Identifying and fixing random broken links in iTunes music library

Question

Level 1

6 points

Identifying and fixing random broken links in iTunes music library

I have not seen a satisfactory answer to this problem and Apple Support has not stepped up to address it yet. So I hope by again starting this discussion we will get a good answer from Apple or a fellow member.

For some unknown reason, I have been finding broken links in my 1.75 TB music library which consists almost exclusively of entire CDs ripped to an external HD in ALAC format. The database or library is also on the same external HD. The breaks seem random and by this I mean with some albums only a few songs give me the ! and with some albums I get the ! with all songs. With some artists, I get the ! with only a few albums and with others almost all albums. I do not know the percentage of my database that has broken links as it is very large, but I am hopeful it is manageable.

So my first question is with a library as large as mine is there an efficient way of finding at once all songs to which the link is broken? And secondly, is there an efficient way of fixing the broken links at once?

I know that this is not an uncommon occurrence. Apple should find and publish a fix for all of us dedicated iTunes users.

Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Sep 29, 2015 4:19 PM

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Answer 1

Limnos

Level 10

428,039 points

Sep 30, 2015 4:16 PM in response to David Goldy

Use a script from the Dougscripts web site called ListMIA to build a text file of broken links. It is slow.

Get info on one broken link, find the file, then when iTunes asks, let it find others. This is assuming you let iTunes manage your media.

Yes, you see other posts about this, but you don't see tens of thousands of posts from people who don't have this problem. I don't know that there is anything to fix as such. There could be multiple reasons for this happening. We might be able to try to track down the issue with your library but we really have very little information from you so far. You would have to document the conditions under which this is happening. I get maybe one or two broken links a year but I know it is when I have been messing with the files directly so it isn't surprising -- and I know why.

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Answer 2

David Goldy Author

Level 1

6 points

Sep 30, 2015 4:16 PM in response to Limnos

Yesterday I found another broken link when I attempted to play an album and iTunes notified me that it could not find the first song in that album. I do let iTunes manage my music so I found the song with the broken link and then selected the option to allow iTunes find all songs with broken links. After iTunes ran for about 20 minutes I got a dialog box that stated essentially said that all was fixed. I do not know whether this is accurate for two reasons: first, my library is too large to attempt to play every album and second, iTunes does not show you which songs have broken links before it attempts to fix them. I will keep my fingers crossed.

I know my criticism of iTunes regarding this issue is reasonable. I do not mess with my library and I have had this problem several times since I began using iTunes almost since its inception.

Anyway, thanks for pointing out the script that I can attempt to use if iTunes did not repair itself as represented.

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