Author Topic: Can't find iTunes music (Read 13225 times)

Raven · « **on:** March 31, 2010, 10:21:24 PM »

I'm picking this up from an earlier thread that you all helped me with. Please bear with me...
I've transferred all files from an eMac to a G4. Both use OSX10.4.11.
All the glitches have been resolved except one... how to transfer iTunes 9.0.3.

I read Paddy's article from ilounge.com on how to do that...
Transferred the whole iTUNES folder using Target Disk Mode to the G4. There is ONLY music.
Then according to instructions, it said "copy entire iTunes folder... to corresponding folder on the new computer".

Did that, but the songs don't show up in the iTunes window. The window says I've got 41 songs. There should be 1000+!
Yet, the iTunes Folder gives me a 4 gb file size, which suggests that ALL the songs are in there.
I rebooted and relaunched iTunes to no avail.

Here's what I think the problem is... I may have too many extra folders?!
Here is the path... USERS/NAME/MUSIC/ITUNES/ITUNES MUSIC/MUSIC/COMPILATIONS/SONGWRITERS folder.
The last folder has 4 gb of songs in it.

When I go to Preferences - Advanced to change and reset the Media Folder location, it cuts back to the iTUNES MUSIC folder and goes no further. Is that why the iTunes can't find the songs?

Can I just delete some of those excess folders?
OR would I copy the entire original iTunes folder again?

If it's the last, I'm a bit unclear what it means by "copy"... Just dragging the new iTunes folder on top of the old one?
I don't want to screw this up much more.

krissel · « **Reply #1 on:** March 31, 2010, 11:10:20 PM »

If all the transferred music is in the last folder I'd open that folder in a new window. Then select all (Command+A) and transfer (drag) the contents into the iTunes Music folder. That folder should have all the artists listed as separate folders with the music within them.

Here is what my iTunes looks like:
[attachment=1830:itunes.jpg]

Raven · « **Reply #2 on:** April 01, 2010, 09:50:11 AM »

Krissel,

Tried that...
[attachment=1831:Picture_1.png]
[attachment=1832:Picture_2.png]

But nothing/no music shows up in the iTunes window.

Xairbusdriver · « **Reply #3 on:** April 01, 2010, 10:51:38 AM »

<Here's a brief instruction on uploading an image.>
<And another.> Found these using the Search function at TS, BTW.

Maybe something we could add to the "Tips" page?

Raven · « **Reply #4 on:** April 01, 2010, 12:55:48 PM »

Thanks Xairbusdriver.
See my post above.

Any ideas why iTunes can't find my music?

Paddy · « **Reply #5 on:** April 01, 2010, 02:28:35 PM »

Raven, have you looked in the iTunes Preferences ->Advanced to see where iTunes thinks the music is stored? You've got it in the right place, but iTunes may not know that and you may need to hit the "Change" button and edit the location.

Raven · « **Reply #6 on:** April 01, 2010, 06:13:05 PM »

Paddy,
Yes, I've done that several times. But I think I've been seriously messing this up by trying so many things...

iTunes Prefs - Advanced is looking for an "iTunes Media folder location" which is found in USERS/VB2/MUSIC/iTUNES folder.
But there is no music there.

The music files are actually now in home computer (house icon) - USERS/VB1/MUSIC/iTUNES/iTUNES MUSIC.
Except now it has the wrong user name and I can't change it back! Each time I change the name to the original,"VB", it makes a duplicate and says that VB has already been taken. So I give it another name.

I've now got 3 USER folders - VB2, VB3, VB0 (the original little house icon with all music files) and VB (which is what the original should be called!

I'm hoping you can help me out of this mess. I started this whole file transfer process almost a week ago. Don't berate me too badly! ;-)

Paddy · « **Reply #7 on:** April 01, 2010, 08:12:59 PM »

Yeah - well it seems that somehow or other, you've managed to put your music in the folder belonging to a different user. If you're logged in as "VB2" you're not going to be able to access VB1's music. You'll need to log in as VB1 to fix this.

Various instructions on sharing music between multiple accounts:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1203

However, I suspect that you actually want to get rid of the superfluous accounts...

Do you have an external HD? If it was me, I think I'd just copy all the music to an external drive (make sure it's all there, safe and sound) and then delete anything on the home drive, then make sure I was in the correct account and then import it all back to where it should be - using the IMPORT function so you don't lose it! Of course if you have playlists etc. that you want to preserve, this would not do that.

You say you've got three user folders named VB2, VB3 and VB0 but no VB1 and yet that's where your music is? How can that be? I'm a little confused. If there is no User folder VB1, then how can the music be there?

Anyway - I think you risk a real mess if you keep fiddling with the users. Get that music copied somewhere safe and start over. Delete any users that you don't need - keep the primary one and work from there.

