sargetalon

Q: The song “XYZ” could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?

Hello everyone.  I've searched the web at length about my problem and have found several relevant threads but none that have helped me.  I'm now turning here for any ideas. 

 

I have a MacBook Pro Retina 15 inch (late 2013) running OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 and iTunes 12.4.3.1.

 

I have a large music library (~40K tracks) and all of a sudden, about 3,000 tracks give me the exclamation point with the error message; "The song “XYZ” could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?"  None of those tracks have moved in any way.  If I manually locate them as prompted, they are right where they should be and can be added no problem.  I just don't have the hours that it would take to manually locate 3000 tracks.  I'll give a few examples below.

 

When I look at the broken file's path in iTunes, it reads like so:

file:///Users/Joshua/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music/Beastie Boys/Solid Gold Hits/15 You Gotta Fight For Your Right (T.mp3

 

file:///Users/Joshua/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music/Bon Jovi/Have A Nice Day/13 Who Says You Can't Go Home (Duet.mp3

 

file:///Users/Joshua/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music/Grammy Nominees/1998 Grammy Nominees/01 Paula Cole - Where Have All The C.mp3

 

file:///Users/Joshua/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music/Am Gold/Am Gold - 1968/14 The Lettermen - Goin' Out Of My H.mp3

 

The actual file path on the computer is:

/Users/Joshua/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music/Beastie Boys/Solid Gold Hits/15 You Gotta Fight For Your Right (To Party).mp3

 

/Users/Joshua/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music/Grammy Nominees/1998 Grammy Nominees/01 Paula Cole - Where Have All The Cowboys Gone.mp3

 

/Users/Joshua/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music/Bon Jovi/Have A Nice Day/13 Who Says You Can't Go Home (Duet With Jennifer Nettles Of Sugarland).mp3

 

/Users/Joshua/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music/AM Gold/AM Gold - 1968/14 The Lettermen - Goin' Out Of My Head.mp3

 

The paths show that iTunes has cut off the end of the file name which is why I assume they no longer match and work.  I haven't found any threads that describe that behavior specifically.  What I'm looking for is a quicker way to update the broken links rather than a one by one update.    I have tried to restore from older .itl files but was unsuccessful.  I'd rather not lose my ratings if at all possible.  I migrated my library from a PC and believe everything was fine initially until some update of iTunes.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you so much in advance.

Posted on Sep 10, 2016 11:34 AM

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Q: The song “XYZ” could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?

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  • Helpful answers

  • by sargetalon,

    sargetalon sargetalon Sep 12, 2016 6:46 PM in response to sargetalon
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iTunes
    Sep 12, 2016 6:46 PM in response to sargetalon

    Guess I'm on my own with this one then. I suppose I have no recourse but to update all 3000 paths manually. Yay me.

  • by KiltedTim,

    KiltedTim KiltedTim Sep 12, 2016 6:53 PM in response to sargetalon
    Level 9 (55,113 points)
    iPhone
    Sep 12, 2016 6:53 PM in response to sargetalon

    Or you could just delete everything from your library (without deleting the files from disk) and then re-import them to iTunes.

  • by sargetalon,

    sargetalon sargetalon Sep 12, 2016 8:42 PM in response to KiltedTim
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iTunes
    Sep 12, 2016 8:42 PM in response to KiltedTim

    Wouldn't that cause me to lose all of my ratings?

  • by rums223,

    rums223 rums223 Sep 12, 2016 8:55 PM in response to sargetalon
    Level 1 (9 points)
    iTunes
    Sep 12, 2016 8:55 PM in response to sargetalon

    I'm not sure about the ratings, but removing all from iTunes and allowing it to scan your computer for music is by far the easiest way.  I would suggest contacting iTunes Support to see if this is a known issue and check if they have a way to fix it.

  • by Limnos,

    Limnos Limnos Sep 13, 2016 8:36 AM in response to sargetalon
    Level 9 (53,717 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 13, 2016 8:36 AM in response to sargetalon

    If you find one file does it offer to find others can can it?

     

    Unfortunately, ratings, play count, and date added are only stored in the .itl file (not even in the editable .xml version). If you delete the tracks and re-add them they will be viewed by iTunes as brand new entries and not retain old metadata.  Unfortunately anything you could do to edit the file paths could only be done to the .xml file which would involve rebuilding your library and losing certain metadata.

     

    If you do rebuild your library there may be a way to transfer ratings using a set of playlists, but I don't know if these playlists will work with broken link entries: 

     

    2014/2015 Discussion on transferring ratings - https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6458298

     

    http://www.kadavy.net/blog/posts/transfer-itunes-library/

     

    I have no idea why this happened in the first place other than it probably was due to the transfer from a PC (the fact your file names have been truncated to 35 characters reminds me of older Windows limitations).  I imagine hundreds of people do that daily and don't have problems.  You can contact Apple about this but I sincerely doubt there is anything they would advise (IMHO you usually get better help with this kind of thing on this forum where people are more imaginative about problem solving this kind of thing).

  • by sargetalon,

    sargetalon sargetalon Sep 13, 2016 8:52 AM in response to Limnos
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iTunes
    Sep 13, 2016 8:52 AM in response to Limnos

    Thank you for your reply. After correcting one path, iTunes offers to try and correct other files but is never able to do so.  It sounds like my options are to go through the entries 1 by 1 or wipe the library and start over, losing my metadata.  Neither option sounds great.  This is kind of what I deduced and my post here was in hopes that I was missing some creative trick. Seems like I'm stuck. Knowing me, I'll probably go through the tracks 1 by 1 slowly over the next year    

  • by Limnos,

    Limnos Limnos Sep 13, 2016 9:24 AM in response to sargetalon
    Level 9 (53,717 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 13, 2016 9:24 AM in response to sargetalon

    You can check the Dougscripts web site and see if anything has appeared there which will try to rebuild links. I know turingtest2 has one that works on Windows.  It may be since Apple nominally already has that feature built into iTunes that nobody has seen a need for a separate script though certainly the iTunes feature does not work in all cases.