iTunes Music Folder (Invisible)?

Over the last couple of days my "iTunes Music" folder has had no icon. It still has a drop down arrow but when it is clicked the folder shows no contents. The folder says it has zero Kb worth of data in its contents. However, when I play the music in iTunes it still works. And when I hit the "show song in finder" button in iTunes it brings me to the iTunes music folder only that artists music has been added to the folder. I tried going through all of my artists and bringing them back in to the folder that way but when I restarted my computer the folder went back to empty. I should mention that I have this folder on an external hard drive, however I don't think that is the problem because the one other person I could find who had this problem had the folder on their Mac HD. I'm beginning to think its just a flaw with the new iTunes. Anyone got any suggestions?

My guess is that you have two "iTunes Music" folders, one on your external hard drive and one on your mac. You can see which folder is being used by opening your iTunes preferences and clicking on the Advanced tab. It should say "iTunes Music folder location" with a folder path listed below. This is the location that iTunes copies all of your music to. If you want to change it, click the button on the right and specify the folder where you want your music stored. Beware of labeling your music folders with the same name, however, since you will not be able to tell which is where or being used by iTunes. I would recommend labeling your external hard drive folder with something that indicates it's on the external as opposed to your mac's hard drive. Also, if you store your music on your external hard drive and later disconnect it from your mac, you won't be able to play your music. You'll have to reconnect the drive to do so again. I've considered keeping my music collection on an external hard drive as it has grown bigger, but I listen to my music enough when I don't have the hard drive available that I decided against it.

-Nik