What OS? I remember my dad's PC having squabbles like this (it said things imported, then gave the ! when you tried to play 'em).

No real advice, but plenty of sympathy. Everytime I ever updated iTunes, something went out of whack. I generally just stick with winamp now.

Maybe do a search for the missing files? Perhaps they got placed somewhere that iTunes isn't looking.

It's XP. All the old files work fine. It's when I manually add new files to the library, nothing happens.

Of course, on the upside my new job is right near on eof the few grocers in New York that sells the world's greatest mustard.

One of the things I miss about California is Mendocino Mustard. I'd order some right now, but we're still working on the vat of Grey Poupon we picked up at Costco a couple of months ago.

Oh, and congrats on the new job.

That looks good. If you get a chance try the Nance's sharp & creamy, there's nothing quite like it.

I don't think I've ever seen it for sale around here. Might be an east coast thing.

1. I'm halfway thru a bottle of wine. Any subsequent incoherence is due to this fact.
2. Jon: Could the folder that the iTunes database lives in have been magically flagged as 'read only'? That would kinda jive with your symptoms. Look at the properties for "C:\Documents and Settings\jonmc\music\itunes" and the files in there. Anything marked read-only? Depending on how iTunes is configured, it will either A) copy the new file into it's folder hierearchy or B) add the file to the database (behind the scenes) and leave the .mp3 (or whatever) file where it lives. I'm guessing you're running in (B) mode, and read-only would make sense. Don't ask me how that happened, cause I dunno.
3. Congrats on the new gig!
4. There is no substitute for Mendocino Mustard.

When this happened to me I took the sledge-hammer approach:

I gave up trying to fix it, deleted the library files, then imported my library all over again. It took quite a long tome. I wouldn't have rebuild the library unless there was no other option. Why iTunes wouldn't take them as added files, your guess is as good as mine. In the end, the sledge-hammer worked, for me.

Also, if you choose to rebuild, you can just drag the old library files to another location until you verify the rebuild works. If it doesn't, just put the original files back where they belong.

Also, I gave up on updating iTunes and reinstalled 5.x or so. Upgrades of this thing always seem to make my library screwier.

When the iPhone update for iTunes rolled out, I updated without really thinking it through, and it did the same thing to me after my next music download. Being a Klewless N00b when it comes to Things Mac (I've only had the damn thing for two months), I panicked and called my buddy, the Mac guy. He suggested using the "consolidate" command, and it worked. For some reason, the new downloads were going to a new folder and iTunes wasn't reading it. Consolidating swept all those files into the right folder, and I haven't had a problem since. Weirdly enough, subsequent downloads (admittedly, legit iTunes downloads, I'm a sucker and still believe in paying for music--some of the time) worked fine.

...but I've always wondered about why common American mustard is always that oily bright-yellow nastiness when Gulden's Spicy Brown is cheap and available everywhere.

Gulden's Spicy Brown is cheap and available everywhere.

Oh man, that takes me back to sitting in the bleachers at Candlestick, snarfing Polish sausages and getting sunburnt on the tops of my ears while watching the Giants beat the Dodgers (and the drunk Giant fans beat the drunk Dodger fans). Come to think of it, that was the last time I saw Gulden's. I don't think we have it here in Seattle.

Now I have to look for it, of course.

Bone Suckin' Mustard is actually much better than it sounds.

am I allowed to talk about iTunes or do I have to talk about mustard?