After stopping Apple music sub., my pre-owned iTunes tracks are now missing....why?

I recently subscribed to Apple Music. I then stopped my subscription. Since then I've been getting 'The song “Everything's a Lie” could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?' when I play the music I already own from iTunes in Apple Music. This is happening loads. Does anyone know why? I dont want to have to go through and re-link everything :-(

Mac mini, macOS 15.5

Posted on Jun 10, 2025 07:40 AM

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Jun 10, 2025 11:36 AM in response to richardesigner

The "missing file" issue with exclamation marks happens if the file is no longer where iTunes or Music expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, one of its parent folders, the drive it lives on has had a name change, or you've moved a non-portable library to a different path (see Make a split library portable for details). It is also possible that iTunes or Music have changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout, or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place, or that you've been too aggressive when deleting duplicates at some point.


Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Cmd-I to get Song Info, then click No when asked to try to locate the track. Look on the file tab for the location the library thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drives. Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, a folder renamed, or a drive label has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions. If the difference between the two paths is an additional Music folder in one path then this is a layout issue. I can explain further if that is the case. If everything is where it is supposed to be try Repair security permissions for iTunes for Mac - Apple Community.


In some cases the library may be able to repair itself if you go through the same steps with Get Info, or when playing a track, but this time click Locate and browse to the lost track. It may then offer to attempt to automatically fix other broken links. Although it says something like "use the same location" I think it expects to find the tracks in the same artist & album layout they were in previously, with one systematic change to the path.


If you want me to try to provide specific advice please post back the following details:

  1. The location of the media folder under iTunes|Music > Preferences > Advanced
  2. The location of a sample missing track shown under Song Info > File > Location that begins file://
  3. The true path to the file whose details you gave in 2



See also FixLinks - an AppleScript to repair broken links in Music - Apple Community.



tt2

Jun 18, 2025 02:17 AM in response to turingtest2

It only seems to be a problem with music I've bought on Apple Music/iTunes. I think it's got something to do if it's a 'Compilation' album. Apple Music seems to keep switching albums around in the saved Music folder on my internal hard drive. As I said before this has only started happening since I cancelled my Apple Music subscription. There are no exclamation marks on any of my track names. If I try and play an album I get the window asking to locate the track. Once I find one track and then sync it, when I then play the next track it again comes up with the same can't find track window. Weirdly I've noticed if I then press cancel the window closes and then the track starts playing. By repeating this method I go through all the tracks in my album and then it's all good. Bit of a palaver to do for all these mis-linked tracks though.

Jun 18, 2025 03:26 AM in response to turingtest2

This is driving me mad. I signed in and out and the dupes disappeared so many thanks for that. However I tried playing a track and again it couldn't find it. I re-linked to the track and then Music opens another Album with just this track in it. I then did a search for the songs on my Mac and hey presto Apple Music is putting them in two different locations. It's def this 'Compliation' thing? Again its looks like I'm going to have to painstaking move files around or something. Arrggh

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After stopping Apple music sub., my pre-owned iTunes tracks are now missing....why?

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