[iTunes] Corruption of iTunes Library? Vs. problem with iPod itself?

[Scott Replogle]

Here's my take on this frustrating problem from my own experience with  
upgrading the OS and having to move song files.

The exclamation point means that the iTunes library can't find where  
the audio file is located. It knows the tune belongs in the library  
and in the playlist but can't find it to play or to sync it with an  
iPod. If you try to play the playlist containing such songs it will  
skip them, the same thing it does when you try to sync them.

If you double click on a song with an exclamation point it should ask  
you if you want to locate it and will then allow you to go through  
your audio files to find the one that should be connected to the song  
in the playlist. If you select the song and hit the "open" button, the  
song file will be reconnected to the song in the iTunes library/ 
playlist and start playing.

If it doesn't work that way then I would agree that the library is  
corrupted and probably can't be repaired without rebuilding everything.

Doug Adams has an iTunes applescript for this problem of orphaned or  
"dead" song files. It's called Bring Out Yer Dead. You can find it here:
http://dougscripts.com/itunes/index.php
by searching for Bring Out Yer Dead (the title is a Monty Python  
reference in case you were wondering). There are some other scripts  
for the same thing that I haven't tried.
I asked Doug Adams if this could be done in bulk or for a script that  
would fix the entire library but he said he didn't think that would be  
possible. It has to be done one at a time.

If your problem is orphaned song files, creating a new playlist will  
not solve it as you can't add a song with an exclamation point to a  
playlist. You could import or drag all the song files from wherever  
they're located into iTunes and they will then show up (assuming the  
library isn't corrupted) but you will have to then delete the songs  
with exclamation points and replace them in each playlist. This is not  
a problem for a few hundred songs but it's a royal pain if you have  
have tens of thousands of songs and hundreds of playlists.

Scott Replogle
Dr. Reptile
http://web.mac.com/drreptile/

On Feb 6, 2008, at 6:43 PM, Carol F. Bruml wrote:

> Quick question: What does the exclamation point that appears after  
> some, but
> not all, of the tune numbers in my iTunes Library mean? Does it  
> indicate
> that the album artwork has been downloaded, or does it indicate  
> something
> else, altogether?
>
> And then, the complicated question(s): I am now having problems with a
> second iPod (80 Gig iPod Video), which says it has synched, but  
> which is
> missing somewhere near half the tunes in each playlist that I have  
> checked,
> so far. Why would this happen?
>
> It has been suggested that there is corruption in my iTunes Library  
> database
> - or a problem with the iPod itself. The software and preferences are
> brand-freshly installed. If there is corruption in the Library  
> itself, how
> does one find and repair that sort of problem (which I have never  
> heard of
> before)?
>
> Should I just try creating new playlists, on the assumption that  
> perhaps the
> lists are in some way damaged? Can I do that by dragging the  
> contents from
> one of the present ones to a new list, or do I have to start over by
> dragging the contents from the main Library file, which would be  
> MUCH more
> time-consuming?