My friend’s iTunes is putting deselected songs on her new iPhone 6, while “!” appears in front of selected songs, indicating they can’t be found. When she goes back to iTunes on her computer, they are easily found. But otherwise, a box appears with the message "some of the songs in the itunes library were not copied to iPhone because they could not be found. As of the last I spoke to her, when clicking to find the song files, it is taking her to general music files, not the specific song files. Any suggestions for what she can do?
Since she installed iSyncr and tried to link iTunes to her new iPhone6, it caused the iTunes song files to
be inaccessable, as indicated by the “!”'s next to each song, not just the songs iSyncr transferred but seemingly the entire
file. Today she tried a system restore to the computer for before she installed iSyncr, which ended with the system restore attempt
being aborted, and when she went back to try again, the system points at which she could restore were both erased, including the
iSyncr point. What has iSyncr done to her computer, iTunes, and her system restore function?
So she did another attempt & this was the result in her words-
We installed iSyncr for our phone. It transfers 100 songs free. Then we got a new iPhone 6, so we updated iTunes. Once we tried syncing the music onto the new phone, we got a ton of exclamation points. Apparently the songs couldn’t be played because the files were missing. We got an error message that claimed there were 100 problems. This led us to believing it was iSyncr. There are issues with iSyncr causing this. But most of the library is like this. So we tried going into File/Add Folder to library/iTunes and it seemed like it was restoring the music. Only now the songs were doubled. Ok that’s a pain but we can at least erase one song, right? Wrong. Even though both doubled songs will play, when you delete one, the other is no longer found. Restoring it and deleting the other doesn’t work either.
What on earth is going on and what can we do to fix this? This is monstrous. And it seems to have corrupted all the previous library folders too!
If she has an iPhone why is she using iSyncr? Isn’t that for using iTunes with Android?
She got the iSyncr when she had an Android & it seems to have affected the iTunes, which is now acting up in interacting with her iPhone.
She had restored everything which did cause her iTunes & songs to come back, but with the “!” She had been deleting the extra songs & clicking Keep File but it’s pretty overwhelming which it’s affected 90% of her 3000 song library, especially since many songs seem to be missing files. She is starting to despair of ever finishing her task.
I see.
In that case, it sounds like she may have fucked up her iTunes Library.itl file. In the iTunes folder there should be a folder labeled “Previous iTunes Libraries.” Copy the last one she knows is good, if any. Delete “iTunes Library.itl” from main iTunes folder, then paste the copied one in, and delete the date from the file name. Re-open iTunes and it should restore the older information. If anything is missing, just drag the “iTunes Media” folder into the main iTunes window and it should restore anything missing.
If that doesn’t work, she may have to just delete “iTunes Library.itl” then add everything back by dragging the iTunes Media folder into the main iTunes window. Since everything is theoretically in the place it’s already supposed to be (make sure “Keep iTunes Media folder organized” is checked in the settings), everything should just pop up, after some processing by the program.
Normally I’d tell you to be careful because you can really fuck things up doing this, but it sounds like everything is already messed up so I wouldn’t worry about that. And 3000 songs is like nothing. I’ve got over 31,000 songs and I’ve fucked it up and successfully unfucked it many, many times.
Thank you! That is the clearest description of replacing the iTunes Library.itl file I’ve read. All the rest make it sound pretty dire.
You are very welcome. I actually had to fix mine just yesterday because my iTunes Library.itl file got damaged, somehow.
Note that this is all assuming she’s using the “Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to Library” checked in the Advanced Settings and she’s not got music files all over the place.
Is there a way for us to remove the songs in iTunes and transfer the music from her iPod, or else replace existing files with the songs in her iPod?
You can, but it can be tricky. You might want to consult Google or the Apple forums on this one; I don’t want to give you procedures that could wipe out everything.
There are articles indicating it is possible. But I share your reservations.
I also had this idea-
IF she looks in her Music folders on Windows, and they seem to be intact, if she could copy them to another folder,
delete the original folders,
uninstall & then install a fresh iTunes,
if that might work?
We’re just desperate in trying to fix what she does have & find what she thinks may be 2000 songs that are missing.
To update, she took four hours & deleted all the duplicates.
She went to the Boost store where she got it. She recalls the man talked about
“settings in the phone that deal with wifi or needing to allow syncing or something…
But he said something about iCloud. If these settings aren’t right, it doesn’t work.”
So to summarize- can anyone fill in what settings on iPhone 6 might be keeping her from syncing iTunes?
Well, no sooner did I post that than she lets my know that the iTunes starts synching to her iPhone
BUT she’s missing a lot of music.
We need to figure out how to transfer the files back from Media Player, or her old iPod.