Curmudgeon10

Q: iTunes Can't find Music (All of a Sudden)

I did nothing to change ANYTHING on my PC, and now most of my album Art is gone, and iTunes cannot locate the music.  Reinstalled iTunes.  Need to solve music location issue first.

 

iTunes THINKS ALL my music is located at: file://localhost/C:/Users/Myname/Music/ but the music is actually located at (the same location that hasn't changed in YEARS) file://C:/Users/Myname/Music.


So somehow "localhost" has been injected into the location.  How do I blanket remove this to get iTunes looking where it should?

Posted on Sep 9, 2016 1:36 PM

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Q: iTunes Can't find Music (All of a Sudden)

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  • by turingtest2,

    turingtest2 turingtest2 Sep 9, 2016 1:41 PM in response to Curmudgeon10
    Level 10 (85,293 points)
    iPod
    Sep 9, 2016 1:41 PM in response to Curmudgeon10

    The "missing file" issue with exclamation marks 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, or you've moved a non-portable library to a different path (see Make a split library portable for details). 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. Look on the file 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, or when playing a track, 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, or the library has been moved from OS X to Windows, 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. It might need some tweaking if your media is in a non-standard layout.

     

    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

     

    Note the addition of file://localhost/ and the flipped direction of slashes (Windows only) is normal for a file that isn't quite where iTunes is expecting to find it.

     

    tt2

  • by Curmudgeon10,

    Curmudgeon10 Curmudgeon10 Sep 10, 2016 5:25 AM in response to turingtest2
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Apple TV
    Sep 10, 2016 5:25 AM in response to turingtest2

    The permissions procedure was accomplished, but nothing changed.

     

    I have FOUND the problem.  iTunes sees the Library at this location (abbreviated): Users\JSmith\Music while all the tracks, albums, etc. believe they are located at Users\John\Music.

     

    Now, for many years, everything worked fine because I was User John.  For some reason --- that would no doubt be a Microsoft Update -- it appears that User John is extinct, replaced by User JSmith.

     

    The question is how to fix?  Based on what I see about User Names and Accounts on various Internet Forums, I am very reluctant to try to replace the JSmith with John.  Is there a way to change this "memory" iTunes has of the old location? (Without going through 51GB of music manually?)

  • by turingtest2,

    turingtest2 turingtest2 Sep 10, 2016 5:35 AM in response to Curmudgeon10
    Level 10 (85,293 points)
    iPod
    Sep 10, 2016 5:35 AM in response to Curmudgeon10

    If you can supply the 3 details I mentioned above I may be able to give you a small set of tweaks for iTunes and/or your folders that will set things right. Otherwise I will give you more information on how to use the FindTracks script to make the necessary repairs.

     

    tt2

  • by Curmudgeon10,

    Curmudgeon10 Curmudgeon10 Sep 10, 2016 11:56 AM in response to turingtest2
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Apple TV
    Sep 10, 2016 11:56 AM in response to turingtest2

    1: Under Edit>Preferences>Advanced, the Media Folder is located at: C:\Users\jsmith\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media

    2:Using a "lost track," Get Info>File>Location yields file://localhost/C:/Users/John/Music/(Artist)/(Album)/(Track name)

    3: The True Path for this track is C:Users\jsmith\Music\(Artist\(Album)\(Track name)

  • by turingtest2,Solvedanswer

    turingtest2 turingtest2 Sep 10, 2016 1:01 PM in response to Curmudgeon10
    Level 10 (85,293 points)
    iPod
    Sep 10, 2016 1:01 PM in response to Curmudgeon10

    The proper layout for the iTunes folders is shown in Make a split library portable.

     

    Your active library database will normally be in C:\Users\<Username>\Music\iTunes

    The media folder should be inside that as C:\Users\<Username>\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media

    Songs are inside that as C:\Users\<Username>\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media\Music\<Artist>\<Album>\## <Name>.<Ext>

     

    If you put the media folders in the right layout, then correct the path to the media folder close iTunes and reopen it should sort itself out.

     

    If it doesn't work then try the get info > locate method to see if iTunes will correct the other broken links.

     

    If that doesn't work use my FindTracks script.

     

    tt2

  • by Curmudgeon10,

    Curmudgeon10 Curmudgeon10 Sep 10, 2016 1:01 PM in response to turingtest2
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Apple TV
    Sep 10, 2016 1:01 PM in response to turingtest2

    Great.  Thanks for your help --- just moving the music to the suggested layout solved the music location problem.  Do you have any other helpful suggestions on how I can retrieve the album art?  Almost all of it disappeared at the same time the music couldn't be located.

  • by turingtest2,Helpful

    turingtest2 turingtest2 Sep 11, 2016 11:46 AM in response to Curmudgeon10
    Level 10 (85,293 points)
    iPod
    Sep 11, 2016 11:46 AM in response to Curmudgeon10

    With iTunes closed delete or rename the Album Artwork folder inside the iTunes folder.

