iTunes Library Woes

Ok once again my iTunes Library looked like it had gone south, but I managed to find a way to recover it.  The "iTunes Library.xml" file.  I always keep a backup of this bad boy, cause he is the one with all the ratings.  I think it is probably good practice to back it up once a month or something.  Anyway, my "iTunes Library.itl" file was damaged, god only knows how but the simple solution was to import the xml.

When the "iTunes Library.itl" file is corrupted/damaged, iTunes shits the bed and just creates a new empty one.  At this point all you do is File | Library | Import Playlist... and then choose the "iTunes Library.xml" file.  Immediately it will start restoring all your playlists/rating and other good stuff.

The source of this information was Apple themselves, you think they would make this an option when finding a damaged itl file....

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1451

Update:

I feel that you may have to disable copy music to iTunes library when doing this - otherwise you dupe all your material, that's if you have this feature enabled of course!