HELP!!!!!iTunes message what does it mean?

Tao81

Running Windows vista

I was updating itunes to the new version 8 it was transferring my itunes library over to the new programe when I got this message with a big yellow triangular warning sign! :eek: It reads:

The file "iTunes Library.itl" does not appear to be a valid iTunes library file. iTunes has attempted to recover your iTunes library and renamed this file to "iTunes Library (Damaged).itl" OK

How can my iTunes library not be valid??!!! :mad:
All the music I have in the library are WMA files that have been transferred to itunes which has converted them to MP3, no tracks bought from iTunes shop etc......wots goin' on?

If I click OK, which is my only option, what will happen to my music? Any ideas?

Tao81

Bump:o The damn thing is still waiting for me to click OK? But want to know what I'm dealing with first!:p

Tao81

Going by the lack of even a single reply - I assume no-one has had a similar problem or has any ideas how to fix this then?

After looking on google it would seem that as soon as I click OK and version 8 loads, once I open it up I can expect all of my music library to have disappeared!!!!:eek: It's took me ages to load and organise all my music!!!! :mad:

almillar

You waited 15 minutes for a reply? I know this place is busy, but that's optimistic! Your music will be fine, but iTunes will have to rebuild it's info on it. There is a backup somewhere is there not? Not much choice apart from clicking OK. iTunes may or may not be empty, but your files won't be deleted, iTunes will just forget where they are. Close iTunes. Goto my music, iTunes. Is there an old itunes library.itl file in there? How old is it? Right click, properties, last modified. This will show how out of date the backup is. rename it to itunes library.itl. It might be a wee bit out of date, but hopefully when you start iTunes your library will appear again.
I've never personally had to do this and it's all theory, but if your Library's empty, you've not much to lose. Other option, of course, is just to let it satrt with the empty library, and goto file, add, then point to the iTunes Music folder, and it'll re-add all the music it used to know about.
HTH

Tao81

almillar wrote: »

You waited 15 minutes for a reply? I know this place is busy, but that's optimistic!

Well said almillar:rotfl: :rotfl: It looks equally ridiculous to me in retrospect this morning!! An indicator of just how much I was panicking at the time! After 15 mins of sitting staring at this stupid message box, I looked at the new posts board and as the site was so busy my post had dropped back to page 5 or 6, so in my somewhat hysterical state I thought it might be a good idea to bump it up, I really was that desperate for an answer!;)

I'd already look to find a previous copy of the library and it was 6 months old!!!
A trawl of the internet revealed that copious amounts of people have had a similar problem when updating various version of iTunes and had lost all their data, the solutions suggested appeared far too complex for me to follow!:o

Anyhoo, I was so sick of looking at it and not knowing what to do as there where no answers to my post by late last night, I just shut the lid of the lappy and went to bed.
(I was only upgrading because my DD ipod touch required iTunes version 8.)

This morning with a clearer head I decided to just risk it and click the X to close the message and crossed everything to see what happened and what do you know! it appears my the library is all all but intact, the odd album track is missing but that can be fixed!

HTH someone in the future should they encounter the same problem, seems by not allowing the new version of iTunes to create a iTunes Library (damaged) file.itl, by clicking the close button, it now recognises the original data file and alls well :T