music on external drive has 'cloud' icon beside them

Hi tt2

Your reply is almost beyond my understanding 😟

AS I said previously, I've copied my itunes library onto my external hardrive. I haven't yet deleted my itunes library from my iMac until i can access it from the external drive but now I've just noticed that the library on my iMac now shows little cloud icons on ALL my music? why? These bloody clouds were never there before. I can understand (well I can't actually ) them appearing on my copied version but I can't fathom why they've suddenly appeared on my iMac hard drive?

I get the feeling this is beyond my capability and that maybe I should go visit a Genius Bar?

I Appreciate your response to my question tt2 & I'm trying to wrap my head around fixing it myself but I need to understand how these bloody clouds have just appeared.

Hi again tt2

I've followed your 'empty/corupt iTunes library' thread and have stumbled at first base. the first diagram shows iTunes layout and that the address is E;My music/itunes. i can't actually find how to get to that point? FYI my iTunes library location is

/Volumes/UNTITLED/iTunes 1/iTunes Media.

The 'untitled' is my external hard drive. Now I know that my library is also on my hard drive but when I go to iTunes- preferences. this is where is shows my library is. So I don't actually understand that.

Please tell me if I should go to the genius bar, I don't want to annoy you or anyone else with my stupid questions.

TIA

Beverley

Thanks tt2, I really do appreciate your understanding

ok, I think a lot of my problems are that my iMac has been running out of disk space for about a year now. Ive deleted bits and bobs but realised that i needed to move the iTunes library to really free up the start up disk. Because of my tardiness at dealing with this issue Ive encountered a number of issues; my iMac crashed and i used a recovery disk to recover stuff that was lost, that happened a while ago 😮

Then I discovered iTunes match and thought great, if I can access my iTunes library on all my devices and it stores my library in 'a cloud somewhere' then I can move my library with no worries (little did I know!) Anyway, because of the countless cds in my library, Ive never actually managed to 'match' all my music so haven't used the bloody service I'm paying for 😠

I now realise that my library is corrupted/damaged because of these issues. However, I've not realised this is the case because as far as I am aware iTunes works perfectly for me and allows me to update podcasts and syncs across my iPod classic/ipad/iphone, until I tried to move it that is…

Everything has bloody clouds in it; ALL my podcasts, music, apps. Everything 😟 But I understand why this is now so thank you 🙂

media is, where the iTunes Library.itl is and, if you have a Previous iTunes Libraries folder, what the most recent dated file in that folder is.

I found the iTunes library.itl by following; Finder>Beverley(little house beside my name)>music>itunes-this section contains things such as album work,iTunes lib (damaged), iTunes lib extras etc. etc. and then iTunes library.itl. At the end of this list is the previous iTunes libraries folder. This was like opening pandoras box; there are about 25 iTunes libraries in here 😮 the last one is dated 5th January.

As a side note can I ask? all these previous libraries are not really libraries are they? I mean they are a couple of mb big and I (stupidly) assumed that something labelled library would be, like, massive… 😕

Hope you can help me find a way out of this mess tt2. I can't update my iMac until I clear this space and I wonder if the fact that I have not been able to update my mac for a year(?) has any bearing (out of date software etc on my problems?) I am running OS X & iTunes 12.0.1.

I will await your reply and again thank you for taking the time to help me.

Best wishes

beverley

Good evening tt2

Thank you for your response. I've looked through my music folder which lists the numerous iTunes library.itl files and iTunes library files…. they all vary in different content and to be perfectly honest, I don't actually know what a 'viable library' should look like?😕😝 Ive got so many bloody copies of iTunes this and iTunes that, that its all very confusing.

sorry but can you clarify what is a viable library?

ffy info tt2 i simply clicked and dragged my iTunes folder to my external hard drive.

Ok tt2, after posting the above I re read your earlier reply (for the 10th time :s) and - without my external drive plugged in - I launched iTunes holding down the 'alt' key. First message read something like 'no iTunes library found' I then had the option to 'choose a library' which i did and my library appeared! all of it (well it certainly looks like all of it!) and there are no clouds either. Now, despite quiting iTunes every time I launch it; either by double clicking aka the tradtional way or pressing the alt key, it loads immediately into iTunes. I no longer have to press the shift key any more.

I believe my iTunes library is indeed accessible as before. I'm back to being confused again. its like there is no problem. am about to plug in the external drive and see what happens.

this is my last post on this tonight tt2 - promise 🙂

I have now discovered the following;

my iTunes library is intact on my hard drive, i can access it when the external hard drive is unplugged.

i can't access it on the ext HD without those pesky clouds appearing. Actually this is not strictly true, the folders are there but it doesn't open directly into the iTunes format like it normally does. its just a series of bloody folders.

when the ext HD is plugged in but Im not accessing it, if i try to open iTunes on iMac it wont allow me, it goes to open on the ext HD. Now I did consolidate my library to run automatically from the ext HD but its not working quite how i expected.

If, as i suspect the library is indeed intact, do you think i should try and start over? delete all contact from the ext HD and just click and drag the entire 'music' folder over? that way I know that everything in that folder is iTunes related. I'm pretty sure that I clicked on a sub folder within the iTunes library called iTunes and just dragged that over.

what do you think? i really think i should give this a go?

thanks again tt2

my turn to apologise now, 2 nights of entertaining left no time for sorting out this flipping problem.

Im just at a lost now tt2. When I went to turn on my mac for the first time in 2 days this evening it wouldn't let me access iTunes the normal way, it said it couldn't find the folder, i clicked ok then it went to the choose the library option or create one option, i clicked the choose a library, then it went to my folder (beverley) I clicked on the iTunes folder in there and hey presto my library comes up with everything in it and NO ext drive plugged in. So I then quit, plugged in ext hd, pressed the alt/option start iTunes key and was given the option to choose a library again, it went straight to my folder, again & i clicked on the iTunes folder and its all there again BUT i hadn't access the library via my ext hd.

Now, despite my hd unplugged i can still access my iTunes library via my mac hd. However, when i followed your advice about opening the iTunes folder.library.itl file in the iTunes folder on the external nothing happens?

Gah😕😠

Thanks tt2. I unplugged the ext hd & shut down my mac for 40 mins. Ive just now switched it back on, clicked on iTunes, its loaded straight away and I'm playing a song….. no need for at/option start iTunes or anything. AND my ext HD is not plugged in .

Am going to now quit iTunes, plug in ext hd and see what happens….