"Missing" tracks

[steve harley]

they whom i call Scot Hacker wrote:
> There is apparently NO way to make iTunes "check again" to see if 
> missing tracks have re-appeared. Once it's marked a track missing, the 
> only way to fix it is to manually navigate back to the track. Or am I 
> missing something?

i haven't been iTunes hacking much lately, but i would try 
working with the XML version of the library file; i believe all 
the metadata which isn't contained in the tracks is encoded in 
this file, and you can reload your library from this file, 
possibly restoring the state; in the past when i've moved 
selected tracks to different volumes, i've had success modifying 
the path text in the XML library then reloading -- iTunes found 
the old tracks in their new locations; you may find there's a 
status flag for "missing"  in the XML which can be twiddled (make 
a backup of the current library files so experimental failures 
don't set you back)