WARNING -- USING "REMOTE" APP DELETED MY MUSIC

[SteveChicago]

Inexplicably, 3 albums have somehow been 'deleted' from my two external hard drives. I've been using iTunes + the Remote app. Suddenly, while using Remote on my iPhone, I noticed that 2 of those albums were not able to be found and that the artwork attached to them had disappeared. I found the 3rd album missing today.

 

If anyone has an explanation or a solution, please advise.

 

Thank you!

 

PS, I have "ejected" my second back up external to ensure that any further "deletions" from the primary will not likewise disappear from the secondary.

 

Q

 

[SteveChicago]

IT HAPPENED AGAIN. WHEN I USED THE "REMOTE" APP I GOT AN ERROR MESSAGE. THE ALBUM I WAS TRYING TO PLAY "DELETED" FROM MY EXTERNALS AND ITUNES. I HAVE NO EXPLANATION FOR THIS, BUT PLEASE BEWARE.

 

I ASKED APPLE AND RESEARCHED THIS QUESTION ON LINE. THERE /APPEARS/ TO BE NO WAY THAT REMOTE CAN DELETE FILES; HOWEVER, SOMEHOW THIS HAS HAPPENED.

 

HOPE THIS HELPS.

 

STEVE

 

[mwheelerk]

What is the ‘error message’ and is that message on the iPod/iPhone/iPad you are using the remote App on or is it within iTunes itself?

 

[Paul R]

Have you, by any chance, used that Mini for browsing the internet? And if so, you didn't fall for the Malware trojan that is trying to make the rounds this weekend did you?

 

Hopefully not!

 

DO:

Check the drive to see if the music physically still exists on it.

 

DO NOT:

Plug your backup drive back in until you figure out what is happening.

 

 

 

[SteveChicago]

1. The error message was basically "an error occurred check your ---" (I don't specifically recall and I don't want to try again and lose another album)

 

2. I do use the Mini for Internet, but only to access music, artwork, etc. I have not seen any malware nor have I accepted any "offers", etc.

 

3. Yes, I have disconnected the second external

 

4. The images of the missing albums appear (without artwork) in the iTunes library, as do the names of all tracks. However, I get an ! when I try to play a song.

 

5. Interestingly, when I re-ripped one of the albums iTunes asked whether I wished to replace the existing album ...

 

[SteveChicago]

PS, the error message occurs on the iPhone ... not on the computer screen

 

[mwheelerk]

Do the songs still show as listed in the iTunes library but appear with some small symbol next to them? Do you have ‘Keep iTunes Media Folder Organized’ selected in Preferences>Advance? The songs/albums that are missing have they recently been added to your library?

 

Select one of the missing songs in Itunes and Get Info. Under the Summary tab at the bottom it will show ‘Where’. Select another song that is not ‘missing’ and do the same thing. Is there a difference in the paths described?

 

Final thought is to check under iTunes>Preferences>Advance and verify the iTunes Media Folder location. Also what version of iTunes are you working with?

 

[SteveChicago]

1. The missing songs have an "!" next to them when I try to play them

 

2. Yes, the "keep organized" is ON

 

3. Get Info: a. with missing songs it says "cannot locate" and asks me if I want to locate them. when I try to locate they cannot be found. They are not on the Mini HD, nor on either external

 

4. Get Info: b. Non-missing songs are located on the Glyph external, where they should be

 

5. iTunes folder location is: /music/iTunes/iTunes Media

 

6. iTunes 10.2.2(12) is the version

 

Thanks

 

[mwheelerk]

From item 5. above I take it your main library resides on you Mac Mini and not on an external hard drive? Otherwise I think your location would read something like Glyph (my external is named Music Library)/music/iTunes/iTunes Media. You may want to check the path in your Preferences to be sure it is pointed at your external hard drive (if that is where your library resides) rather than the interanl hard drive of the Mac Mini. You may want to refer to the tutorials on iLounge about organizing, maintaining and/or transferring your music library for other insights.

 

I am not sure this is the issue but I am tending to think that someone your path has changed (and it has happened to me in the past) and you need to verify the correct path.

 

Good Luck

 

[ted_b]

were located on a drive you unplugged at one time and iTunes never found another place (like its default) to put them before they went away. However, I would not blame the remote app...its just a GUI. The alarm/shouting nature of this thread's title seems a bit over the top.

 

[SteveChicago]

Thanks again. I checked the path again. You are correct that /somehow/ the path changed. I changed the path back to the Glyph and updated.

 

The albums that were erased have not returned. I will have to re-rip them.

 

I have no idea how the path got changed (no one physically changed the path). I surmise that Remote somehow caused the path to change, but I cannot say for sure.

 

Q

 

[SteveChicago]

The only music that disappeared were albums I selected in "Remote" ... no music was deleted when I operated things at the work station.

 

Therefore, I believe /something/ with the Remote caused this problem.

