iTunes doesn't see iTunes folder

I'm evaluating Leopard. I've installed it on an external HD and boot from it.
The internal HD has Tiger installed (10.4.10) and most of my files, including
my iTunes library. When I run iTunes (under Leopard) the library is empty but
for one MP3 file. When I Get Info on the file, I see it's located in the
iTunes folder on the external (Leopard boot) HD.

Next, I specified in iTunes' Preferences (Preferences>Advanced>General) the
location of my old iTunes library on my internal HD (~/Music/iTunes). (I also
enabled "Keep iTunes Music folder organized" and "Copy files to iTunes Music
folder when adding to library" options.) But this does not result in my
hundreds of files showing up in iTunes: just the one MP3 file shows up. I've
rebooted, but no joy.

I read the instructions in this Apple note:
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301748>
which says to create a new iTunes folder and consolidate the 2 folders. After
following the instructions to create a new folder and consolidate, I get a
new folder with the one MP3 file. (I think the problem with this method is
that the instructions presume that you already have your music in the boot
disk's iTunes folder and that you want to move it to another location. This
is actually opposite my goal.)

My music is on the internal HD, not the boot drive, and the iTunes Music
folder location (specified in Preferences) is pointing my music folder's
location on the internal drive. How can I (and is it possible to) get iTunes
to recognize this folder and give me access to my music files?

OS X 10.5.1
iTunes 7.6

Thanks,
--
DaveC
me DeleteThis @bogusdomain.net
This is an invalid return address
Please reply in the news group

In article <0001HW.C3BB6207004A1537B01AD9AF.RemoveThis@news.sf.sbcglobal.net>,
DaveC <me.RemoveThis@bogusdomain.net> wrote:

> I'm evaluating Leopard. I've installed it on an external HD and boot from it.
> The internal HD has Tiger installed (10.4.10) and most of my files, including
> my iTunes library. When I run iTunes (under Leopard) the library is empty but
> for one MP3 file. When I Get Info on the file, I see it's located in the
> iTunes folder on the external (Leopard boot) HD.
>
> Next, I specified in iTunes' Preferences (Preferences>Advanced>General) the
> location of my old iTunes library on my internal HD (~/Music/iTunes). (I also
> enabled "Keep iTunes Music folder organized" and "Copy files to iTunes Music
> folder when adding to library" options.) But this does not result in my
> hundreds of files showing up in iTunes: just the one MP3 file shows up. I've
> rebooted, but no joy.

You've run into a common point of confusion. The iTunes library really
has nothing to do with any directory structure on your drive. The
library is by definition the set of media files of which iTunes is
aware, regardless of where those files happen to be at any given time.
That list is maintained in a proprietary data file that is by default at
~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Library. A subset of the information is exported
to ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music Library.xml, but iTunes never
spontaneously reads that file (contrary to some peoples' belief).

When you specify the library location, all you're doing is signalling to
iTunes that *this* is the place you would like newly-imported content to
go when it's ripped from CD or added to the library while iTunes has
been configured to make copies of added content. This is also the
location under which all your content will be organized when you use
iTunes' Consolidate command.

The upshot is: iTunes will never magically become aware of content just
by being pointed somewhere.

If you hold down option immediately after double-clicking iTunes, you'll
be given an opportunity to specify a library (i.e. an "iTunes Library"
file) for iTunes to use. Pick the one from your Tiger install and it
*should* work. It'll be safest if you've got the same version of iTunes
on both installs so you don't end up with updates that aren't backward
compatible. The file references in the library file have in my
experience been robust enough to not care about the fact that the
absolute path has changed; they presumably use alias records for
tracking as they should.

If you are averse to making sure both copies of iTunes are fully
up-to-date, your best bet is probably to just import your data by
dragging the folder with all your music into the music list in Leopard's
copy. You'll lose playlists and the like, but any metadata stored *in*
the media files will be retained.

If you don't want iTunes to be up-to-date *and* can't live without
automatically importing your playlists, make a copy of the XML file
mentioned above, and look at the string associated with the Location key
in each track entry; you should be able to edit those strings to put
correct URLs in place - a global find/replace if all your content is
already in a single folder hierarchy - and then tell iTunes to import
the edited XML file.


G