iTunes "forgetting" where albums are

[bdiament]

Hi all,

 

I'm continuing the big project of loading all my music into iTunes (probably close to a third of the way there now).

 

In between the periods of loading, when I'm just listening to what is already in iTunes' library (sometimes via Front Row just for fun), I've encountered a few instances where iTunes seems to have "forgotten" where an album is.

 

It asks me for the location and when I point it to the external drive where its library lives (currently connected via FireWire), all is okay.

 

Has anyone else experienced iTunes "forgetting" and asking for help locating a given song/album?

 

Any idea what the cause is? Or is this just a program bug?

 

Outside of this, I'm having great fun with the whole experience, particularly with Shuffle, where I've been re-discovering musical jewels in the collection.

 

Best regards,

Barry

www.soundkeeperrecordings.com

www.barrydiamentaudio.com

 

[Christopher]

Hi Barry,

 

Have you consolidated all of your music files with iTunes? If not, this can be accomplished with the following steps:

 

iTunes>open File in the iTunes menu bar>select Library>select Organize Library>then check the box that says Consolidate Files. (**edited and corrected**)

 

Hope this helps,

Chris

 

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Barry - My guess is iTunes could not find the music folder or the music in that folder when it started or the external drive was "sleeping" and iTunes couldn't wake it in in time. Manually directing iTunes to the location consists of browsing the drive. Thus you are certain the drive is responsive. I would try browsing the drive before playing any music or opening iTunes for a period of time to see if you can still recreate the issue. If not you know what the cause is.

 

[bdiament]

Hi Chris,

 

"Have you consolidated all of your music files with iTunes?..."

 

Yes, I've done this a while ago.

Is there any need to do it again?

 

Best regards,

Barry

www.soundkeeperrecordings.com

www.barrydiamentaudio.com

 

 

[bdiament]

Hi Chris,

 

"My guess is iTunes could not find the music folder or the music in that folder when it started or the external drive was "sleeping" and iTunes couldn't wake it in in time..."

 

The odd thing is, it has happened when I've already been playing music. Say, after a tune ends and I decide I want to hear something from another album. Most of the time, it works fine. But a few times in my experience so far (again, right after playing a song), when I go to another album it "forgets" the location.

 

I guess the good news (for me) is that if this is not something you have experienced, it isn't a bug in iTunes. I just have to figure out how to re-create it so I can avoid it in the future.

 

There have been one or two occasions when I've launched iTunes and then realized the external drive was not connected. I had to quit the program, connect the drive, wait a few seconds until the drive mounted and then re-launch iTunes. I wonder if the first launch (without the drive connected) is what caused the issue.

 

That's what made me wonder if anyone else has seen this.

 

Best regards,

Barry

www.soundkeeperrecordings.com

www.barrydiamentaudio.com

 

 

[Audio_ELF]

Barry

 

"There have been one or two occasions when I've launched iTunes and then realized the external drive was not connected. I had to quit the program, connect the drive, wait a few seconds until the drive mounted and then re-launch iTunes. I wonder if the first launch (without the drive connected) is what caused the issue."

 

If you start iTunes without the drive connected, it's possible / probable that the "iTunes media folder location" has been reset.

 

Eloise

 

[bdiament]

Hi Eloise,

 

When I check the internal hard drive's home/Music/iTunes folder, it *does* contain an iTunes Media folder, inside of which are Automatically Add to iTunes and Music Folders.

 

Now that I've moved my iTunes library to the external drive (where there are Automatically Add to iTunes and Music Folders), I'm wondering if the ones on the internal drive should still be there.

 

As I said, most of the time, iTunes has no trouble at all. When the issue has occurred, it has been right after playing another song (different album), so iTunes knows where the Library is - at least until just before the issue occurs.

 

Best regards,

Barry

www.soundkeeperrecordings.com

www.barrydiamentaudio.com

 

[bdiament]

It would appear I'm not the only one experiencing this. I've seen quite a few posts on Apple's iTunes boards regarding exactly this issue. Seems it isn't new either.

 

Just yesterday, when replacing some cover art, I had to re-point iTunes to the library location for a number of albums.

 

Still trying to find a pattern here. If there is one.

(For example, I don't recall having to re-point the same album twice. Yet.)

 

Best regards,

Barry

www.soundkeeperrecordings.com

www.barrydiamentaudio.com

 

[Old kid]

After downloading the most recent up date ,I tunes lost all Audio. Took a while to find it.

 

[rudyy]

Barry, I've had this happen to me also, and my external hard drive holding all of my AIFF files has never be unmounted from my iMac.

As long as I let iTunes play in shuffle mode, it never hesitates, but once in awhile if I choose a song, it sometimes can't find it.

 

Not only that, but when I run across a song that was ripped from a poorly needle dropped effort, I will delete all of the files from that CD on the EHDD, yet iTunes doesn't know they've been deleted from the EHDD and continues to list them in the iTunes library, no matter if I've selected iTunes to keep the library organized or not.

 

(I'm running the latest iTunes version on a late 2009 Intel iMac, with a Seagate Free Agent Go 500 gig USB.)