iTunes can't locate any of the songs to play, even though they are all there after crash
August 1, 2011 7:00 PM Subscribe
About two days ago my Windows 7 HP TouchSmart 610 locked up doing I don't remember what and I had to "hard" reboot it (turn off and back on without properly closing it). The main problem that has surfaced since then is my iTunes library can't "locate" any of my songs. If you are an iTunes user, you've probably seen this before when you try to play a certain song and an error window pops up saying "The song blah blah could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?" iTunes gurus I need your help! More follows...
All 700+ songs are now like this; I can't play a single one. I have done a system restore to a point several days ago, I have used chkdsk (or dskchk?), I have examined the library files with Explorer and everything seems intact and normal. All the files seem to be in place. The music library and cover art in iTunes appears as before. I bet there is something simple I can do in iTunes that will set this straight but I don't want to scre things up.
Can anyone offer advice? If it means anything, the only other problem I have encountered using Windows since then is that my Guest Account has disappeared (from the start screen) and I can't get it back. All the files are there, though.
Thank you!
All 700+ songs are now like this; I can't play a single one. I have done a system restore to a point several days ago, I have used chkdsk (or dskchk?), I have examined the library files with Explorer and everything seems intact and normal. All the files seem to be in place. The music library and cover art in iTunes appears as before. I bet there is something simple I can do in iTunes that will set this straight but I don't want to scre things up.
Can anyone offer advice? If it means anything, the only other problem I have encountered using Windows since then is that my Guest Account has disappeared (from the start screen) and I can't get it back. All the files are there, though.
Thank you!
Best answer: Well, I got it working. Somehow the location directory for the music was incorrrect in the iTunes settings. I don't know how it was changed but it did. Setting it to the correct directory where the music files are located fixed it.
To srboisvert, I don't have any other music player installed (I have purposely not initialized Windows Media Player on my new Windows 7 machine). Thank you.
posted by Rad_Boy at 9:37 AM on August 2, 2011
To srboisvert, I don't have any other music player installed (I have purposely not initialized Windows Media Player on my new Windows 7 machine). Thank you.
posted by Rad_Boy at 9:37 AM on August 2, 2011
iTunes is miserably bad software. It'll corrupt it's database, often for no reason at all.
It's almost as if Apple has deliberately written it poorly for use on Windows. But the Mac users get bitten by it's unreliability too (but seem less inclined to complain about what their demi-god Job has done to them).
One thing you can do to figure things out is export the database to an XML file. Miraculously Apple has not crippled or removed this function. You could then look at the XML export file to see what pathnames itunes thinks it should be using for the tracks. It's even possible to edit that file and re-import it into a fresh database and regain most of the same database values.
As for guest account, that may be related to other security settings. It's generally a bad idea to have a guest account enabled.
posted by wkearney99 at 9:08 AM on August 4, 2011
It's almost as if Apple has deliberately written it poorly for use on Windows. But the Mac users get bitten by it's unreliability too (but seem less inclined to complain about what their demi-god Job has done to them).
One thing you can do to figure things out is export the database to an XML file. Miraculously Apple has not crippled or removed this function. You could then look at the XML export file to see what pathnames itunes thinks it should be using for the tracks. It's even possible to edit that file and re-import it into a fresh database and regain most of the same database values.
As for guest account, that may be related to other security settings. It's generally a bad idea to have a guest account enabled.
posted by wkearney99 at 9:08 AM on August 4, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by srboisvert at 5:33 AM on August 2, 2011