You do have an external HD, I hope? (Everyone should have at least one complete backup of their main HD....)

Raven · « **Reply #8 on:** April 01, 2010, 10:40:45 PM »

Got rid of all excess User account folders. Only the main "VB" acct left. As it should be?
The iTunes path is again the same as shown in the screen shot above:
USERS/VB/MUSIC/iTUNES/iTUNES MUSIC folder with all 1000 songs located in artist folders.

However, the iTunes Preferences Advanced asks for "iTunes Media folder location". Is the operative word "Media" vs "Music"?
There is no MEDIA folder.
I have changed the correct path to the current MUSIC folder. Reset it. Nothing is different.
Quit iTunes and relaunched. Still nothing.

I have a copy of the complete iTunes Folder from our eMac saved on a Backup Partition. Shall I delete all artist folders from the current Music folder and Import them again from my backup? Or try something else? I'm getting gun shy to experiment any more!

krissel · « **Reply #9 on:** April 02, 2010, 04:31:13 AM »

Media is a generic term. The path in my preferences is /users/me/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music

Most likely the data file is screwed up so if changing to the above path doesn't help, do this:

Open iTunes, go to File/Add to Library. Navigate to the folder that has the songs (iTunes Music) and click on Open. Let iTunes reimport all the songs. It may take a while so go get a cup of something.

Xairbusdriver · « **Reply #10 on:** April 02, 2010, 10:01:32 AM »

Case (for file names) probably matters, also.

The whole "Music/iTunes/iTunes Music" part of the path is automatically created by iTunes when it is first run, I believe. Of course, changing it should also be possible...

I'd also:

(just put them on the Desktop, for now)

Paddy · « **Reply #11 on:** April 02, 2010, 10:18:44 AM »

Actually, Jim, the Mac OS does NOT have case-sensitive file naming - unlike almost all other UNIX-based operating systems. It will preserve the case, but if you try to name another file with that same name but different case, it won't let you do it.

http://www.informit.com/articles/article.a...82&seqNum=4
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1410

Apple doesn't fully explain why you'd want to use case-sensitive - the only real reason would be that you're sharing files with a UNIX system or developing for UNIX. And there are some applications (notably Adobe CS apps) that will NOT start up on a case-sensitive volume.

Raven · « **Reply #12 on:** April 02, 2010, 10:19:19 AM »

Krissel,
Good news, bad news... :-)

FINALLY, that worked! Imported my wife's songs from the original/backup iTunes Music folder (again) and there they are. And playing! She's happy. But she has to redo her playlists. Well, she's almost happy! ;-)

Except, I noticed the original iTunes Music folder in her eMac was 4 gb in size. So was the iTunes Music folder in the G4 with her songs that iTunes couldn't recognize at first. Now that the songs are playing, that folder is 8 gb in size. Which suggests that the song count has doubled?
Yet, I can only see one song of each. Is there a duplicate that I cannot see?

To reduce the folder size, do I dump ALL the songs and import them again?

Paddy · « **Reply #13 on:** April 02, 2010, 11:05:07 AM »

Sounds like there is a duplicate of everything in there - if you at one point had two different user accounts pointing to this folder, and did two different imports to the folder using each of the accounts, it's possible that there are indeed duplicates that you cannot see.

You can try having a look at all the invisible files to see if that explains things:

http://www.macworld.com/article/51830/2006...wallfinder.html (simple command line)

You could try consolidating the library first - just in case that works. (File->Library->Organize)

If that doesn't work...

If your wife is going to have to recreate her playlists anyway, you could try the whole thing all over again (in which case she might not have to do that).

Follow these directions, step by step:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449

You would have to throw out the entire Music folder first, BTW - and if there are indeed things in there with permissions that are assigned to another user, it's possible that you could have issues doing that.

Raven · « **Reply #14 on:** April 02, 2010, 08:59:37 PM »

This issue is beyond ridiculous! :-)

As far as I can tell in Sys Pref, I only have one Admin account.
I deleted all songs from the MUSIC folder. At the bottom of the iTunes window it showed 0 kb. Including 0 kb for MUSIC Folder.

Then I added to iTunes Library from my backup HD Music folder (4 gb).

After importing, the iTunes window shows TWO of each song and it says 8 gb at bottom of window.
But the MUSIC folder shows only 4 gb of songs!

FYI:
The Shared folder has 0 kb of files.
There is a "Previous iTunes Library Jan, 2010" folder.
Consolidating Library didn't change anything.

Trying something in Terminal as the MacWorld article suggests is beyond me.
Can you offer some other ideas, please?

News:

Author Topic: Can't find iTunes music (Read 13225 times)