Hi Mike, >On Oct 5, 2007, at 11:56 PM, michael babcock using a mac! wrote: > >> ok, so this is the third time in the past 2 days this has happened >> to me. I've ripped about 10ish cd's and all goes to plan. I >> shutdown my mac book and boot up again about an hour later. I am >> going threw the files, looking for something to listen to. (note, >> i'm going threw the files not in itunes, but in the music >> directory), and all is well. After i play a song, i close itunes, >> go to my documents folder and open another file (or get on the >> internet or something), the point is i move my self out of the >> music directory. I go back later on and there is no music >> directory. I launch itunes thinking it has been hidden and itunes >> states it does not have a library to access. I try to find the >> itunes library but there is no music directory.
There is normally a Music directory in the sidebar of finder. So when your problem shows up, under finder when you VO-keys arrow to the sidebar and interact with the list, you no longer hear "Music selected folder" if you arrow down from your home directory past Applications? If you use Spotlight to search for one of the songs you ripped and played earlier under iTunes can you find it? I haven't heard of any problems like the one you report. You didn't try to delete a folder named iTunes under the Music directory, did you? <Long description follows of iTunes database files; skip if not interested in technical details.> When iTunes is first launched, the default location for its files is in a folder named "iTunes" that is located under the Music directory. Music that is added to iTunes gets added to a folder named "iTunes Music" in that directory. Two key files get created: an iTunes Library file and an iTunes Music Library.xml file. These two files contain the database information for iTunes with all the tag information about artist, album, song names, playlists, play counts, ratings, etc. Actually, the first file is tthe one that iTunes itself uses, and it's a binary file that you can't read. The second (.xml) file is a version of the binary file (a subset of the information, really) that third party applications can work with -- for example, to get information about tracks or to modify keywords and tags. When you burn a data disc or mp cd under iTunes you copy the information for your tracks and playlist from this file onto the disc. (If you want to view the kind of information that's in this file, stick in an mp3 or data cd/dvd you've burned with iTunes and check its contents with Finder; there should be a ContentsDB.xml file on the disc that you can examine with TextEdit.) iTunes checks for these folders and files when it starts up. If you delete these folders and files or rename them or move them to a different location, iTunes won't be able to "find" your music. It will assume that it needs to create a new library for you and create the folders and files with blank information. The database files also contain pointers to where your music is stored on disc. if you were to start up iTunes and start playing your music (or if you browsed your music directory with finder and used command+o to "open" music that is set to play with iTunes as the default app) this information should stay available as long as iTunes is up. However, if you moved or deleted these files, then shut down your system and started up iTunes again, it wouldn't be able to find your music or the previous tagging, playlists, rating, etc. information. This is the closest thing that I can think of to what may have happened. You should be OK browsing your music with finder and opening selected tracks with command+o to get them playing in iTunes (although you can do most of this with the "Search Text Field" and combination of View options (customize your own by checking the information you want displayed; command+j to bring this up). You can also toggle on/off the browser menu with command+b. This gives you the option of filtering the selections displayed in the Songs Outline by Genre, Artist, and Album, assuming you have this information tagged. When enabled, you tab into the browser after the Search Text Field and before the Songs Outline, and you can select, for example, an artist. Then, the album listings in the next browser field will show you the different albums for that artist. The songs outline will have all the works by that artist. If you select a specific album in the browser, the songs otuline will display all the songs in that album. When you toggle the browser off (command+b), the songs outline will go back to displaying everything in your selected source library. And anything that you type in your Search Text Field can also be used to modify what's displayed in the Songs Outlines in combination with the browser settings. The only thing I can think of that explains your symptons involves moving or deleting files. If you didnt' delete anything between boot ups, then I don't know what's going on. In particular, the files you ripped should still be somewhere on your disc. Failing that, the only explanation would be a corrupted disc sector, but it seems unlikely that ths would only affect your Music library. Try using iTunes for a while just making selections of what you play through iTunes and see whether you still have problems. This is still worrisome, because if you didn't delete or move any critical files you should be OK opening files from the Finder and playing them. HTH. Esther >> hi all; >> It does not happen but randomly, has any one had this problem >> before? Should i try to remove itunes (or can you even?) or should >> i do an entire format and re install? >> please do give me your advise. > >i also forgot to state that the music directory is not in the trash. >This is the first thing i thought of, thinking i some how removed the >directory not thinking of what i was doing. I checked it and it had >some other files i knew i sent to the trash, but aside from them, no >mp3 files or anything. > >
