Damaged iTunes Library, How to Start Fresh iTunes?

[joestros]

I have searched this forum as well as the Internet for help on this topic but nothing seems to be helping my specific issue. I sure hope someone here can help. I apolgize for the long post, but I want to provide as much detail as possible in hopes someone has some advice. Specs: Windows Vista 64-bit, iTunes 10.2.2.14 64 bit, 15,000+ music files. I have been using iTunes since it's inception.

We store all of our iTunes media files on a hard drive hooked to our wireless router. Besides slight slugishness over the wifi, things have been working well for over 1 year. Recently we began noticing very slugish performance (seemed to coincide with recent iTunes updates, but, might just be a coincidence). After experiencing several iTunes crashes I decided it was time to start fresh and reinstall iTunes. I removed it along with all iTunes media libraries. I renamed the old folder that contains the media and library files and moved it to the desktop just in case. Other than song ratings, I really didn't mind losing playlists. To be clear, the actual media files (music files, etc) are still intact located on the external hard drive.

I removed iTunes, download version 10.2.2.14 64-bit, and reinstalled. Now,when I load up iTunes, it creates a new iTunes media folder, and all media needs to be reloaded. This is exactly what I wanted, and blank slate! But, this is where things start going wrong. When I load a song into iTunes by using the "add file" and/or "add folder" (I want to manually add in this manner) they load fine, and play fine, but, when I close iTunes and reload, I get the dreaded "not valid/damaged iTunes library" message. iTunes then creates a new library upon loading. Even if I reload the songs (or different songs), shut down, and reload, THAT library is now damaged and the whole process is repeated. I have tried creating the media folder on the network drive, and on the local drive. I have unistalled and reinstalled iTunes at least five times. I have tried manually pointing iTunes to a new library by holding down "shift" when loading. I have performed a full system scan with McAfee and no virues were found. Because of the crashes and slugishness we were experiencing before this I want iTunes to forget all of our old library info and start fresh.

I am at my wits end. I thought I understood iTunes fairly well but this issue has me stumped. I just don't get why the libraries are becoming damaged. I have all of our files so how would you just start over with iTunes?

Thanks for any help.

-Joe

[S2_Mac]

After experiencing several iTunes crashes I decided it was time to start fresh and reinstall iTunes.

Make sure you've completely uninstalled all the iTunes bits before re-installing. This Apple article details how to completely uninstall iTunes components from Win7. Re-install and see how things go....

If you still have problems, your anti-virus may be stomping on the library file whenever iTunes tries to rewrite it. If you have a bunch of .temp files in the "iTunes" folder (or whatever folder holds the current "iTunes Library.itl" file) you can be fairly certain A-V software is at work. Set your A-V to exclude the "iTunes" folder and see how things go. (Even if you don't see a bunch of .temp files, try this anyway.)

[joestros]

Thank you so much for the reply. I uninstalled as you suggested. I actually was able to place the iTunes library folders on my C: drive, and add files from the network drive. I was able to close iTunes and reload without an error (yeah!). I began adding a few test files and things worked great. I was able to change songs quickly, and scroll playlists quickly. Things seemed to be back to normal. I decided to add groups of files alphabetically and test in between loads. Once it was finished processing "B" files (only about 750 songs) I tested the speed. It was back to extreme slugishness, taking well over 20 seconds to switch songs, and taking about the same time to load iTunes itself.

I began thinking maybe having the iTunes library files and the physical song files on different drives was the problem, so I attempted to create a library on the network drive but when I try this I receive the damaged library error.

I excluded iTunes from my A-V software, so that is not an issue. I also cleaned out my temp files (I always do this).

Something has happened since updating iTunes recently, or, perhaps there is something wrong with the external drive. I am currently scanning it to see if there are any errors or viruses there. The drive is not full (270 GB free). This was not an issue literally two weeks ago. The only things that have changed is updating to 10.2.2.14, uploading quite a few video and picture files onto the drive, and I began using Tune Up (although I have since uninstalled). Could Tune Up have caused some sort of corruption with the files? I unistalled it because it took FOREVER to load the library. I can and have lived with slight slugishness over wifi, but this is unbearable. Did something change in iTunes recently that altered the playback or streaming? One more thing, using the Homesharing function works flawlessly, but I am trying to avoid using this function because we don't want to leave our laptop on all the time.

Thanks again!

[joestros]

No viruses found on the external drive.

[S2_Mac]

No definitive answers here...just some speculation. iTunes has never been 100% with NAS drives -- some folks have no problems, others have nothing but trouble, and for the rest it's 50/50. (For instance, on the Mac side, an NAS might drop out for a second and when it comes back the OS gives it a new name; since iTunes doesn't poll for changes to drive names it thinks the drive has disappeared. Ultimately this is a flaw in the OS but iTunes gets the blame ;-)

"Viruses" are rarely a problem, and most likely have nothing to do with the performance slowdowns you've experienced. Ditto for heavy fragmentation -- stuff like this adds latencies amounting to a few hundredths of a second, which is not really a problem. From what you describe, it's almost like the drive is going to sleep and the 15 seconds of lag are needed for the drive to spin back up. Or maybe your router is dropping a DHCP lease? (Give the drive a fixed IP address if it's currently using DHCP; if there's a utility that prevents drive sleep, use it.) If the drive is a real NAS, what effect does rebooting it have?

TuneUp sometimes doesn't react fast enough for new versions of iTunes, and problems arise. (On the Mac side, it can do very strange things, like muck up the way the iTunes window draws.) But, AFAIK, if you used the Windows control panel to uninstall it, it should be completely gone. (You might want to double-check at the TuneUp boards.)

I think it's easy enough to demonstrate that the drive is OK -- just connect it directly to a computer, then fire up iTunes to a new library, populate the library with a couple thousand tracks from the external, and see if your damaged library problems go away. (When you create a new library in iTunes, select a location on the boot drive. Then go into Edit menu->Prefs->Advanced, and turn off the "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library" setting; leave the "iTunes Media folder location" setting at its default, which will be in the same overall folder as the new library. This will prevent iTunes from messing with the files on the external. After testing, you can just trash the new library folder.)

Maybe this is a problem unique to 10.2.2.14. It's a pain, but you can find links to older versions in many places -- complete uninstall, then install the older version. Post again for info on how to use your "Previous iTunes Libraries" folder to restore an earlier library file. (But I don't think this is a version-specific problem...I spent a couple hours searching many boards last night and didn't find anything incriminating).

Overall, the fact that Home Sharing works makes me think this is ultimately a problem with the OS/router/external drive connection...but who knows. I'll keep my eyes peeled...

[joestros]

Thank you again for your reply. I was actually going to post an update to this. I hooked up the drive (it is not a NAS) to the laptop and created a new library. Wow, it is fast. I imported over 1000 tracks in under 2 minutes. Like the good old days We updated the firmware on the router today so I want to give it one more shot. Assigning a fixed IP address is a good idea, I will also try that.

Thanks again. You are quite helpful.
-Joe