[iTunes] Lost Contents of Playlists

[Allan Hise]

On Fri, 3 Dec 2004, William Hill wrote:

> This problem continues to drive me crazy. If I simply copy my entire
> iTunes folder from my back-up to my main drive, the songs are all
> listed in the Library, and the playlists are complete, but the links to
> all of the songs are broken and I get the "the original file could not
> be found" message. If I use the "Add to Library" command, and select
> the iTunes folder from my back-up, the songs are installed with the
> links intact, but the playlists don't show up. If I then copy the music
> library file, the playlists appear, but all of the links to the songs
> are broken. What the bleep?? Is there a way to repair the links to the
> songs without having to go through one by one? And yes, I tried the
> "Consolidate Library" command; this resulted in an additional,
> linked-up copy of each song in my library; if I got rid of the
> non-linked songs, my playlists went away also.

This is very strange... Because it should work.
Does your backup have the same directory structure as the iTunes library?
Are you restoring the backup to the same user, that is, with the same
short username?

Allan