 

Steve

 

[ted_b]

missing until/unless you request it. Remote app is one way to request it. So unless you are telling us that the iTunes native interface via the workstation actually found and played your same albums that were missing via the remote app, that it is not exactly a scientific method to assume its your remote app. I could be wrong, but it feels like you are shooting the messenger.

 

Us CA users are big remote app fans, so if you do, in fact, isolate and confirm that it is indeed the remote app that is deleting your iTunes songs then it would be a big discovery and we'd be indebted...so don't get me wrong.

 

My recommendation is to visually check your itunes library via the iTunes native GUI and a highlighted "get info" or other large library search. Exclamation points should show up where it attempts to find songs that are not where they are supposed to be.

 

[Paul R]

The albums that disappeared in REMOTE would most likely have disappeared if you had selected them to play from the console as well.

 

Find one of the missing albums, and select Get Info on it. Check the path for the music file, and see if it is correct. The chances are that the album will not be where the database thinks it is, and iTunes will offer to let you browse and find it.

 

I'm pretty sure that MWheelerk pegged that in his earlier comments.

 

-Paul

 

 

[gcorley]

I don't know if this is the case, but ...

 

iTunes automatically changes the Library location to default when it can't find the actual Library - this has happened to me a couple of times in the past year due to quirks in my external HD behavior. Not sure if the Remote app is involved ...

 

Good luck!

 

Geoffrey

 

 

[SteveChicago]

... I too enjoyed Remote which worked perfectly for a while. Suddenly, as I said, I started getting "error" messages on the iPhone/Remote, which led me back to the work station where I noticed that albums I had tried to select with Remote were gone. I agree it seems unlikely that Remote can "delete" files, but ???

 

All I can say is that the path did not change and no music disappeared until after I started using Remote and the "error" messages began to appear.

 

I am not a computer guru, so this is all trial and error. To be safe, however, I posted this "alarm" and I've discontinued using Remote until someone figures this out.

 

It's a shame because I /do/ like the convenience of Remote.

 

 

 

[SteveChicago]

... just to be clear, no albums have ever disappeared on me when I have used iTunes from the work station; only while using Remote.

 

 

[Paul R]

However, if they really disappeared, they are also gone on the console.

 

It is also far more likely something happened on the server to change the path for these albums - for example, iTunes moved them around.

 

Did you check on the computer to see if the path for a missing track was correct?

 

-Paul

 

P.S. We have two or three people in REMOTE here all the time, and have never had a song lost from remote. Have seen what you describe when the metadata for a file is changed - such as the play count being updated. It was not caused by remote though.

Also have seen that when I allowed J. River to access an iTunes library.

 

[SteveChicago]

... when I checked the path after music disappeared the path had changed away from the Glyph external (where it was originally) to iTunes music or whatever. I changed it back.

 

Again, no one manually changed anything on the console before I discovered the change referred to above.

 

[SteveChicago]

... yes, the albums and artwork are gone from the console and both externals (although the "ghost" images remain)and when I re-ripped a CD it asked me if I wanted to "replace" the existing album, which I did ...

 

Again, Remote may not be the problem -- I don't know.

 

How is metadata for a file changed? Perhaps that's a clue...

 

[Paul R]

I know how irritating it can be if a digital file just disappears.

 

It could have been remote, I'm just trying to find a mechanism for it to have happened.

 

The most common mechanism I know of for files to appear with an off little Glyph is when the file location has changed in some way.

 

The trouble starts when you try to access a track that has moved - iTunes will update the database to display with a glyph. That's the same whether you access it from the console, the remote application, a remote desktop, or any kind of access.

 

Accessing a track to play it will update the play count in the database, no matter where you access it from. If the file has been moved, you get the same result.

 

Right click on a missing track, and select Get Info. What iTunes thinks the path for the missing track is will be displayed. Just double check that the file path is what you think it should be.

 

-Paul

 

 

[SteveChicago]

... it's happened again! This time I was playing an album, shut everything down, rebooted just to see if by chance any "missing" albums might resurface, and another album now has "!" (explanation points) and cannot be located on the Mini HD or the external.

 

This is very messed up!

 

If anyone has any suggestions, I'd greatly appreciate it.

 

Thanks.

 

 

 

[new_media]

I would run Disk Utility to make sure the external drive doesn't have bad sectors or a corrupted directory.

 

[agentsmith]

I have had albums disappearing on me but since I have long accepted that both iTunes and I are brain dead I never thought too much about it and just re-ripped and moved on.

 

I do use iphone remote occasionally so I am curious to experiment with the theory that it is caused by remote. Will report back if I find anything.

 

[Paul R]

Well, this seems to be a big problem that is not restricted to hear. I put in a trouble ticket on it with Apple, but the best I can say right now is that it appears related to playlists in some way. Also, it seems that when it happens, the files still are physically on the disk, but the database resets to a network share of localhost:///.

 

Did you check a missing file with get info? If so, would you post the results please?

 

I have not lost any tracks that I can find identify myself, but I have over 30K tracks, so it will take a while to validate everything against backups. It is running now.