iTunes wants to refind my music?

corblimey

Whenever I start up iTunes, I get a dialog box:

"Welcome to iTunes. Based on your answers to a few brief questions, this assistant will configure iTunes....

To get started click the Next button."

When I click Next, the next screen says "Find Music Files" which implies to me that it's starting from scratch, and I really don't want to lose everything in my iTunes. So I click Cancel and everything is as was. But this dialog box pops up every time I start iTunes.

Any google searches have simply found people who were doing this from scratch. Nothing has changed on my machine, although I think I updated iTunes a couple weeks ago (is that possible?) and it probably started happening around the next time I rebooted.

whiterebel

It sounds like the iTunes preferences file or the iTunes library file is corrupted. Seeing as you are cancelling, this message will keep coming up all the time.

MACHEAD

You need to back up your music library asap. It's possible that iTunes will simply search your hard drive and reorganise the library so that the 'path' to each file is recorded in the iTunes library database, and no actuall changes will be applied. But just to be on the safe side, I'd make a back up of your library.
If your machine has a DVD burner, iTunes has a utility to back up all your songs on to a set of archive DVD's. If not it would take (depending on the size of your library) loads of CD-R's, so it may be easier to back up on to an external HDD.

Good luck.

corblimey

MACHEAD wrote: »

You need to back up your music library asap. It's possible that iTunes will simply search your hard drive and reorganise the library so that the 'path' to each file is recorded in the iTunes library database, and no actuall changes will be applied. But just to be on the safe side, I'd make a back up of your library.
If your machine has a DVD burner, iTunes has a utility to back up all your songs on to a set of archive DVD's. If not it would take (depending on the size of your library) loads of CD-R's, so it may be easier to back up on to an external HDD.

Good luck.

Are you suggesting that I back up my music library and then let iTunes have its nasty way? Or are you saying that my library is about to go pfft? It's not just music, it's music and podcasts and apps and movies and contacts and photos and calendars.

MACHEAD

Hello corblimey!
No your library isn't necessarily going to go pfft! but it would be prudent to make a back up in any case. Of course if you have a time machine b/u then this is redundant cos all your stuff will be safely tucked away in there. Personally I have little experience of anything other than music in my iTunes library, so I know the layout of the 'path' structure it uses for the music tracks.
Some time ago I moved my library to an external drive because the internal (only 40GB in those days) was filling up rapidly. Even now with a 250 GB drive I've kept it on the firewire, makes it handy to swap back and forth between the desktop and the notebook. Does any of your tracks have an exclaimation mark in front of them? I get this from time to time, and when I try tp play one of these tracks, I'll get a dialog box asking if I want to locate the file. Clicking yes simply takes you to the root folder and then navigate to the location of the music folder, find the 'missing' file, select it, click ok and viola, it's back where it should be.

corblimey

Machead, not really sure about the connection between iTunes wanting to apparently start from scratch and where I've stored my music. I've got a machine that's devoted to music and video, and so there's plenty of room and I'm not too worried about space at the moment. I also back up my iTunes folder on a weekly basis (music only, everything else is replaceable, if a little pita). But why is iTunes asking me to browse for music every time I start it up?

Going by whiterebel's suggestion, I found this and while that reimported everything, it didn't resolve my issue with the dialog box coming up when I start iTunes.

whiterebel

corblimey wrote: »

Machead, not really sure about the connection between iTunes wanting to apparently start from scratch and where I've stored my music. I've got a machine that's devoted to music and video, and so there's plenty of room and I'm not too worried about space at the moment. I also back up my iTunes folder on a weekly basis (music only, everything else is replaceable, if a little pita). But why is iTunes asking me to browse for music every time I start it up?

Going by whiterebel's suggestion, I found this and while that reimported everything, it didn't resolve my issue with the dialog box coming up when I start iTunes.

Have you moved the iTunes folder recently? It sounds like the music isn't in the folder it expects it to be in.....If you open iTunes, and presumably hit cancel again, go into preferences>advanced it should show the path to the iTunes media file. Does this location look right to you? i.e. if you go there, is this where all your music folders are?

corblimey

whiterebel wrote: »

Have you moved the iTunes folder recently? It sounds like the music isn't in the folder it expects it to be in.....If you open iTunes, and presumably hit cancel again, go into preferences>advanced it should show the path to the iTunes media file. Does this location look right to you? i.e. if you go there, is this where all your music folders are?

Nope, no recent changes (apart from the suspected iTunes upgrade). Music appears to be intact, the folder is there, and there are no warning symbols on any of the music files in iTunes. I've not tried everything, but a random spot check didn't reveal any problems.

Edit: I bit the bullet and went through the setup wizard, deselecting all options I could. On restart, iTunes appears to have got straight in, so maybe it's overwritten a corrupt pref file or something, I dunno.