why does iTunes never have my library of music?

[EdnaKrabappel]

whenever I open iTunes, there is no music in the library. I have to go to the File menu and Add a Folder, and copy it all across from my computer's hard drive. Annoying to say the least. How do I fix this?

Some questions....

What OS are you using? Windows? If so which version? Or are you on a Mac?

Did you ever get any error messages about the library being corrupt?

When you "add a folder" where are you browsing to? What is the full path of the folder (something like c:\xxx\xxx on Windows or /Users/xxx/xxx on a Mac)?

Am using Windows (Vista, bleurgh).

No error messages.

Browse to C:/users/myusername/Music/iTunes/iTunesMusic - or something along those lines.

Thank you!

OK if by any chance you're using a Sony Vaio machine then follow the instructions here:
support.apple.com/kb/TS2715

If not then first of all take a backup of C:/users/myusername/Music/iTunes/iTunesMusic to somewhere safe away form iTunes. It's good practice to back it up to an external disk drive if you have one as that way it's safe if your computer dies.

Then try the following three suggestions. Try each one in turn and follow these steps each time:
Step 1) Shutdown iTunes
Step 2) Try one of the suggestions
Step 3) Restart iTunes, reimport your music the way that you are used to doing.
Step 4) Restart iTunes, is the music now there? If so stop.

Suggestion 1: Delete the file \Users\username\Music\iTunes\iTunes Library.itl
Suggestion 2: Delete the file \Users\username\Music\iTunes\iTunes Library.xml
Suggestion 3: Delete both of those files

It sounds like the actual music on your machine is fine but iTunes is getting itself in a knot about them and forgetting they exist. Those two files are the keys to how iTunes remembers your music, and I suspect that they're somehow corrupt, deleting them and reimporting the music forces iTunes to recreate them and could fix the problem if indeed it is broken files that is causing it.

wow, thanks for this. i do indeed have a Sony Vaio. I noticed yesterday that a few albums are missing from the latest re-copied file of music. Fortunately it's all backed up elsewhere. Will get onto it later.

Thanks again!