Itunes (on Windows 7) just deleted my entire library of music, apps and playlists

So, this just happened me. And I tried renaming a .tmp file even though it said if I changed an extension it would remain unstable. I opened iTunes and it's still blank. Then I tried clicking Shift while opening iTunes and clicking the new renamed .tmp file and iTunes renamed it for me, saying it's damaged or something.

How the **** did this happen to me? One minute my iTunes was running fine and then I closed it to do some stuff and when I reopened it, everything is gone! Please help me!

I agree.. this is SO annoying. This just happened to me for the first time....I'm beyond livid right now. I usually back up my stuff - but the last 2 weeks I've been adding music like crazy and haven't saved my playlists (I do have playlists saved but they're all from last year). How the crap could this randomly happen?

@Katew1620: If what happened to me happened to you, then all your music and video is still there on your hard drive, it's just iTunes doesn't know about it any more.

@isabellelightwood: In my case the culprit turned out to be AVG. Unfortunately, even after setting up exceptions I was still randomly losing my libraries and have since uninstalled AVG and am using Avast. So far no more problems. Try renaming a different .tmp file, I also found that some of them won't work and had to try one or two different ones before I got a winner. 🙂

Hi Turingtest2, I just wanted to say a big THANK YOU! The iTunes on my husbands computer deleted a bunch of songs and settings. After finishing correcting it, iTunes did it again! My husband was so mad he was gonna stay up all night repairing it. But I found your post, showed him how to restore with the .tmp files and all is good again. Also made adjustments to AVG like you suggest. THANKS SO MUCH for the great help!

You're welcome. 🙂

tt2

Well I had spent about 8 hours rebuilding my library and my playlists. I was still missing music but at this point, I didn't care. I even updated my iPhone iOS right after that and thought the whole iTunes kerfuffle would mess up the phone but it didn't, phew. I saved a copy of the new .xml file in another folder on my hard drive and exported each playlist to a different folder on my hard drive.

Since then I turned my computer off and on and iTunes kept my music and playlists. I closed and reopened iTunes several times and my music and playlists were still there.

Today I get my daughter's new iPod in the mail (we had to get a new one since she broke it). I always sync it from my iTunes on my laptop and had backed it up before we had to send it away. Since they sent a new one, I did a restore from iTunes. Wanna guess what happened? Yep. All my music, apps, and playlists disappeared as soon as I did this. Oh, and the Restore from iTunes on her iPod also restored her pictures and contacts but none of her apps save ONE. I definitely had downloaded her iTunes purchases too.

So now I'm going to try and restore the library and playlists from those .xml file and exported playlists that I had saved somewhere else on my computer. Even if it works, I'm guessing that iTunes will think it's a "new" library therefore totally wiping out my iPhone and my daughter's iPod each time we connect them to iTunes.

I want to be positive but it's very hard. I'm hating whoever programmed that **** iTunes update right now. I used to feel like an idiot for not having updated iTunes in several months and not having updated my iOS in 2 years because I was afraid of problems like these and now look at what happened. I feel like a fool for actually HAVING updated stupid iTunes.

Oh, and I did look for the temp files and none of them were dated close to the date of my upgrade. Also, I did put in an exception for AVG to NOT scan the My Music folder and moreover, I didn't run any AVG scans at all (and stopped those that started automatically right away).

This really stinks.

Message was edited by: NCCGRO Changed .itl file to .xml file

The .xml file is used for third party support, iTunes never reads it. The .itl file is the one that counts, though I really recommend backing up the entire library with SyncToy or something like it. I don't think it is the routine scans that cause the problem, but the real time service that checks each file that is accessed. My guess is that AVG trips iTunes up when it tries to create an updated version of the database by writing out a temporary copy, deleting the original and renaming the temp. The temp file doesn't get renamed, iTunes doesn't notice, then when you start iTunes you have an empty library. If you'd relocated your library to an alternate location there would be an error, but if the library should be at <User's Music>\iTunes then it just builds a fresh one as if newly installed.

tt2

I've been trying to rename the .tmp files to .itl but nothing happens....am i supposed to double-click them? Add them from iTunes? what? I apparently have no clue what I'm doing - and It's SO frustrating because all of my playlists, APPs, everything...gone....and what's worst is that it's telling me i'm going to have syncing problems with my iPhone. PLEASE help..

Assuming you symptoms are the same, library suddenly looks empty or has your store purchases with cloud icons, then we can assume that the current iTunes Library.itl file in your iTunes folder isn't what you want. With iTunes closed rename it as iTunes Library (Corrupt).itl then select the .tmp file you think might help. Press CTRL+C then CTRL+V which will make a copy of the file (that way the original is available if the problem happens again), rename the copy as iTunes Library.itl and start iTunes. If all goes well your library is back. If not, try again with a different file. If none of those work go back to the Previous iTunes Libraries folder, copy in the most recent file and rename as iTunes Library.itl. If it takes multiple goes you'll need to number the "corrupt" files. Good practive not to throw anything away until you have it working and you've made a backup of the the "good" file.

tt2

Thank you VERY much turingtest2. It worked!!!! I have NO idea why this has happened, but I appreciate You and everyone else who chimed in on this. I will make a back-up of this immediately. Thanks again!!!

You're welcome. 🙂

tt2

I did the steps you indicated above, but there was no file that had "itl" at the end. I went ahead and copied a recent list and renamed it like you said and renamed an original list the corrupt list. I opened up Itunes and it only shows the last 25 songs I purchased from I-tunes. I recently upgraded my AVG and I am willing to bet it was to blame. Can I send you a screen shot of my folder list in case I did something wrong?

You can attach a screenshot with the camera icon in the tool bar at the top of each post. Depending on various options the extentions might not be displayed. Tolls > Folder Options should let you adjust things. If you're lucky there are one or more .tmp files in the iTunes folder of a similar size to the files in the Previous iTunes Libraries folder. The most recent of these should be the file that should be renamed as iTunes Library.itl.

tt2

Suggest all read the following thread, several folks are having success uninstalling AVG and replacing it with an alternate AV (myself included):

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4920461?answerId=21669264022#21669264022&ac_cid=tw123456#21669264

i have also lost my complete library (16,000 songs). The songs are still on hard disc, I can load into itunes but as soon as I switch off computer and turn on again all lost again. Any idea's.