How to Sync MM with MM metro app?

[Rednroll]

I've used MM for quite awhile, where I have always used MM to organize my music on a Win 7 PC and then synced to my iPod Classic. This has worked great.

More recently, I purchased an Asus T100 Transformer Windows 8.1 Tablet and was excited when I saw a Media Monkey app available in the Microsoft store. So then I started to think how I would like to use this app considering I have my music library on a Win 7 laptop.

The Asus Tablet has a removable Micro SD card slot, where I was thinking I would use MM on my Win7 PC then sync my music to the micro SD card and then plug this card into the Asus Win 8.1 tablet. However, how would I get all my playlists to also transfer over? I would essentially like to sync my music and the playlists to the Micro SD card, and then plug that into the Win 8.1 tablet and when I launch the MM App on the Win 8.1 tablet, the MM app would have my music library and the associated playlists available for playback. Thus, its the same way I'm using MM with my iPod classic, but now my Win 8.1 tablet is my portable device instead of the ipod, where I would be using the MM App to playback the content on this Win 8.1 tablet.

Any recommendations on the best way to do this?

Another similar scenario. I also have a an Asus F200CA Win 8.1 laptop which has a built in HDD. I would like to sync my music library and playlists on my Win 7 laptop PC to this Win 8.1 PC's internal HDD and then be able to launch the MM Metro app on the Win 8.1 laptop and have the MM app be able to playback the music and associated playlists.

What's the best way to do this?

[Lowlander]

I'd presume that the best way to go would be doing a sync from within the Metro App. This should get you all you want.

[Rednroll]

I'd presume that the best way to go would be doing a sync from within the Metro App. This should get you all you want.

Thanks Lowlander.

I'm just not sure how I would go about doing that. What am I syncing from? Do I some how connect my Win 8.1 tablet to my Win 7 laptop? Or sync from external media drive? Do I transfer over all my media to the tablets 1st? Or do I need to transfer over my media and the MM.DB (MM database)? However, I'm not sure how to get the MM metro app to read that MM.DB file if I tried that.

As of right now, the easiest scenario I can think of would be to just copy all my media over to the Win 8.1 machines and then have the MM metro app find it. However, I lose all the media's associated playlists.

This is a good reason why I have always considered MM's Playlists as being embedded in the MM.DB (database) to be a weakness in it's design. I can manage media outside of MM, but I can't manage their associated Playlists. So, that's why I'm currently mystified on how to accomplish syncing Media Monkey with Media Monkey, the playlists are holding me back.

[Rednroll]

I'ld also like to add, in the past when migrating MM from one PC to another here's what I was able to do.

1. Install MM on new PC.
2. Copy Media, MM.DB, mediamonkey.ini from old PC to new PC
3. Edit copied mediamonkey.ini file, adding a line to point to location of copied MM.DB file.
4. Launch MM on new PC.
5. Point MM to location of missing media files.

If I could do this with the MM metro app, then that would be good enough (although not ideal because my 2 different PCs would not be in sync).

If I do the above, there's a few unknowns for myself which I would list as such.

Unknowns:
- Does the MM Metro app have an associated MM.DB (database file)?
- Is the full version of MM database file compatible with the MM metro app?
- Where is the default location of the MM metro apps MM.DB file?
- Does the MM Metro app have an associated mediamonkey.ini file?
- Where is the default location of the MM metro apps mediamonkey.ini file?
- Can the MM metro apps mediamonkey.ini be edited like the full version to point to the location of the MM.DB file?
- Does the MM metro app have "find missing files" function?

[Lowlander]

Playlists in the database is a strength as anytime you move/rename files the Playlists don't end up with broken links. And after all you can export Playlists any time you want.

When MM8 is on the same network as MMW you can do a wifi sync from MM8. This works the same as the MMA wifi sync. Other than starting it from MM8 the sync is very similar to normal device (USB) syncing as you still setup what and how sync is done in the Device Profile (Tools > Options > Portable Device Sync in MMW). In MM8 wifi sync is a paid extra.