    Scroll through the library slowly in the albums view.

    iTunes should rebuild the artwork cache as you go.

     

    tt2

  • by Curmudgeon10,

    Curmudgeon10 Curmudgeon10 Sep 11, 2016 11:47 AM in response to turingtest2
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Apple TV
    Sep 11, 2016 11:47 AM in response to turingtest2

    Thanks so much.  Worked exactly as you said.

  • by turingtest2,

    turingtest2 turingtest2 Sep 11, 2016 12:07 PM in response to Curmudgeon10
    Level 10 (85,293 points)
    iPod
    Sep 11, 2016 12:07 PM in response to Curmudgeon10

    You're welcome.

     

    tt2

  • by Curmudgeon10,

    Curmudgeon10 Curmudgeon10 Sep 12, 2016 5:45 AM in response to turingtest2
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Apple TV
    Sep 12, 2016 5:45 AM in response to turingtest2

    This is a postscript.  First, it's clear to me that this never was a problem generated by iTunes, but rather by Microsoft's latest periodic, can't-opt-out-of-it update to Windows 10.  At the same time my iTunes Album Art (and the location of my Music Library, never before a problem during the last 4 or 5 years...) became unknown to iTunes, all the pictures I have assigned to Contacts in Outlook 2016 disappeared as well.  No reply by MS on their Community board on why that happened.  Don't expect to see one.

     

    Having followed Turingtest2's advice to simply move my music to the correct directory, as well as doing away with the existing Album Art folder so iTunes could rebuild it, I thought everything had been fixed.  I had opened iTunes, slowly scrolling thought the Album view, and yes, it appeared that the Album Art was reappearing.  So I moved on to other issues.  However, after a day or so, I noticed that Album Art had really only reappeared on about 60% of my albums.  I determined that the situation fell into basically one of two different groups:

     

    A.  Some albums showed the generic Musical Note, but when you examined the "Info," you could see that the correct Album Art was embedded in the file.  To display it properly, you need to select "Artwork," and then click OK.  SOMETIMES, this was sufficient to have the Album Art show back up in the standard Album view, but often it was not.  After experimenting around, I found that after clicking OK in the Get Info/Artwork screen, you could always pop up the art by opening the album.

     

    B.  Some albums showed the generic Musical Note, and when examining the Info, there was no Album Art present.  In every case, this was also true of the actual music.  Even though these albums (folders and files) had been placed in the correct directory as all other correctly functioning albums, iTunes still didn't know where the Art or music files were located.  I found that I could copy the Artist file from my backup, and paste to the "Automatically Add to iTunes" folder and everything was fixed, music and art.

     

    My library consists of a melange of stuff, much of it ripped, some purchased from iTunes, Amazon, etc. so there really was no way to determine whether the problems in A and B were confined to one source or another.  However, I found the problem in B affected EVERY one of classical music albums (plus some others).  Go figure.

  • by turingtest2,

    turingtest2 turingtest2 Sep 12, 2016 7:21 AM in response to Curmudgeon10
    Level 10 (85,293 points)
    iPod
    Sep 12, 2016 7:21 AM in response to Curmudgeon10

    I find iTunes and iDevices work best if all tracks have embedded art. I have two scripts that can help with this; CreateFolderArt and EmbedFolderArt. The scripts have slightly different functions:

     

    CreateFolderArt ensures that every album folder ends up with a Folder.jpg image which is the art that iTunes already knows about. Side effects are that if artwork has been updated in iTunes the folder art should be updated also, and if any track from the album doesn't have embedded artwork it gets embedded.

     

    EmbedFolderArt was actually written for someone who already had various artwork images stored in the album folders and wanted them added to their tracks, but not if iTunes had already downloaded a better quality image. It creates new files of any store art with the name iTunesArt.jpg, then embeds the largest image by area in the album's folder, based on the premise that this is likely to be the best image.

     

    In either case you could search and destroy the images in the folders after they are embedded if you don't want them.

     

    tt2

  • by Curmudgeon10,

    Curmudgeon10 Curmudgeon10 Sep 12, 2016 12:29 PM in response to turingtest2
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Apple TV
    Sep 12, 2016 12:29 PM in response to turingtest2

    I did some random checking and found that all my songs, within the albums, have art assigned to them.  If that is the case, is there any obvious risk from running your CreateFolderArt script?

  • by turingtest2,

    turingtest2 turingtest2 Sep 12, 2016 2:15 PM in response to Curmudgeon10
    Level 10 (85,293 points)
    iPod
    Sep 12, 2016 2:15 PM in response to Curmudgeon10

    Nope. The only danger would come if you ran it on some weird layout where tracks from multiple albums were stored in the same folder. As ever test on a few albums to check it does what you want.

     

    tt2