When I am in my itunes library, I will click on a song that has been in the library since I have had my iPod. I get this error message: "the song **** could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?"

Any idea what I need to do to get this junk fixed?

thanks....

Not to Jump on Otrfan boat, but I am also have that same issue with my Itunes/Ipod...and I also would like to know to fix it.

Thanks.

So there's an exclamation point next to the song - right? This means that the link is broken, as in the song is no longer where it originally was when you put it into itunes at the beginning. You can't unbreak the link, but you can find the song and re-put it into your itunes. and if you have an annoyingly LOT of these broken links, you should get rid of them...because they're annoying.

There's a twisted way to tdo that...you have to select ALL SONGS in your music library, and then (sorry my computer is broken so I can't pull it up to see) you 'get info' for ALL of these songs and change one of the columns that's not in use (you can put a number in it) to any number...sayy....'99'. Now, either the broken songs or the working songs will NOT retain the number...so you can click on the heading to that column and it will group all of the 'non-numbered' songs at the top and the '99' songs at the bottom...and then you can select all of those at once and delete.

::shrugs::

There's a better explanation somewhere on an ipod forum (I know because I followed it)...but you could always just delete all of your songs from your ipod and then dump your music folder back into it...

::sigh:: .... oh ipod...

how sad am I? I got a brand new 40GB ipod photo in May and haven't even listented to it once...

give it to me!!

The biggest cause of that is when you have iTunes configured so that it does *not* manage your library for you, and you delete some songs that aren't inside the iTunes Music folder.

You can prevent that in the future by:

1) In the Advanced menu, choose "Consolidate Library..."
This will take all the music that's spread around your hard drive and copy the stray files (the ones iTunes knows about and are in the Library, at least) into one folder on your comptuer.

2)In the Preferences, go to the Advanced tab. Check the "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" checkbox.
If you download a song to your desktop, then add it to iTunes, a copy of the file will be placed in the iTunes Music folder. That way, when you delete the file on your desktop, iTunes will still have the song.

I find that what's best is to trust iTunes entirely with my music. As such, I also check the "Keep iTunes Music folder organized" checkbox. That way, when I rename a song, the file gets renamed. If something has a mis-spelled album title, I can correct it, and the folder it's in gets corrected too. Basically I just have to make sure iTunes has something right, and I know the file is in a predictable place based on the attributes of the song.

Of course, this requires a good amount of faith that iTunes won't do something crazy liek delete all yoru songs. It's a scary proposition. Just the same, I've been using iTunes since it was released for Windows and trusting it to keep my files around, and it hasn't let me down yet. I don't have a small library, either - 5100 songs, 829 albums, 23 GB - and nothing has been lost.

So...I was certain...fairly certain, that previously when I downloaded songs off of iTunes they were in mp3 format and put into my My Music folder (or...just not in the itunes one)...but then I've noticed that recent downloads have the M4p format....which doesn't play in anything but itunes....(I know that I can burn a disk in itunes and rip it in musicmatch (for example) to mp3...but that's a pain in the a$$).

Am I crazy?
Does anyone know of easier ways to get the file into mp3? I mean, I PURCHASED it...it should be mine to do whatever I want to do with it (personal use, anyway).
wtf?

I've installed this & used it occasionally : http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/13048

For everyone with a color screen ipod: How do you make "CD art" for the recordings that don't have any stored with them on itunes?

possible or not?

You could probably download artwork off the internets. Amazon.com usually has decent scans of most mainstream album covers.

ummmm

i lost my iTunes library somehow.
i think i moved the file into a different folder. i looked up the support on the apple site, and it told me how to restore my "previous iTunes library"...

i THOUGHT i put it back in the right spot, but it's still not showing up.

any ideas on what i can do to get it back??

Thanks, but what I'm asking is "how do I get it to show up on the screen when the song is playing?"

I can't seem to find it on apple.com or ipodlounge or in itunes. erk.

okay, so here's the deal. It's drag and drop. duh.

Wow. it really takes a long time to put album art on your albums--like 20-30 seconds per album if you highlight all the songs at once and then drag and drop...

is this too long or is it my machine? itunes has already crashed once while doing it...

I've a 1.6 pentium. That's not too ancient is it?

hmm. update. I've noticed that M4A files take way longer to add art to than MP3 files. For instance an album with 13 songs in M4A takes approx 1.5 mins to add the album art to.

One with the same number of songs in MP3 takes only two seconds. Wonder why?

to michelle's query: if you use winamp, there's a plugin on their site that allows it to play m4a files without a hitch. i had it before my drive died....

weird thing happened today on my way to work.
i wanted to listen to a specific album. i clicked on it, hit play, and then it proceeded to skip through songs 1-9, and it will only play song 10.

i tried getting it to work by going through "artist" -- still to no avail. i haven't been home yet to mess around with it.

i was thinking i'd take the songs off and then re-load them onto the ipod? has this ever happened to anyone else? i started playing 2 other albums, just to see if the first song would play, and it did. (and then i couldn't stop listening to "besides"...)

Kelly,
Yes. I think I just hooked up removed the album and reinstalled it. I don't recall that I had a problem after that. Don't know what caused it except be sure that the tracks are labled correctly. If for some reason they are all labeled identically (No track number or song) I think that might cause a problem.

A new ipod question (since this seems to be the thread):

How do I shuffle songs for just one song or just one playlist on my ipod?

Thanks.

Steve

New Ipod question...

I just bought a new computer and want to load my Ipod onto it so that I can synch it. However, during my most recent move I have lost the software installation discs for my Ipod. I downloaded all of the things that Ipod reccomended and new computer is not recognizing my ipod. Is there a way around this short of a reset?

Well, my second ipod died the same death as my first one, and both in only three years. Screen locks up and or it plays one song while displaying another. Sad... I should have a replacement ipod by the first of next week. ALWAYS buy the service plan...

Have you simply tried to reformat/reload it? (OK...not always 'simple'... but....)

sounds like the file system is corrupted, I bet a reload would correct it?

I had thought about trying to troubleshoot it, but at best, I'd have a "sometimes defective, discontinued, sketchy battery life left, ipod Photo," so I opted to have it replaced for free!

replaced for free is good.

relaoding, if your only choice is that... isnt hard though. No need to troubleshoot...just wipe it out, reload and go.

I still have my iPod photo too... 60G. I've had to reload it twice when it started acting flaky... otherwise its been well behaved.

How much is that service plan, good for a replacement ? Mine's gotta be around 3 yrs old....maybe older so I 'spect it'll be keeling over one of these days. I dropped it a few weeks ago & screwed up the display so it's *blind shuffle* these days. Just figured I use it like this until it dies

IIRC, it was an extra $99 at the time of purchase. It's already paid me back $400, so I'm pretty pleased so far...

Well, I've officially joined the dark side.



Bestbuy did right by me again today. I have to say, they are starting to become my favorite store. Maybe it's just me...

Anyway, through a strange and fortunate series of events, my 60 GB ipod photo has been miraculously upgraded to an 80 GB ipod video:



Comlete with a 60% brigher screen and up to 20 hours of battery life. I'll believe that when I see it!

Anyway, Bestbuy in fact does not suck, they rock, and I'm pretty happy with my new free upgrade.

Oh and yeah, I did buy the service plan again!