Note: MM8 is being completely redesigned so it's up to you to decide if it's worth paying for this feature now while it may have bugs.

[Rednroll]

Ok,
So let me get this straight so I'm understanding what you're saying. I'm not up to speed on the MM8, MMA, MMW terminologies. I've read some other posts and here's what I think those mean.

MM8= Windows 8+ MM App.
MMA= Android MM App.
MMW= Windows MM full program.

So I need to have my Win 7 PC and Win 8 PC both on the same network. That's establishes the communication connection between my 2 PCs. Then from the Win 8 PC where I have the MM metro app installed, I would need to pay an additional fee to enable Wifi sync support within the Win 8 metro app ($4.99). I initiate the sync from the Win 8 metro app, which is strange since it's now the client app. Once I do this, then I can sync what's on my Win 7 PC to my Win 8 PC via a Wifi sync.

Let me throw this out there since the Asus T100 is a "real" Win 8 OS and not that Win 8 "RT" garbage where I'm confined to Win8 Metro App installs. If I installed, the full version of MM on my Asus T100, then transferred over everything as I've done in the past, then could I configure the MM metro app installed on the same Asus T100 PC to use the same database as the MM full install? No Wifi sync necessary in that instance.

All this Wifi sync seems pretty cool where I could keep multiple PCs in sync with a single library but there seems like there may be an easier way to import my existing Playlists into the MM metro app. The only reason I haven't installed the full version of MM on the Asus T100 is because I like the simplicity of the MM Metro app, where I just plan to use it for audio playback purposes.

P.S. I understand all the strengths of the Playlists being part of the database. Unfortunately, I've also grown accustom to dealing with the weaknesses of this as well, such as the pains of having to move the MM.DB file anytime I purchase a new PC so I don't have to rebuild my playlists. Then another weakness where I was running MM and the MM.DB file was located on an External HDD and MM didn't seem to like it when the external HDD lost its power connection due to a power outage while MM was in the middle of updating the MM.DB file and ended up leaving the MM.DB file in a corrupted non recoverable state. There's been a few instances of that occurring since the 1st time I experienced this but I learned to make regular backups of the MM.DB file since then.

[Rednroll]

I found the MM Metro apps MM.DB file location but no more medimonkey.ini file. This gives me some ideas to mess around with to get my Playlists into the MM metro app.

MM Metro App MM.DB file location path:
C:\Users\Joe_Users_Name\AppData\Local\Packages\F9C3A7AL.MediaMonkey_6npfwtawc6s18\LocalState\MM.DB

Here's my plan to try out.
1. Install MM full version on new Win 8 PC.
2. Copy Media, MM.DB, mediamonkey.ini from Win7 PC to Win8 PC
3. Edit copied mediamonkey.ini file, adding a line to point to location of copied MM.DB file and update all other paths in INI file referencing Win7 PC paths.
4. Launch MM on Win8 PC.
5. Point MM to location of missing media files so MM.DB file is properly configured for Win8 PC media file locations.
6. Copy MM.DB file used by full version of MM and overwrite existing MM metro app MM.DB file.

This work around assumes that my current MM.DB file is compatible with the MM metro app's MM.DB file.

[Lowlander]

The terminology is correct, however you can't copy the MMW DB to MM8. They use different DBs.

As said nothing prevents you from exporting Playlist to Playlist files. Where when moving to a new PC you'll often find users with problems due to Path changes (the DB is affected too, but quicker to recover). Also if you're already planning to move Playlists to the new PC it is no more effort to move the DB instead. Additional to Playlists the DB also keeps your Play History (many care about this) as well as any unsaved tags (not all file formats or tags can be tagged).

I'd suggest that anyone that cares about Play History, Playlists and/or tags to regularly backup their database (just like you should do with other programs important documents): http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... lit=backup
If you really only care about Playlists they can be auto-exported: http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... d+playlist

[Rednroll]

Thanks for all your help Lowlander!!!

