

These things are pointing increasingly toward a corrupt library. I'd like to rebuild my iTunes library while doing as little damage as possible to the data it contains and the data on my iPhone. Does anyone have a good tutorial for this?

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Answer 7

jrkagan Author

Level 1

134 points

Dec 12, 2012 5:11 PM in response to jrkagan

I just finished talking with Apple Support. They were able to help me. We determined that the iTunes library was corrupt, as I suspected, and we fixed it by doing the following:

Backed up my content to an external drive.
Trashed the folder called "iTunes" containing my iTunes media files and library (.itl) file.
Started iTunes and brought the content back in using a combination of iTunes Match and my external backup drive.

Everything seems okay now.

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