WTF has my itunes library gone - HELP!!!

[Adam B]

Running Windows XP

Yesterday I had about 70gb of music saved in a adam/music directory, all copied into my itunes library and synced to the ipod along with many hours of adding album art manually from discogs and creating playlists.

Last night I updated to latest version of itunes, no problems.

Today I have a new adam/music directory next to the one with all the music in, with itunes files in it same as the other directory

When I plugged in ipod it said I had purhcased itunes music on ipod that was not in library and would I like to transfer it, I say yes.

Now all the music is gone (apart thes 100 or so tracks transferred above) from my itunes library and, as it synced, my ipod too. All the music is still in my music directroy so I can import it all again but...

if I have lost all my artwork and playlists I will cry a little bit
and wtf happened so it doesn't happen again?

Help please!!!!

[mizx]

A little unsure as I'm not an iTunes user, but a quick googling suggests it links to the images, so I'm afraid you might be in for another long night on discogs

What you want is to embed your album art using a tag editor (Tag&Rename is good).

I've also spent quite some time getting everything tagged perfectly and searching for good quality covers, same thing happened to me trying to use WMP rather than the Creative app to sync, I must have missed something as it wrote over all of the embeded covers with horrible thumbnails (I now use d&d only with a Cowon D2). Luckily I have covers saved in each album folder, so it wasn't too difficult to fix.

The automation is useful for some, but if you are anything like me with tags etc., I wouldn't let any media player anywhere near them.

Edited by mizx on Thursday 8th April 00:39

[anonymous-user]

I bought an ipod touch thingy for the little un at christmas, what a waste of space ipod's are, nothing but mither, give me a tape recorder any day.

Everytime i plug it in on the family comp it sync's to whoever's on and messes everything up

They need to run free workshops for anyone over 10 to show us how to work them easily

[Snoggledog]

Looks like you'll have to import your music and re-sync all over again. The same thing happened to me about 18 months ago and proved to be a nightmare to sort out. The biggest thing I can suggest is to take off the 'tick' which lets iTunes organise your music for you. That proved to be a disaster for me. That's why I'm not an iTunes fan boy any more and why I swapped to a different way of organising my media.

Sorry but I can't offer any more than that. No doubt an iTunes expert will be along to prove me wrong.

[ovlovist]

speedyguy said:

They need to run free workshops for anyone over 10 to show us how to work them easily

They already do:
http://www.apple.com/uk/retail/workshops/

[N10k]

hold down "Shift" and double click on Itunes. keep holding down shift until a window opens and then you can browse to your itunes library folder (which is normally located in a folder called itunes where all your music is) and open the Itunes file. cant remember what extension it had though..

[Adam B]

N10k said:

hold down "Shift" and double click on Itunes. keep holding down shift until a window opens and then you can browse to your itunes library folder (which is normally located in a folder called itunes where all your music is) and open the Itunes file. cant remember what extension it had though..

thanks but

what do you mean by "double click on Itunes" - the itunes icon on my desktop?

all my music is in my music folder per the original post, but within that folder is an itunes subfolder so presumably that is where that file is? From memory has files for itunes artwork, itunes library etc

From what i have observed when you add music to your itunes library it stays where it is (ie my music folder) but editing tracks etc in the library adjusts the structure of the music folder accordingly. I though that itunes library was just a bunch of files of code that links it to the music in a certain way, adds artwork, syncs to ipod etc. I had assumed my current problem is that itunes the program is not "seeing" those files?

I know I can unsync ipods and manually copy from itunes library to ipods but that defeats one of the main benefits of itunes, ie having it all auotmatic so I do not have to remember what I have/have not copied from library to ipod

[anonymous-user]

swerni said:

speedyguy said:

I bought an ipod touch thingy for the little un at christmas, what a waste of space ipod's are, nothing but mither, give me a tape recorder any day.

Everytime i plug it in on the family comp it sync's to whoever's on and messes everything up

They need to run free workshops for anyone over 10 to show us how to work them easily

maybe you're best stepping away from anything invented in the last 100 years or so

EFA,


Thanks ovlovist, Make the wifes day spending more time at the trafford centre

[Adam B]

N10k - can you help with my questions? much appreciated

[N10k]

Hi Adam

in the itunes folder is a file called iTunes Library.xml. This single file holds all the "pointers" for itunes to location your music, If your music there it may have lost the location of this file.

If you hold down Shift and then double click the itunes desktop icon or single click itunes from the start bar or task bar you will be prompted to find the iTunes Library.xml file.

Is you music located on your main partition (C or an additional partition?

Thanks
Nick

[Adam B]

thanks Nick

no idea what a partition is, my music is in c:/users/adam/music

music, pictures etc folders were all set up when I first set up the computer

when I open itunes it does not ask for the .xml file location, but it creates a duplicate music folder with an itunes subfolder in it (judging by the 13k size this is the empty one)

in the original music folder the itunes subfolder has I suspect the files I want itunes to point to - it is 10mb in size and was last modified the day before the st hit the fan

it seems, upon opening up, itunes is creating this new music folder rather than looking at the older good one - what would happen if I copy the good files over the new empty ones and open itunes again?

or can I get itunes ot point at the right location?

Edited by Adam B on Thursday 8th April 23:38

[Holst]

Adam B said:

thanks Nick

no idea what a partition is, my music is in desktop/adam/music

music, pictures etc folders were all set up when I first set up the computer

Almost definately on the defaults then.

Ive had similar problems myself with itunes and its a right pain when it messes everything up for no apparent reason.

I would avoid "updating" anything unless there is a fix or additional function you need.

[Adam B]

Adam B said:

it seems, upon opening up, itunes is creating this new music folder rather than looking at the older good one - what would happen if I copy the good files over the new empty ones and open itunes again?

thank god, that worked!!!!