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My music has gone missing...Help!!!

Hey Y'all! So I have an Itunes account and about 3500 songs on my computer. I went to go open up itunes and half of my music is missing!! The song title is still there but when you go to click on it nothing happens. It says location is missing. Can someone help me with this? I don't want to import my music again.... Ughhhhh. Thanks!!!

iPhone 5, iOS 7

Posted on Feb 12, 2016 11:59 AM

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3 replies

Feb 12, 2016 1:10 PM in response to Rozi30308

The "missing file" error happens if the file is no longer where iTunes expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, one of its parent folders, or the drive it lives on has had a change of drive letter. It is also possible that iTunes has changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout, or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place.


Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Ctrl-I to Get Info, then click No when asked to try to locate the track. (Due to a bug in iTunes 12 you currently have to say No twice!) Look on the summary tab for the location that iTunes thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drive(s). Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, a folder renamed, or a drive letter has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions. If the difference between the two paths is an additional Music folder in one path then this is a layout issue. I can explain further if that is the case. If everything is where it is supposed to be try Repair security permissions for iTunes for Windows.


In some cases iTunes may be able to repair itself if you go through the same steps with Get Info but this time click Locate and browse to the lost track. It may then offer to attempt to automatically fix other broken links. Although it says something like "use the same location" I think it expects to find the tracks in the same artist & album layout they were in previously, with one systematic change to the path.


If another application like Windows Media Player has moved/renamed the files then the chances are that subtle differences in naming strategies will make it hard to restore the media to the precise path that iTunes is expecting. In such cases, as long as the missing files can be found somewhere, you should be able to use my FindTracks script to reconnect them to iTunes. See this post for an explanation of how it works.


If you want me to try to provide specific advice please post back the following details:

  1. The location of the media folder under Edit > Preferences > Advanced
  2. The location of a sample missing track shown under Get Info > File > Location that begins file://localhost/
  3. The true path to the file whose details you gave in 2.


tt2

Mar 13, 2016 3:03 PM in response to Rozi30308

That's the answer to question 2.


file://localhost/C:/Users/<User>/Documents/Retrieved Contents/<Old PC Name>/C/Users/<User>/Documents/<Name of recovery tool>/Music/Paula Abdul/Forever Your Girl/The Way That You Love Me.m4a.


3. would be the real path to that file. Hopefully you can track it down.


Knowing 1. would help me understand where iTunes would put new files. It might suggest some steps to take before you start trying to repair the library.


tt2

My music has gone missing...Help!!!

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