# What the hell just happened with my music?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-just-happened-with-my-music/651485>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [February 27, 2013, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-just-happened-with-my-music/651485 "2013-02-27T02:52:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![interface2x](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@interface2x](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/interface2x)\
**Post date:** [February 27, 2013, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-just-happened-with-my-music/651485/1 "2013-02-27T02:52:10Z")

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Last night, I opened up iTunes on my computer to throw together a playlist and was met with something odd - all of my songs gone, all of my playlists deleted. WTF? I looked and all my folders full of mp3s were still there. So I recovered my playlists from a previous library file but even then I noticed that a lot of the files were listed as missing in iTunes.

So I re-added all the songs from my library into iTunes but now I’m noticing a lot of weird stuff. There are about 50 songs at the bottom with no artist, album information, or album artwork. On top of that, probably 20-30 albums have artist information but the track names, album name, and album artwork are missing. AND, on top of that, several albums have duplicated tracks.

Then I notice that it’s not just iTunes - the actual FILES changed in Windows. For instance, my folder for Depeche Mode’s ULTRA is there but now it’s empty. There is now a folder under Depeche Mode called “Unknown Album” that contains all the tracks from ULTRA. I also notice that some tracks are duplicated - there is now a file for “Words Don’t Mean a Thing” and also for “Words Don\_t Mean a Thing”.

Nothing on my computer has changed lately. I’m running Windows 7 and it may have applied a windows update recently, I don’t really remember.

Anybody have something like this happen before? Any idea what would have caused it?

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**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\
**Post date:** [February 27, 2013, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-just-happened-with-my-music/651485/2 "2013-02-27T04:54:17Z")

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Since this isn’t actually about music qua music, but rather digital files, moved from Cafe Society to IMHO.

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**Author:** ![CanvasShoes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/74df32/32.png) [@CanvasShoes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CanvasShoes)\
**Post date:** [February 27, 2013, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-just-happened-with-my-music/651485/3 "2013-02-27T05:08:17Z")

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I hate iTunes. I haven’t had this happen mysteriously without my knowledge, as happened to you. But when I tried to move a bunch of music from an old iPod to a new one (most of them burned from CDs I owned), iTunes proprietary BS forced me to jump through hoops re: file type etc. just to get them on the new iPod. NOT a simple matter of simply copying my library from the old iPod to the new. NoooOOOOoooo. Apple’s OH so helpful answer? Oh iTunes has a way to rip your CDs. ARGH, yes, I know, that’s a LOT of hours of work, I have tons of them. That’s why I wanted to simply move that work (which I already performed over years by burning for an hour or two at a time) to the new iPod, not do it all over again… Grrrrrrrrrr

Sorry, all I have is sympathy, no real answer.