[Simon]

I have been ripping quite a few of my old CDs lately. And suddenly iTunes starts losing the path to the ripped files even though the files are on my hard disk. I had to manually re-select the path to the proper files which was a real pain.

My question is if there's a way to tell iTunes to check all audio files and save their proper path at any given time. The 'solution' of deleting the files in iTunes' library and re-importing them is moot because by doing so you lose all the files' entries in any play lists you might have set up.

Some background on why iTunes lost track of the files: I had been ripping a ton of CDs when I realized that iTunes had put some CDs at wrong locations (like inside the compilation folder instead of in the artist's folder, or created two artist folders 'The Beatles' and 'Beatles', etc.). So I changed the MP3 tags of these files (put in the proper artist name or set the compilation flag to 'no', etc.) and then re-arranged the files in the Finder. I first tried it with one album, because I was afraid iTunes might lose track of the file if I change its location on the file system, but iTunes found the file perfectly fine. Also, if I selected the file and got its info window the path was correct. So I figured all's fine, iTunes found the moved files. Some days later after a restart I wanted to play some files and now iTunes suddenly couldn't find all the songs I had moved and I had to manually select them again.

I further investigated the problem and found what happens. When you move the files iTunes somehow still magically finds the file and it also shows the proper path in the info pane, but when you export your library file to an xml list and search for the entry of the file you will see that the path is actually still the old one. Once iTunes 'loses' track of the file and you reselect the file manually, the xml file will show the new path. So I figured iTunes has some way of caching the path info, but doesn't really write it to the library file. If you quit iTunes or reboot, the cache information is gone and iTunes will rely on the library file which will only show the old path. That one will be invalid and iTunes will lose track of the file.

So, finally, what I really want to know is how to get iTunes to update all its paths in the library file. How can you force iTunes to write the cached proper paths to the library file overwriting the older non valid paths? Is there any way of doing this? Other apps that could do this?

I'd really appreciate some help here, because manually finding and selecting hundreds of files is a real PITA.

[Big Mac]

Interesting problem. It's not exactly the solution you're looking for, but perhaps this will help: iTunes: How to recreate your iTunes Library. It describes recreating the Library from the automatically created iTunes Music Library.xml file. Maybe you can manually edit the paths in the xml file and then restore the Library. If you go this route, I strongly suggest making a backup of the xml file, in case the edit does not work properly and the new Library is corrupt.

[Simon]

Originally posted by Big Mac:
Interesting problem. It's not exactly the solution you're looking for, but perhaps this will help: iTunes: How to recreate your iTunes Library. It describes recreating the Library from the automatically created iTunes Music Library.xml file. Maybe you can manually edit the paths in the xml file and then restore the Library. If you go this route, I strongly suggest making a backup of the xml file, in case the edit does not work properly and the new Library is corrupt.

Thanks for that info Big Mac. I didn't know that KB article. Indeed I could change the xml file an then have iTunes recreate the iTunes Library. But I'm afraid the time it takes to manually change the paths of hundreds of files in the xml file is roughly comparable to the time it takes to manually reselect the file paths in iTunes dialogs.

There must be some way to get iTunes to dump its internal cache information into the Library file. After all, iTunes knows where the darn files are, it later on just forgets about it because it has lost its internal memory so to say.

BTW, don't you prefer a Whopper?

[Simon]

Judging by the few replies to my question, I'm wondering if nobody else has this problem. Assuming it's unique, I'd be interested to know why.

Do you guys never move files within ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes\ Music/ or is this a bug that has been fixed in newer version of iTunes (the machine I was using to rip had the iTunes version of 10.3.0 Panther)?

Why move those files? Well, what's the deal on the iPod. If I have one Beatles album in 'The Beatles' and another one in 'Beatles' and I have the iPod display my music by artist, will the two albums appear in the same listing? Probably not. What about if they are stored like Im mentioned before, but I changed their MP3 tags manually so both say 'The Beatles' - will they now both show up in the same listing regardless of their location in ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes\ Music/ ? If so, I should really stop fooling around in the Finder and just leave it to iTunes and the MP3 tags...

[TETENAL]

Originally posted by Simon:
Judging by the few replies to my question, I'm wondering if nobody else has this problem. Assuming it's unique, I'd be interested to know why.

Your problem is unique because iTunes automatically organizes the folder structure when you change the ID3 tags. It's a mystery to me why you had to do this manually.

[Simon]

Originally posted by TETENAL:
Your problem is unique because iTunes automatically organizes the folder structure when you change the ID3 tags. It's a mystery to me why you had to do this manually.

Really? That's what I first tried and it didn't work. Thanks for the tip.

Edit, ah shucks, there's a pref setting for that. I bet I just have to set it... (yes, I am stupid)