Missing music on iTunes

[baward]

Hi,

For some reason, all the albums I have added since 2018 appear to have disappeared from iTunes, after a routine restart overnight. I have full Time Machine backups, so what should I attempt to restore (iTunes Library.xml, iTunes Library.itl or the iTunes Media folder, or none of these)?

Thanks.

[muzines]

Well I'd probably restore everything, but if you want to selectively restore, it depend on what the problem is.

Are the media files still there, but the iTunes library doesn't show them?
Or are are the media files gone from your drive?

[baward]

Thanks. Some of the albums are still there (if not, they're on my NAS) but of course, I can't be sure regarding albums added in, say, February 2019!

Do you think that by restoring the database from say 2 weeks ago, the missing stuff would re-appear?

[muzines]

Do you think that by restoring the database from say 2 weeks ago, the missing stuff would re-appear?

I have no idea what's been going on on your system.

Make a copy of your iTunes stuff as it is now, so you've always got a copy of the current state.
Then restore your backups and check if what you expect is there.

[baward]

Will do. I also realised a very handy property of the Finder, in that one can list folders by date. I think that will help me no end in seeing what's not there from the last 2 years. But first I will do as you suggest, good advice as always.

[baward]

Restoring from a backup always makes me nervous for some reason, but IT WORKED!

Message to the internet, make sure you have a valid and current backup in place...

[muzines]