itunes songs cannot be used, original file not found?

[bones1515]

Hello. All my purchased music in my library has worked in the past and was also on my Ipod. I had synced it a while ago and I noticed only some of the recently played songs only appeared on the Ipod. I went to sync it again and when I tried to play a song from my itunes library it warned me that "the song '.....' could not be used because the original file could not be found. You would like to locate it?" All the songs still show in the library, but none of them can be used/played. Any ideas?

 

[bones1515]

By the way, I'm running OSX 10.6.6, Itunes 10.1.2 Thanks

 

[Kevriano]

Have you tried locating them?
Pick one of the songs in question and get the error message up, click yes when it asks you to locate it, and then browse for the song in Macintosh HD>User>Music>iTunes> iTunes Music.
If the original file is still in your iTunes library that will locate it.
Repeat for all offending items. Time consuming but the only way, short of emptying iTunes and dragging the library back into it.

 

[robduckyworth]

once you find it, a good idea would be to go to organise library - consolidate files, and that will prevent it from losing it again. another thing to do would be to have iTunes clean up your library, if you go into preferences - advanced, "keep itunes media organised" checked.

if you keep your library clean and organised they are much easier to find when itunes inevitably loses a file for some reason.

 

[bones1515]

Thanks for the replies. My whole library can't be used and I tried locating a few songs and couldn't find them. I think I will have to empty it and do it over again from my external drive. I will try to keep them organized next time, as well.

Thanks

What would cause the misplacing of all the original files for the entire library anyway?

 

[robduckyworth]

its usually the user moving the song by accident lol

 

[chas_m]

In this case it sounds like you're trying to manually manage the music files in (a location) instead of letting iTunes do it. As suggested above, just let iTunes do it so you don't have the issue.