iTunes Library keeps deleting itself! NOT using a Vaio....

Thank you so much for this tip!!!

God Fricken AVG............I went ahead and made backups of my iTunes folder after I restored my library, thanks to your tip. I've also gone ahead and at the AVG forums complained about this problem. As you can see this is a repeating problem as found here :http://forums.avg.com/us-en/avg-forums?sec=thread&act=show&id=227017

Frankly this is BS!! Hopefully this issue will get solved. I just had AVG renew itself for 2 years 😠 and I need my iTunes working.

Avg Forum post: http://forums.avg.com/gb-en/avg-forums?sec=thread&act=show&id=227235#post_227235 which acknowledges/confimrs that the fault lies with AVG AV.

AVG Moderator has stated that a patch will be released in the morning as a temporary fix.

Sounds promising...

tt2

For me the problem seems to have been solved by uninstalling AVG and installing Microsoft Security Essentials instead. This stands to reason since I believe my problem began after a recent AVG upgrade. It's only been a day so way too early to tell but as of yesterday I was experiencing the issue multiple times a day. I've launched iTunes about 10 times after this fix and so far so good.

SYMPTOM: iTunes has lost your library unexpectedly, and continues to lose it even after various resoration techniques. (Right click > Properties > Previous Versions OR restoring from an iTunes saved previous version file OR .tmp file OR ipod)

CAUSE: AVG Free and a recent update. AVG hasnt come forth about this, but for whatever reason it keeps ganking your iTunes library. This happens when AVG doesnt allow iTunes to finish its library updating process after iTunes closes, forcing iTunes to build a fresh one instead. iTunes deletes the old one, and is not allowed to copy in the new one from its temporary files.

FIX: Go into AVG's control panel > Scan Options (three-striped bar next to Scan Now) > Settings under Scan Whole Computer > Additional Scan Settings option > under "File Types for Scanning" choose "All file types" type in "itl;itdb" (w/o quotes) in the "Define Excluded Extentions" box.

This will tell AVG to leave your library alone. If that doesnt work, get in contact with AVG, install winamp, or just uninstall AVG 😉

This one caused me a little bit of grief over the past few days. After restorations of the library kept failing, I uninstalled, reinstalled iTunes and rebuilt my library from scratch (not a small task in my case). It happened again. Luckily someone mentioned AVG, I went about testing that route, and so far so good on the creating exceptions trick. GL

I'm trying the exclusions in AVG and see if that makes a difference (I use AVG Internet Security 2013). But I agree with a previous commenter on here; the latest version of iTune is awful! IMHO less intuitive and harder to use, less flexible etc. I've been using iTunes for years, so I hope they sort it soon, because if they don't I'll be going elsewhere once my iPhone contract expires in a few months.

Incidentally, MSE is not as good as AVG. I was using MSE and got infected with ransomware from a website and MSE didn't even sniff it, and did nothing to fix it (since it didn't detect it in the first place). Bought AVG and it happened again and AVG caught it before the page had even finished loading. This is how I found out it was one of my websites that had the infection - hole plugged and fixed now. £36 well spent!

And I have had expensive AV software completely fail to block such stuff too. The only safe computer is one that isn't connected to a network, and is turned off.

AVG announced a second patch today designed to stop it interacting unfavorably with iTunes. Upgrade AVG before attempting to recover the library and with luck it won't happen again.

For tips on getting the most out of iTunes, or rolling back, see here.

tt2

I did all of that you sugjested none worked. I do not know if my issue is caused by the update of itunes or what, but I got on itunes today to add some songs i recently downloaded to my playlists and 99% of my library was GONE. Itunes saved a few songs to icloud but not much. I had a few Cd's made from a long time ago but ALL recently uploaded are gone. I did not get most from tunes, I got the cd's from my local library. I believe that the files are probably on my computer somewhere but for some reason are not on my itunes. Please if you can help me do so I have lost well over 500 songs! 😢

Do you have AVG? If so have you updated it?

Do you have a backup of your iTunes library?

Have you checked for the presence of .tmp files in iTunes folder (may be hidden) or archived library files in the Pervious itunes Libraries folder?

Have you looked inside the iTunes Media folder to see if the files are still there?

The recovery process I've outlined above should work, but might not if the trigger for the problem, which I suspect is AVG, is still present.

tt2

i do have avg, it is now updated.

i have a very old backup that i used now but it is multiple years old so alot still missing.

i am unsure of the.tmp and such of how to do that

i think some of the file are still their but i am uncertain

Start by trying to restore the most recent file from the Previous iTunes Libraries folder as described above. Don't add the .itl extention to the file you rename if you can't see it listed for the other files.

I.e. iTunes\Previous iTunes Libraries\iTunes Library yyyy-mm-dd.itl

becomes iTunes\iTunes Library.itl

Or iTunes\Previous iTunes Libraries\iTunes Library yyyy-mm-dd

becomes iTunes\iTunes Library

You can then add the media folder to the library to import your recent additions.

tt2

Message was edited by: turingtest2

i did those steps earlier where i copied and renamed the files like you said to do and this is what im seeing now in my itunes folder do you want me to replace my curant Itunes Library Photo or the Itunes Library.itl

1. Close iTunes
2. Rename iTunes Library as iTunes Library (Empty)
3. Rename iTunes Library.itl as iTunes Library
4. Start iTunes

tt2

I am still in the process of checking to see but that definitely got a lot of my songs back if not all

thank you so much for all your help if i have ny further needs or help i will contact you

You can now use File > Add Folder to Library to add the media folder into the library. Stuff iTunes already knows about will be ignored, anything added since the backup file was created will be imported.

tt2