an iPod / iTunes problem I haven't seen before.... need help.

[Papa Deuce]

I was syncing the two last night. I have 657 songs on my main computer. A message came up saying that iTunes could not see all of my songs. Then I noticed that as it was loading stuff to my iPod it was showing only 212 songs being transferred. Any ideas?

 

[EthansMom]

Were all of the songs downloaded directly onto THAT computer from Itunes?

We have two computers and I seem to remember DH having a similar problem when he transferred songs from Itunes on one computer to Itunes on the other computer. My recollection is that DH found a way to get Itunes to "share" a song, but then one day all songs that were not originally downloaded onto that computer just disappeared.

Which makes sense from a piracy standpoint since otherwise everyone would just be transferring their song files to their friends' computers willy-nilly. But it was a real pain when DH and I both download songs and don't make much distinction between which computer we're using when we download them. Ironically, this wouldn't be a problem if we had downloaded all of the songs to just one computer in the first place. DH's question was, "What happens if your computer goes dead one day? Do all of your songs that you've purchased just disappear?"

 

[Aisling]

I can't help, but I'm hoping someone can. I'm always having trouble with my ipod, so I want to learn as much as possible about troubleshooting it.

 

[Ava83]

This happened to me-check in preferences to ensure that you have auto updates hit rather then manual. I think that is how I fixed mine.

 

[OK!]

DH's question was, "What happens if your computer goes dead one day? Do all of your songs that you've purchased just disappear?"

Unfortunately, yes. Or at least mine did when my computer ate itself in January.

As far as the OP's question, have you tried repairing/reinstalling iTunes? Whenever I start having trouble with iTunes and my iPod not playing nicely together, that's usually a good place to start. You might also check to make sure no changes have been made as to the location of the folder that iTunes imports music files from. I once tried to change mine and then, when I saw how many problems that caused, changed it back to exactly the same location, but it still ended up 8 kinds of screwed up and I pretty much had to start from scratch with reimporting nearly everything.

 

[Poohnatic]

Ethan's Mom, in answer to your question:

I had my hard drive crash in January. HP sent me a new hard drive, and I uploaded everything from the iPod onto my hard drive. However, I could no longer play the purchased songs, but they were there. It was as if they were locked. Since it was only two songs (Blotto, if you were wondering), I didn't sweat it.

A couple of weeks ago, I went onto iTunes to look for a song for a coworker and updated my info-voila, my songs were back. So, if he's purchased songs from iTunes, all he has to do is log back into his account to retrieve the songs.

Agree with a PP, if you don't have all of those songs loaded onto that computer, it won't upload them all. DH has learned that my iPod doesn't get hooked up to his iTunes.

Suzanne

 

[Demosthenes]

Open iTunes, go to advanced and look for a menu choice for Authorize Computer. If you only see it say "Deauthorize Computer," go ahead and select it. Then, go back to the same location and choose "Authorize Computer." This almost always takes care of the problem. Otherwise, there is a chance you have moved (or somehow your computer has moved) the music files from where they originally were. Look for a song that is on iTunes, but not your iPod. After you have found one, try to play the song in iTunes. If an ! appears next to it, it is because the path for the song is no longer valid. If you are using a Mac, open finder and enter the name of the song or part of the name and hit enter. It will find the song file. If you are using Windows (poor you) then click the start button, and select Search, and once again input the name of the song. Likely, all of the missing songs have been moved to a similar place (not likely the same place), but pay attention to the path, and look to see if more songs are there. After you determine where your songs are, go to iTunes and click File>Add Tunes to Library, then select all of the songs that need to be added to the library (you will have to input the path). To prevent this from happening in the future, open iTunes, click iTunes (File on a PC)>Preferences>Advanced and select "Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized."

The real pain in the neck is that you will need to delete the broken links from iTunes. It may be easier to delete all files from iTunes, and import everything over again. That is what I have done, but you do lose your playlists if you do this.

 

[Papa Deuce]

DH's question was, "What happens if your computer goes dead one day? Do all of your songs that you've purchased just disappear?"

Well, yes and no. First off, you should be burning backups of all your purchased songs. Second, "SOMETIMES" Apple will let you re-download them. My buddy was able to convince them to let him do it ONE TIME.

Do yourself a favor..... burn them to some type of disc. I burn mine to DVD as Data Files. I also make audio CDs of all my purchased songs. Then you can import them again.

 

[Papa Deuce]

Open iTunes, go to advanced and look for a menu choice for Authorize Computer. If you only see it say "Deauthorize Computer," go ahead and select it. Then, go back to the same location and choose "Authorize Computer." This almost always takes care of the problem. Otherwise, there is a chance you have moved (or somehow your computer has moved) the music files from where they originally were. Look for a song that is on iTunes, but not your iPod. After you have found one, try to play the song in iTunes. If an ! appears next to it, it is because the path for the song is no longer valid. If you are using a Mac, open finder and enter the name of the song or part of the name and hit enter. It will find the song file. If you are using Windows (poor you) then click the start button, and select Search, and once again input the name of the song. Likely, all of the missing songs have been moved to a similar place (not likely the same place), but pay attention to the path, and look to see if more songs are there. After you determine where your songs are, go to iTunes and click File>Add Tunes to Library, then select all of the songs that need to be added to the library (you will have to input the path). To prevent this from happening in the future, open iTunes, click iTunes (File on a PC)>Preferences>Advanced and select "Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized."

The real pain in the neck is that you will need to delete the broken links from iTunes. It may be easier to delete all files from iTunes, and import everything over again. That is what I have done, but you do lose your playlists if you do this.

Well, poor me, I guess. I have a Mac Laptop, but this is a PC desktop. I'll try your suggestions later tonight. Thanks!

 

[Demosthenes]

Well, poor me, I guess. I have a Mac Laptop, but this is a PC desktop. I'll try your suggestions later tonight. Thanks!

I know...it's a Windows world, and I own a couple PC's as well, but really, iPod and iTunes work much better on a Mac! I have had this exact problem a couple of times on a PC, but never a glitch on my Macs.

 

[lucyanna girl]

I have a program called Tune Transfer. It allows you to upload music from your Ipod to another computer.

Penny

 

[Papa Deuce]

Ok Demo..... your plan worked except for ONE song..... hmmmn! Thanks!

 

[Demosthenes]

Ok Demo..... your plan worked except for ONE song..... hmmmn! Thanks!

Good! What song is missing? I have a pretty extensive collection, maybe you can get lucky and I can e-mail it to you?