You are quite correct. It doesn't make sense. The song listing is there in iTunes. When an attempt is made to play it there is a message that says the "original files cannot be found'. I dig into my iTunes media folder and find the subfolder for my particular song and within it the media is gone. Gone?! When I go to the iTunes store to redownload it, it doesn't even show that I ever even bought it using the established method of redownloading media. Yet, if I look under the "Complete my Album" section, the missing song shows up as "Purchased" in the song listing for the album it originally came from. An example of this would be, "Tiny Dancer" from Elton John from his "Hits from the 70's and 80's" All the other tunes from that album are there and available for purchase and download, "Tiny Dancer" is listed as "Purchased" and cannot be accessed at all. But it is not listed under "Purchased" items, "Not on this device." Go figure?
To make the mystery even greater: a few weeks ago there were only 14 (out of 840) of my purchased songs showing up in the iTunes store. Now there are 140, still a fraction of my actual count. I'm not manipulating the files, I haven't changed credit cards or method of purchase, changed my password, I don't brouse ****, I don't visit white supremisist websites, I don't play games on this computer, I have the full suite of antivirus, malware and spyware software protecting my computer. So I would say that I'm not doing anything even remotely damaging to my system. I know how theorectically to redownload my media and in the past this has worked quite well. But now it doesn't. And again yes, it doesn't make any rational sense. This is something unusual that is occuring. Any insight would be welcome and appreciated? I know that it is very likely user error, it always is, but I can't figure it out. I've likely accidently or inadvertently changed a setting that is preventing me from seeing my full listing of purchased items. The missing files on my computer are the greatest mystery. Why are they dissapearing? I have no idea.