Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

Scott · Dec 28, 2005, 04:55 PM

My sister was using her ipod and today discovered that almost all her files have gone missing in a way: she can see their names but when she clicks on them she gets exclamation marks instead of the ))) that you usually get (plus the music). What seems truly foreboding is that she used to be using 1.5 gigs or so out of 2 gigs; it's now down to about .25gigs (250 megs) out of 2 gigs. She was using Itunes 5.0- it seems that Itunes 5.0 has erased files from previous users as well, so perhaps that is indeed the problem. If anyone has any hopeful idea as to how to get the files working again (if they're just somehow misplaced), it would be most appreciated.

icruise · Dec 28, 2005, 07:12 PM

The music is gone from the iPod or from iTunes? Or both? Are you on a Mac or PC?

Scott · Dec 28, 2005, 08:40 PM

Originally Posted by Icruise

The music is gone from the iPod or from iTunes? Or both? Are you on a Mac or PC?

You can still see all the titles in iPod and iTunes, but you can't play most of them in either. I wouldn't be surprised if it's some kind of malicious virus. On one of my computers, I can't hear any song coming out of iTunes at all (but I can hear it from a webpage say).

jasong · Dec 28, 2005, 09:51 PM

Um . . . why would you quote the question and not post the answer? Although since you assume it's a virus you are likely on a PC.

I've seen iTunes "lose" files before. The file is actually fine and in the same place as usual on your hard drive, you just need to re-associate it by selecting the file in iTunes and getting info on it. When you do that it will complain that it can't find the file and ask you to locate it. Then just browse to the file and it will be re-associated. Of course if this is the case for most all your files, you should probably just delete your iTunes Library file and reimport your music.

Scott · Dec 28, 2005, 10:39 PM

My apologies for not seeing the question about mac or pc... I was definitely not fully with it when I answered it :-p. I'm actually on a Mac, but Macs definitely get viruses too, I've had them and for all I know I still have them (Safari does a weird thing where it's always asking for my system password, for instance and I've had some weird goings on as well).

Originally Posted by jasong

I've seen iTunes "lose" files before. The file is actually fine and in the same place as usual on your hard drive, you just need to re-associate it by selecting the file in iTunes and getting info on it. When you do that it will complain that it can't find the file and ask you to locate it. Then just browse to the file and it will be re-associated. Of course if this is the case for most all your files, you should probably just delete your iTunes Library file and reimport your music.

I tried getting info on it, and that worked fine. And yet the file doesn't play either on the computer or on the ipod. Thanks for trying though.

Mastrap · Dec 28, 2005, 10:51 PM

Originally Posted by Scott

but Macs definitely get viruses too, I've had them and for all I know I still have them (Safari does a weird thing where it's always asking for my system password, for instance and I've had some weird goings on as well).

No, they don't. There are currently no known viruses for OSX that could cause behaviour such as described by you.

If your system is acting up you might want to repair permissions and delete first caches, then preferences. If that doesn't work I personally tend to nuke and pave rather than trying to find a fix.

Randman · Dec 28, 2005, 11:03 PM

Sounds like she hooked it up to another computer and it tried to sync.

icruise · Dec 28, 2005, 11:49 PM

Anyone who says they have had a virus on a Mac (aside from a Microsoft word macro virus, which is sort of platform independent) is just wrong. A lot of people attribute any kind of strange behavior to a virus.

ghporter · Dec 29, 2005, 07:23 AM

There are no current Mac viruses in the wild. That does NOT mean that there never will be, but today there are none. With that said, I think an iTunes-damaging virus would be one of the most likely ways the bad guys would try to mess with us.

However, I think the issue is that the drive with the iTunes library has become corrupt. I'd use a tool like Disk Repair (or Disk Warrior) to check that disk.

Scott · Dec 29, 2005, 02:27 PM

Thanks everyone. I'm very surprised that Mac OSX doesn't have any viruses. I know I've seen some in Safari (Norton Antivirus would bring them up, and say if it deleted it or quarantined it), but I guess what you guys are saying is that that, like the Microsoft Word macro viruses, is 'platform independent'. As to ghporter's suggestion of checking the disk, the problem is not really on a disk; it had the same problem on both computers -plus- it has the same problem alone- the Ipod won't play more then one song apparently.

I'm interested in Randman's explanation- my sister -did- switch computers and maybe somehow it tried to sync. Does that mean that she clicked on some 'sync' menu option? She never mentioned anything like this but maybe she did it.

Finally, as ghporter implied, even if there have been no proven cases of Mac OSX viruses, it doesn't mean that they don't exist, just that they're rare; but I guess the probability is pretty low. I had a bunch of video files in one folder alone suddenly become corrupt as well, but I concede that perhaps there's some logical non viral explanation to that too.

icruise · Dec 29, 2005, 02:42 PM

Originally Posted by Scott

I know I've seen some in Safari (Norton Antivirus would bring them up, and say if it deleted it or quarantined it), but I guess what you guys are saying is that that, like the Microsoft Word macro viruses, is 'platform independent'.

Well, I don't know for sure what you're talking about, but it's possible that it was picking up things that were infected with *windows* viruses. These can't hurt your Mac, but if you were to send them on to someone using windows, they could get infected.

Finally, as ghporter implied, even if there have been no proven cases of Mac OSX viruses, it doesn't mean that they don't exist, just that they're rare.

Well, actually that's not what it means at all. It would be big news if there were a Mac OS X virus discovered, trust me. There was even someone who gave a reward to anyone who could prove that there was such a virus in existence (luckily he worded it in such a way as to make it impossible for someone to create a virus specifically for the purpose of getting the money). What ghporter is saying, and correctly, is that Mac OS X is not immune to viruses in theory, and that as Mac users we should not fall prey to the illusion that we don't have to be careful about what files we download or what programs we run. But at the moment, the fact is that there aren't any viruses for the Mac.

ghporter · Dec 29, 2005, 02:46 PM

Originally Posted by Icruise

What ghporter is saying, and correctly, is that Mac OS X is not immune to viruses in theory, and that as Mac users we should not fall prey to the illusion that we don't have to be careful about what files we download or what programs we run. But at the moment, the fact is that there aren't any viruses for the Mac.

PRECISELY!!!