Play, Pause, etc. controls missing from iTunes

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Play, Pause, etc. controls missing from iTunes

After the latest "update" to iTunes (I now have version 11.0.1 (12)), the play, pause, stop, etc. controls disappeared from the top bar where they used to be. You know, the classic box at the top where you can scroll the little ball through the song, advance to the next song, etc. Gone. I now have to operate the entire thing either with my remote or by using my mouse to navigate through the "Controls" menu. I also noticed the Red "x", Yellow "-" and Green "+" have disappeared. Where did everything go?

I also just discovered the "Search" field in the iTunes store is suddenly nowhere to be found as well. It's as if all the most basic, necessary functions have been written out of the update.

BTW, I'm on an iMac desktop which I purchased brand new in March of 2006. I'm on Snow Leopard 10.6.8. And I get automatic updates, so I don't think it's that... Need help!

iMac (20-inch Early 2006), Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Jan 13, 2013 6:22 PM

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Answer 1

Jan 14, 2013 12:58 AM in response to Brandolin11

Is this affecting any other app on your machine?

Sounds like you either need to reinstall iTunes 11. It does work for other people on Snow Leopard.

Do a backup of your itunes content first just in case.

If that does not resolve it then you may need to restore Snow Leopard

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Answer 2

Brandolin11 Author

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Jan 15, 2013 6:52 AM in response to Steve Taylor1

Not affecting any other app, no. Just iTunes.

So I uninstalled and reinstalled iTunes. Opened it, and since of course there is no music back in it yet, I put in a CD to check the controls. They're back. 🙂 Look a little different than the previous version (where "Play, forward" etc. were directly under the scroll bar with the little ball - they're now to the left of it), but this is good. Search feature is back in the Store as well. thanks a million for the advice!

So now I have a different issue. Like I said, none of my music is in there. Before I uninstalled I had backed up all my music. Went into my external hd to retrieve it and....nothing there. 😟 Found it all in the trash. THANK GOD. So I moved it all back onto my HD, in the iTunes folder. I noticed this did not make anything appear in iTunes itself though. But before I did anything else I figured I should back up what I just moved. It looks like the external hard drive grabbed the "Album Covers" and "Downloads" folders, but that's it. Refuses to back up the music files. What gives?

Then I thought well maybe I could just copy them off the hard drive manually and paste them into the iTunes folder on the backup external hard drive. It copies everything up to the letter "C", then gives me an error message saying it can't copy this because a folder called "iTunes" already exists. So I delete it completely and start over. Same thing, again.

I have to admit I'm starting to panic a little bit. I have a music collection I've built over 21 years, thousands upon thousands of items (and dollars!). Have I completely screwed myself here?

I guess my question is twofold: 1.) How do I get this stuff backed up? and 2.) How do I get it to re-appear in my freshly installed version of iTunes?

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Answer 3

Jan 15, 2013 7:00 AM in response to Brandolin11

Here is an article on how to backup

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751

If your music is now sitting on your hard drive although not in iTunes?

Check Preferences, Advanced

Are Keep iTunes Media Fiolder organnised and Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library ticked?

Drag and drop this music into iTunes

Itunes will put it in the right folder structure

Username/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media

Then when you have checked it through you can delete the old one and then proceed to make your backup.

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Answer 4

Brandolin11 Author

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Jan 15, 2013 7:20 AM in response to Steve Taylor1

Thanks for that article - I'll work on that tonight after work!

And sorry - where is "Check Preferences, Advanced" located? Where am I looking for that?

this is most helpful - many thanks...

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Answer 5

Jan 15, 2013 7:41 AM in response to Brandolin11

On the top menu select Itunes > Preferences then it is the far tab in that window

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Answer 6

Brandolin11 Author

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Jan 15, 2013 6:40 PM in response to Steve Taylor1

Okay, I found that and both boxes are checked and I clicked OK. Please do forgive my cluelessness (I'm no computer guru by any means), but when you say "Drag and drop this music into iTunes" do you mean I go into Finder, scroll through to "Username/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media", highlight all the folders in there (I see several folders with the names of my albums (though not all)), and drag those over to the empty screen in iTunes? I did try that and it did nothing. I'm assuming I'm doing something wrong...

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Answer 7

Jan 21, 2013 10:26 PM in response to Brandolin11

I had the same issue. OS 10.7.5 and iTunes 11.0.1.

My controls were only visible in fullscreen mode. But finally I tried clicking on Zoom (under the Window menu) and voila, the controls were back in regular mode.

A heck of a lot easier than reinstalling iTunes. I hope this works for other people.

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Answer 8

Brandolin11 Author

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Jan 23, 2013 6:31 AM in response to Buck Feldspar

Thanks but I had already uninstalled and reinstalled iTunes as I noted above. Also had noted that "fullscreen" nor any other mode was showing up anymore, the controls had disappeared.

I ended up having to have a professional come out to fix everything to the tune of about $150. He was truly stumped as to what happened, why all my music was thrown into the trash. He was able to find all my music and get it back into iTunes at least, although now I have to go back and re-build all my playlists, mixes, etc. Also will be buying a 3rd external hard drive to save only my music on.

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