Lost Songs From iPod

TLDR...

... Are you trying to torture us?

However, luckily enough (for you), I did spot this towards the end of your post:

acprinting wrote:

This proved to be the case as I noticed each of my missing tracks had an exclamation mark by their side, signifying that they were no longer on my iPod!

An exclamation mark next to a song (I think you meant to add that this in iTunes, not on the iPod) does not signify (or mean) that the song is no longer on your iPod - it means that iTunes itself can no longer locate the original file for that song. Therefore, iTunes cannot play the song and it cannot be added to a device.

The usual explanation for exclamation marks next to songs is because the original file has been moved, renamed or deleted, or that the drive with the song on it is no longer available.

So -

• did you rename, move or delete the original digital files from the location that iTunes put them in when you imported from CD?
• files created from vinyl records were presumably put into the same top folder location and then added to the iTunes Library, but the same thing applies as above, don't muck about with them in your file manager
• based on my limited knowledge of Macs, I'm guessing that your Mac doesn't have enough room to store 13,000 songs internally, so are they on an external drive? If so, that drive has to be on and ready to read before you start iTunes, or iTunes will fail to find the drive when it is started. If you then connect an Apple device to iTunes and allow it to Sync, the music on the iPod (that iTunes can no longer find) will be removed.

I also spotted in your post, the contribution made by Raul.

... Raul, who basically told me that as the songs weren’t purchased through iTunes, the individual files would have been ‘stripped’ of their copy write information and therefore (although being shown in iTunes) unable to be actually played!

I have no idea what he was on about, but if that's what he told you - it's balderdash! (plain old wrong)

acprinting wrote:

Dear ‘The Fiend’

Also the fact that (as is my usual practise) once the songs from my CD or Vinyl collection are added into my iTunes library and dragged and dropped onto my iPod Touch, they are removed from my iTunes Library, so as not to take up too much space on my hard drive,

But you cannot delete those files from your storage, or at least, if you do, that's why you're gettig exclamation marks. I don't know why the problem has just surfaced now, but the fact remains that every time the iPod syncs with iTunes, it does just that - syncs (synchronises), so if you have deleted songs from the storage location but left them listed in iTunes, you will get the exclamation mark and they will be removed from the iPod. (Read again, carefully, what I said previously about moving, renaming or deleting files. It will cause problems.)

acprinting wrote:

Luckily, I do have Backups of both my devices on a removable 1 Terabyte drive. It is this back-up that has saved my (otherwise lost) collection.

You need to have the complete music Library available to iTunes for each sync. I suggest:

• transfer all your music to one external drive and use that to run iTunes. Note though, that the drive MUST be ready to read before you start iTunes, or iTunes will lose track of the whole Library by going back to the internal storage location.
• have another external hard drive as a backup to the first one, for the time when the first drive fails (they all do, eventually)

acprinting wrote:

Luckily, I do have Backups of both my devices on a removable 1 Terabyte drive. It is this back-up that has saved my (otherwise lost) collection.

"both your devices": do you mean the iPod for one? If so, do not think of your iPod as a storage device. It isn't - and that too will fail eventually. Mine has already done so. And - if your main storage does fail, getting the music back off an iPod to rebuild your Library is not a task for the faint-hearted.

Here's another point: if your iPod is full up with music, where are you going to put any more of it that you buy? One method for managing a Library that's larger than your iPod is to use Smart Playlists to automatically remove some music, giving space to then add back other music at each Sync. At the next sync, this process simply does this time and time again. But to achieve this, you will need your complete Library to be accessible to iTunes every time iTunes is opened (not just at Sync time).

acprinting wrote:

Like you, I thought Raul’s answer of iTunes ‘stripping’ the copywrite information from my tracks a bit weird, but i’m still confused as to why and how this has happened. Could it be something to do with the fact that my iPod Touch uses the Apple iCloud?

1. We've dealt with Raul's help - it isn't helpful. As quoted by you, it's complete and utter rubbish, it's simply not true. There is no "copy write" information in songs you have added to iTunes from your CDs, or from music you have transferred from vinyl to (presumably) MP3 or similar. Copyright (note spelling) is the "right to make a copy of a piece of music", not the act of "writing" it.
2. In the past, Apple sold digital music that had "copy protection" built into the file (DRM), which meant that you could not make copies of it, including, in some cases, to iPods. That copy protection has been discontinued, Apple no longer use this and users who had copy protected music were given the opportunity to replace the files with alternative versions without copy protection.
3. Music from Apple's cloud cannot be added to an iPod Classic, because the Classic does not have the required technology to play those versions.

As previously explained, if you delete the music from your iTunes Library (whilst iTunes is using that location for the music), you will have problems when you next sync.

If you have more music than you can fit on your computer's internal memory/hard drive, you should instead store all the music on an external drive and direct iTunes to use that external drive as its Library. When you do this, that drive must be connected to your computer, on and ready to read before you start iTunes. Otherwise, iTunes will fail to find the Library when it starts and you will have more issues.

Oh - and an iPod Touch is also not a suitable method of backing up. It's the Touch that needs to be backed up.