Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

wacky4alanis

macrumors 6502a
Mar 18, 2009
555
79
I battled this for months - restoring from backup several times, only to find the problems would start again whenever I bought new music.

My final solution was to restore the phone as a new device. Syncing/purchasing has been amazingly solid ever since. Of course this may not work for everybody, but it worked for me. Yes it was a PITA, but not nearly as bad as what I HAD been going through.
 

tarkaTheRotter

macrumors newbie
Feb 15, 2015
1
0
The "transfer purchases" fixed worked for me

Just upgraded to a new Mac Mini from SL -> Yosemite. Stuck "waiting for changes to be applied" problem was solved by just:

File -> Devices -> Transfer all purchases

.. which copied a load of apps to my new Mac. How useful :0

The next sync worked ok. This is totally worth trying if you can avoid reinstalling everything or any of the other somewhat eclectic fixes suggested here :)

WHY IS THIS STILL NOT FIXED APPLE?!?!
 

ErikGrim

macrumors 603
Original poster
Jun 20, 2003
6,460
5,082
Brisbane, Australia
Yup, despite promised changes in the latest iTunes update this still has not been fixed. I had to do another nuke of my library just hours before a five hour paid DJ gig. Traktor was still analysing tracks at the end of the set. Great job Apple!
 

johannarg

macrumors member
Nov 2, 2014
36
1
Hello all! Yet another nasty surprise with iTunes. I use it on a Macbook Pro and the media and library files are stored on a NAS. This morning I opened iTunes and it's empty, has the default playlists and music from iCloud, the rest is gone. I tried replacing the iTunes Library.itl with an older version but it made no difference. Also went to Preferences to ensure the path had not changed, it hadn't, chose it again, asked if I wanted iTunes to rename and reorganize, said both yes and now in different instances, made no difference. Any suggestions? I know the music is there and even the library files, just don't know why they are not being invoked when opening iTunes. Happened to anyone else? What did you do? I use Song Sargeant and it did detect my whole library as orphaned, but if I add them via that software to iTunes, I believe muy playlists wil be lost. If nothing else works, guess I'll go for that. Thanks!
 

kimhill

macrumors member
Jun 12, 2002
48
9
NYC
Hard to say what's going on, but if you have a fairly recent backup of your iTunes library, the worst that should happen is that you see your songs and playlists, but the songs all have exclamation marks next to them. that you see your songs and playlists, but the songs all have exclamation marks next to them. If you're looking at an empty library, theoretically that means that iTunes hasn't found your library file.
 

johannarg

macrumors member
Nov 2, 2014
36
1
Thanks for your response! You mean a backup of my entire library or just the iTunes media files?
 

kimhill

macrumors member
Jun 12, 2002
48
9
NYC
I'm talking about the single .itl file. Doesn't sound like iTunes has found it, or it's somehow corrupted, so iTunes starts over with a new blank .itl file instead.

If your backup .itl file is valid, you should see everything. As I said, worst case if it can't find media, you should still see track titles with "!" next to each one.

I would make positive sure you have a good backup .itl file, and then start up iTunes while holding down the option key. This gives you a chance to manually point iTunes directly at the .itl file of your choice. If you don't see tracks & playlists then (albeit at least with "!"), then I'm stumped.
 

johannarg

macrumors member
Nov 2, 2014
36
1
Thanks for your feedback. I chose a .itl file from December last night and chose to have iTunes reorganize files (this option was checked usually). I had done it a few hours earlier to no avail, but last night it showed the "importing itunes music library.xml" and now it's still organizing files. Hopefully even though the itl is not a recent backup, I believe the xml is, so it might bring the library up-to-date. If not, it's surely better than an empty iTunes! As far as the dreaded exclamation points, Song Sargeant does a wonderful job at removing them and dealing with orphaned files, I recommend it. Cross fingers
 

techiejosh

macrumors newbie
Jul 14, 2010
26
21
Deleted the following folders:
  • Purchases
  • Downloads
  • iTunes Control>Sync>Media,
  • iTunes Control>Music

Deleted the following files from iTunes Control>iTunes:
  • MediaLibrary.sqlitedb
  • MediaLibrary.sqlitedb-shm
  • MediaLibrary.sqlitedb-wal
I'm tech savvy but I completely forgot about this. Music is now syncing as it should. Thank you!
 
  • Like
Reactions: ErikGrim
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.