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

Welcome to the iTunes he11 club. Just did it to me AGAIN too. So very frustrated with iTunes right now...

Empty/corrupt library after upgrade/crash

Hopefully it's not been too long since you last upgraded iTunes, in fact if you get an empty/incomplete library immediately after upgrading then with the following steps you shouldn't lose a thing or need to do any further housekeeping. Note that in iTunes 11 an "empty" library may show your past purchases with links to stream or download them.

In the Previous iTunes Libraries folder should be a number of dated iTunes Library files. Take the most recent of these and copy it into the iTunes folder. Rename iTunes Library.itl as iTunes Library (Corrupt).itl and then rename the restored file as iTunes Library.itl. Start iTunes. Should all be good, bar any recent additions to or deletions from your library.

Alternatively, depending on exactly when and why the library went missing, there may be a more recent .tmp file in the main iTunes folder that can be renamed as iTunes Library.itl to restore the library to a recent state.

See iTunes Folder Watch for a tool to catch up with any changes since the backup file was created.

When you get it all working make a backup!

Should you be in the unfortunate position where you are no longer able to access your original library, or a backup of it, then see Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device.

I've noticed more of these missing library posts of late and a common factor to most since I started asking is AVG Anti-Virus. It seems in some cases it might be at least part of the reason why the library file disappears. Try excluding the iTunes folder from any AV scanning process.

tt2

I didn't update anything, and my computer didn't crash. It just happened for no apparent reason. Both times it dumped the iTunes Library Genius and iTunes Library Extras files into the recycle bin.

Last time it happened right after I updated my BlackBerry Desktop software. Why would one have anything to do with the other? I don't use the music features on my BB, never have.

Well I could add "or other unexplained event" to the title but it wouldn't change the advice. Something is certainly happening to a number of people. If you're fully backed up it should be inconvenient, but recoverable. Have you checked out your AV settings? Or indeed those of BB Desktop Manager? Sony VIAO's media management software has been a notorious source of the same kind of problem in the past.

tt2

Are you still having this problem? Happens to me as well and for no apparent reason....

Alternatively, depending on exactly when and why the library went missing, there may be a more recent .tmp file in the main iTunes folder that can be renamed as iTunes Library.itl to restore the library to a recent state.

You may get better results with .tmp files...

tt2

I just upgraded to the latest version of iTunes on Windows 7 and just like a whole bunch of people, all my music and playlists are missing. The only data that was there were the few items saved to the cloud (I prefer to save my items to my hard drive).

The main iTunes library file is dated October 2012!

Following the instructions in locating the most recent Previous Library file, there is no recent Previous Library file. The most recent one is dated January 21, 2013. Apparently iTunes was supposed to make a back-up of my library upon updating, but obviously that didn't happen. I'm pretty sure AVG wouldn't have prevented that since I've been running AVG for several years without problems. If so, it would have prevented the January 2013 library file from being created.

I renamed that file iTunes Library.itl and moved it to the main iTunes folder. Now my music is there but my Playlists are still missing.

Reading that other people keep on seeing their music and playlist disappear after the update doesn't bode well. I'm about to update my iPhone iOS as well (haven't done that in about 2 years so I'm really behind) and this is making me very very nervous.

Again, look at the .tmp files in your iTunes library folder. If you have them renaming one of those dated just before things went wrong should be more effective.

In the past the vanishing library problem has seemed most common at upgrade time, and a previous library has been enough to restore everything. I don't know that AVG is to blame, but perhaps changes in iTunes and AVG's scanning engine have made it more likely for the library to get dumped than previously. As fas as I understand it each action that changes the iTunes database causes a new temporary version of the database to be constructed which is then renamed to replace the original file. My supposition is that AVG or some other real-time file scanning process locks up the file for just long enough for iTunes rename operation to fail, but iTunes doesn't notice. Then you restart iTunes and it quietly creates a new blank library for you in the assumption that iTunes has just been installed.

Backup, backup, backup and you can't go wrong...

tt2

Thanks for the tip about the TMP files. I just wanna chime in here and say I'm having the same issue on XP and it is PERSISTENT. Also, I'm pretty sure I updated a week or two ago and other than some slightly sluggish response when hitting the play button, everything has worked fine until yesterday. I ran itunes with no problems, closed it and a few hours later started it up again and there were no playlists.

I restored it with a three month old copy from my "previous libraries" folder and then started to rebuild what I'd lost. Last night it was fine. This morning it was also fine and I finished rebuilding the playlists that had been made since the last previous library backup. While iTunes was still running, I went into my My Music/iTunes folder to copy the itunes library.itl, only to discover that it wasn't there! I know it was there last night, because I made a copy of it.

And, as you might suspect, when I closed iTunes then reopened it, all my playlists were gone again. Also interesting is that my iTunes folder is filling up with TMP files like I've never seen before. Right now there are 91 of them!

I managed to restore all my work up to this point by renaming the SECOND TO LAST tmp file (the last one was 25 megs and was not recognized as a valid itl file by iTunes) and sure enough, as soon as I close iTunes, the file vanishes and when I reopen iTunes, all my playlists are gone again.

So this isn't simply an issue with things getting lost during an upgrade, whatever the bug is, it's persistent and I'm losing all my playlists and library info every other time I run iTunes!

Is it possible to roll back to a previous version?

Message was edited by: TheRealBoscoe - verified the problem was reproduceable

Rolling back the iTunes version won't necessarily help if the trigger is the behaviour of a third party application such as AV. Take a look at the .tmp files. The largest of these with in the correct time frame, i.e. yesterday when things went wrong, should be the best file to copy & rename to restore the library.

Backup & exclude the iTunes library folder from AV scans. Make particular care to save a copy of the file that works. Once done you can restore this easily on demand.

tt2

Thanks again for the help!

Actually no, the latest and largest tmp file is the one that wasn't recognized as a valid itl file (sorry, I just updated my previous post with that info) the valid one was 4 megs, the latest, invalid one was 25 megs. yes, I have a LOT of playlists. LOL

I'll try disabling AVG and see what that does. That and Java are the only two apps that have been updated over the past day, so unless iTunes has a serious bug, the problem must lie there. 🙂

EDIT: Okay, verified it is AVG. If I turn AVG off, I can open and reopen iTunes without problems. As soon as I turn AVG back on, every other time I open iTunes, my playlists are gone.

Okay, did everything you said and all seems well. Thanks again!

Apparently it is the Resident Shield portion of AVG that's the issue because I did a full system scan a few days ago and had no problems. What's baking my brain is that I looked in the logs and history and there is no log of anything being detected and blocked or quarrantined in the iTunes folder! AVG is doing this totally silently.

However, there WAS an entry stating that there had been a program update that completed successfully right about the first time I lost my playlists. Grrr

I also have this problem on saturday. It made me have a big problem cause I have over 2000 songs. I fix this problems, sync again with my iPhone, and slept on 2am every night. Oh my godness.

I think this is a bug on iTunes 11.0.2.25/26, maybe. So I downgrade to iTunes 11.0.1.12 last night, and sync again. This seem no any problems until now.

I tried this, got nothin 😟 im so very sad, i had music in there i dont have hard copies of anymore 😢