All the content from my iTunes library has disappeared

How long have you had iTunes and did you have a version before iTunes 11? Were those two backup files made by hand or another application?

tt2

I don't have the previous iTunes libraries folder. btw i have windows 7.

You should have such a folder if you've updated from iTunes 10.7 or earlier to iTunes 11. If you cannot find an earlier .itl file that you can restore then you'll have to use of of the other approaches that I've suggested, or simply import the media folder.

tt2

I've had iTunes for years. My library was wiped out when I upgraded to version 11. The only other backup .itl file I have is from December of last year. I got a new laptop and used Sharepod to transfer everything from my iPod to the laptop. That seemed to work fine until a few weeks ago when I upgraded to version 11 and my library vanished when I rebooted the next day.

All of my music appears to be on my hard drive. I'm thinking maybe I should just Import Folders and rebuild the library then manually rebuild the Playlists?

The newest .itl I have is from Dec 2012. I added it and I am still missing the 1000 or so songs I've imported since then. I have no way of telll which songs these are. I even did a PC search for all .itl files. Is there any other way for me to get my library back?

Were you able to find any .tmp files that could be used to recover a more recent version of your library? If not restore the older .itl file and than use File > Add Folder to Library to add the media folder. Everything iTunes alreadly knows about will be ignored, any new files will be added to the library.

tt2

Thanks so much for help. I did remove AVG and install mentioned antivirus. After I re-located all the missing files, deleted duplicates, etc, and rebuilt my playlists, upon opening, iTunes reverted to clean version with nothing. I hoped I could depress SHIFT + iTunes and choose previous library, but only TWO previous libraries are displayed. Neither was my most recent..Luckily, I did burn to DVD my favorite mp3s before it messed up, so thanks for the advice! I suspect something is wrong with my computer because this shouldn't be as difficult as this. THanks for your time!

I am having the same problem. It happened for the first time two weeks ago. Fortunately I had a backup of everything so I ended up deleting my entire music library and recovering it from my backup. Everything was fine then.

Today, I started up iTunes and the same thing happened again. This time I just recovered the iTunes Library, Genius and Extras file. When I restarted ITunes, I watched those files get deleted and replaced with much smaller files of the same name. All my music is intact but those files get clobbered. I recovered them again and again. I read this entire post. I deleted AVG from my computer, even went to the extent of deleting every AVG entry in my registry becuase the AVG uninstall leaves a lot of stuff behind. Rebooted, no AVG, started iTunes, same thing.

I am at a lost. I am going to wait for the next iTunes upgrade I guess.

Sorry for checking the obvious, but having removed AVG and rebooted did you restore the library files from the backup again?

tt2

steve4425 wrote:

I hoped I could depress SHIFT + iTunes and choose previous library, but only TWO previous libraries are displayed. Neither was my most recent...

If you use the SHIFT-start-iTunes method you'll connect to the original backup file in the wrong location. Not the end of the world, but you get a redundant set of artwork folders, a library that's hard to move later, and if your library vanishes again you've lost the backup.

Please copy the most recent .itl file into the main iTunes folder and then rename the current and backup files so that the backup replaces the current. You can use File, Add folder to Library, <Media Folder> to import your recent additions.

tt2

I just downloaded the 11.02 Itunes update. I have had no trouble with files disappearing since I changed from AVG to Avast virus scan

To turingtest2

Yes. Once I removed AVG completely, I rebooted and I returned the files from my backup and the same thing happened. I have no AVG process running on my computer. I am going to try it again and I am going to watch when processes run when starting iTunes to see if I can ID the culprit.

AVG has certainly been the prime culprit, and for many removing AVG has fixed things. Other possibilities are any process that co-opts the filing system, AV, anti-malware, automatic backup etc. And of course if iTunes has some kind of problem with the files you pull back it can create a new blank library without issuing an error message.

tt2

Well that was hard to tell what was going on but the one process that popped up was APSDaemon.

Some other interesting notes:

In the other thread on this subject, a poster mentioned that the iTunes library files were in the Recycle Bin. They are, sort of. The Genius and Extras library files are there and are intact, i.e. same size. But the Music Library file is not there. My music library file size is 13454 kb. The one in the Recycle Bin is 32 kb. The sentinel file which was 1 kb is 4 kb in the Recycle Bin.

Don't know what this all means but there you go.

Next test is to recover from my backup two weeks ago which fixed this problem last week. This should address your last concern. I let you know what happens.

OK. That worked and I think I know why. In my backup from two weeks ago there was another file named iTunes.Library.itl. It was not in my latest backup. So I think AVG identified it as a problem and deleted it. That is my guess.