Whilst importing a CD, my laptop hung. After rebooting, iTunes failed to start, reporting “The iTunes Music Library file cannot be read because it does not appear to be a valid library file” (described in this Apple article).
I followed the Apple website advice on recreating my iTunes library and playlists, but iTunes crashes every time I try to import my original file. In the end, I had to resort to dragging and dropping the folder containing the music back into iTunes. All the files are back, but I’ve lost my playlists, ratings and play counts.
So – if you’re an iTunes user, save yourself some pain. Make a backup of ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music Library.xml right now.
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