I think I'm finally getting up to speed to what you're saying.

Here's what I'm in the process of doing.
MMW Steps
1. Install MMW "portable" on Win8 PC.
2. Replace MM.DB with existing MM.DB file from Win7 PC
3. Copy All Media Files to Win 8 PC folder
4. Launch MMW on Win8 PC
(Existing Playlists are present due to step 2, but all media files are greyed out due to change of media file path/drive location change in Step 3)
5. Within MMW Goto File>Locate Moved/Missing Files , and point to the location of the media files in Step 3, and let MM Scan through the media files and update the paths in the MM.DB database.
(Media files are now no longer greyed out, and playlists within MM.DB database have valid path links)
6. Within MMW goto Tools>Scripts>Export All playlists and select a folder to export the Playlists to.
(Playlists get exported as M3U files and now have valid links to Media Files on Win8 PC)

MM8 Steps
7. Launch MM8 App on Win8 PC
8. Goto Settings and select Scan for Media and select Add folder, then select folder from Step 3.
9. Select Scan folders now
(This will update the MM8 MM.DB database file with the path locations of the media files) {This is where I'm currently at, MM8 is currently chunking its way through 33K+ music files}
10. Goto Settings and select Scan for Media and select Add folder, then select folder from Step 6 (location of exported Playlist M3U files).
11. Select Scan folders now
(This should cause MM8 to import the Playlists which now have valid links for the Win8 PC)

[Lowlander]

That sounds good to me. Do note that MM8 is a beta product thus it may have bugs. It is also being rewritten from the ground up.

[Rednroll]

That sounds good to me. Do note that MM8 is a beta product thus it may have bugs. It is also being rewritten from the ground up.

Since you mentioned it. I found two bugs that crashed the MM8 app.

Bug 1 (App Crash) Playlist Load from library selection.
After I imported the Playlists into the library, and pressed the "Playlist>" selection from the home screen, which then shows me all the available playlist in the library and then select any of the listed playlists, it would start loading the selected playlist, followed by a crash. Happens 100% of the time. However, I'm able to play back a playlist by swiping down from the top of the screen and select "Open file" and then Open the same playlist that previously caused a crash. This playlist playback method works without the crash.

Bug 2 (App Crash) "Shuffle All" during Playlist playback
This one I did by mistake. I mistakenly pressed the "Shuffle All" button, while I was playing back a Playlist. It shows I currently have 22050 tracks available in the app after sync completed. So, after I pressed "Shuffle All" and MM8 went off trying to shuffle over 22K songs and I realized I didn't mean to press "shuffle all", I then pressed the pause button, followed by the now playing Shuffle button (then the crash occurred).....the now playing "shuffle" is the button I wanted to press in the 1st place, because I really meant to shuffle the current playlist I was playing and not my entire library.

Bug 3 Inconsistent Track count between MMW and MM8. I'm not sure what is going on here or if this is even a bug because I don't understand what MM8 uses for its "tracks available" count number. In MM8 it shows I have 22,050 tracks available but in MMW which is accessing the same storage media location it shows I have 21,212 files where the majority(ie 97%) are MP3 files with about 45 m4a and 80 flac files. I know I don't have over 800 playlists to make up for the difference....more like about 50 playlists.

[Lowlander]

Bugs aren't dealt with at the moment as the rewrite is coming, however it will likely have its own bugs to report

[Rednroll]

Bugs aren't dealt with at the moment as the rewrite is coming, however it will likely have its own bugs to report

Ahhhh...thanks for the clarification. Here I was thinking this was currently the rewrite.

[SisyphusatMM]

I know this thread is a bit old but was searching for something, came across it and thought I had something to add.

My media resides on my home server and my desktop accesses it across the network - all fine and good. For my laptop I use Bittorrent Sync to copy the entire data set (media, playlists, database) and configure MM to run off the local copy. It's a two way sync, so if I buy music on my laptop I can add it locally and it will sync to the server.

Of course, I do back up the server data just in case...

Hope that's of interest.