On Mar 2, 2009, at 3:31 PM, yawg wrote: > Now every time I want to play a playlist in iTunes I have to tell > iTunes where to find every single tune.
Assuming you're using the default mode where in the Preferences>Advanced window the "Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized" is checked, then the easy solution is to go to your iTunes Music folder (the default location is: ~/Users/~user/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music. Within the iTunes folder there should be several files and folders. The important ones are Album Artwork and iTunes Music; don't mess with these manually unless you have to. You can safely dump the old files called "iTunes Library" or the Folder called "Previous iTunes Libraries"; these are the data bases that are screwed up and telling you to "find" each tune you already have. The problem is that each tune in the database has an "exact" pathway to the tune, and when you copied the files the path has changed somehow so that the path in the "iTunes Library" file doesn't match the new HD. To solve this, simply drag & drop the entire "iTunes Music" folder into either an open iTunes window or onto the iTunes icon in the dock. If you moved the old "iTunes Library" file to the trash beforehand, then when iTunes launches the library will be totally empty of tunes, but it will automatically regenerate the entire library pathways and populate the library without copying or moving anything (as long as you were using the "Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized" option). If you were NOT using the "Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized" then your music is located in "custom" locations wherever it happened to be when iTunes first played it, and if you moved it, it's officially "lost" to iTunes and you'd need to manually relocate it. When the "Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized" is used iTunes does "copy" the original files into the "iTunes Music" folder in separate folders for each artist unless the album is a "compilation" (meaning more than one artist for the album), in which case they are placed in the "Compilation Albums" folder and organized by album name instead of artist. Songs without artists are placed into the "Unknown Artist" folder, and the term "Unknown Album" is used for albums without names. It will take a while to reindex your entire iTunes Library. I recently reindexed a Library of 120+GB and it took over an hour, perhaps even two? Was letter perfect when done, but it must do several passes, one to index the path, one to index the art, one to establish playback volume and gapless playback. When done it should be perfect, but you can use the iTune>File>Show Duplicates to see if anything was duplicated (which can happen if you don't move the old "iTunes Library" file to the Trash first, although this isn't strictly necessary, but in my opinion you're asking for trouble when updating an already "known bad" library file. Good luck! --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed Low End Mac's G3-5 List, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list?hl=en Low End Mac RSS feed at feed://lowendmac.com/feed.xml -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
