Track Redirection & Synchronization 3.4 (2012-10-08) [MM3+]

[kitkat]

Okay, one question: am I correct in my impression that many dialogue boxes of this script really works its best on files that are physically "inserted" into the computer at the moment? (Rather than grayed-out files that don't have an "F:\"-type path.)

[kitkat]

Actually, I have more info on that error message.
This time, I received the following error message (also w/ just "OK" as an option):

Error #424 - Microsoft VBScript runtime error
Object required: 'btnSwap'
File: "C:\Program Files\MediaMonkey\Scripts\Auto\TrackRedirection.vbs", Line: 6230, Column: 30

(After I click "OK" I get the same error message I already mentioned.)

[nynaevelan]

Try closing MM and then looking in the Taskmanager to make sure no lingering mediamonkey.exe files are running. Reopen MM and see if the errors persist.

[kitkat]

Nope, nynaevelan, I'm afraid that didn't do the trick. But thanks for the suggestion.

[fizzjob]

MediaMonkey will automatically convert files on transfer - you don't need a script. Go to Tools|Options|Portable/Audio Devices|Select your device|Configure|Auto-Conversion and look at the options there...

I'm having trouble getting this to work on my iPhone. I only have one Auto-Converson Rule:

Code: Select all

Format on PC: ASX
Bitrate: Any
Format on Device: MP3 (Constant bitrate: 192 kbps)

Yet when I sync an album containing ASX files, the linked files do not copy over or convert - is there something I'm doing wrong?

For the record, I'm using MM 3.1.2.1282

[ZvezdanD]

Actually, I have more info on that error message.

There is a new version of this addon:
v3.3.1 - 2009-10-03
- Fixed: error when checking tracks in the Maintain Redirections dialog box after opened Create Redirections dialog (bug introduced in v3.2).

v3.3.2 - 2010-03-21
- Changed: the list of playlists in the Options dialog box is now limited to playlists on the first level because the large number of nested playlists have slowed down its display; if you need to specify some nested playlist, you could still write it using "\" as a separator between nested levels.

[ZvezdanD]

Yet when I sync an album containing ASX files, the linked files do not copy over or convert - is there something I'm doing wrong?

Sorry, but I really have no clue where is a problem and unfortunately cannot test it in such situation, since I am not using MM for sync with some hardware player.

[phantomwhale]

Any idea what the limit of redirects in the database is ?

I have about 14,000 redirects (m4a tracks linking to their flac masters) and have been having an odd bug where I'd filter to all FLAC files only, select the "linked master tracks", and then track down the 10-20 files that were not selected and ensure they were linked to the matching m4a files. Then I'd go back and select the "linked master tracks" only to find a different set of files now reporting to be unlinked.

In fact, I just pulled up all of my 28,000 tracks, selected the flacs and asked to "Create Redirects for Specified tracks", which confirmed matches for all 14,000 tracks and I hit OK. Checking again, now there are 300-400 unlinked flacs ?

I've not had this trouble before, so wondered if I was hitting some theoretical limit of the plugin ? Which would be a shame

Ben

[ZvezdanD]

Any idea what the limit of redirects in the database is ?

I've not had this trouble before, so wondered if I was hitting some theoretical limit of the plugin ?

The database could have almost unlimited number of redirects. The only limit which comes to my mind could be connected with the GUI - I don't know how much rows could have listview control in the Maintain Redirections dialog box, but I suppose it could contain much more than 14000 rows. When you say "I've not had this trouble before", did you mean on this add-on or generally? Do you want to say that you didn't have trouble with older versions of this add-on, but only with the latest one?

I am not sure that completely understand what you did with your database to get such behavior. Could you send me your database, so I can check it by myself?

[fizzjob]

Sorry, but I really have no clue where is a problem and unfortunately cannot test it in such situation, since I am not using MM for sync with some hardware player.

No problem - I've played around with it, and I'm suspecting that it's more of an issue with MM than the script, anyways, since the ASX files don't contain any audio data to convert, so nothing happens.

[toof4st]

Hi

Further to our discussions, on the Magic Nodes forum, let me begin by explaining how I manage my music and syncing to my devices.

Firstly, I am surprised that media player companies haven't thought about the management of music to devices more – although MM, especially combined with Magic Nodes is streets ahead of other software. I want to be able to plan how I sync, without having my devices connected, and want to be able to sync in the same way to multiple devices.

I have a lot of music on my PC, and I have Windows Mobile phone which I use as an MP3 player and an IPod in the car. Especially in the car (I’m sure this will start to happen as more people use their IPod etc in the car), everything has to be as simple as possible, and ideally just serve up music, either via a handful of playlists or handful of artists.

As I have said, I have a lot of music, but don't want to sync all my music to my devices. Generally I have a lot of complete albums/greatest hits and some single tracks. On my devices, I don't want to see 1000's of artists listed, only my favourites artists (approx 150 of them), and especially don't want to see artists that don't have complete albums - in the artist listing. However, I do want top rated music from my non-favourite artists synced to the device. So for these non-favourite artists, I don't want the metadata on the PC altered, but I would like the song synced with a AlbumArtist of "Various Artists (Compiled)".

I use 3 key fields which I use to build automatic playlists (and for which Magic Nodes is an absolute blessing). I use Genre, as you would expect. I use rating, and generally my playlists only contain 4*+ or 5*+ songs. Finally I use Grouping (GroupDesc) which is key. I use several values and ! character, to describe my groupings. EG. “(!!!!!) – Favourites”, “(!!!!) – Latest Music”, “(!!!) – Legends”, “(!!) – Sync”, “(!) – Other Music”. Different devices have different capacities, but for example, I will sync anything, unaltered, that begins with “(!!!” regardless of rating. I will then sync anything that begins with “(!” but does not begin with “(!!!” and has a rating of 4* or above to the device, but from my “Various Artists” version of the song (as described in the Magic Nodes forum). I create 2 master playlists, one for the “(!!!” + songs and another containing the “(!!” or less “Various Artists” versions of the songs. Using these 2 master playlists I build my actual playiists, Eg, “Fav, Rock, 4*+”, “Fav, Pop, 4*+”, “Fav, Everything, 4*+” and “All Groupings, Rock, 4*+“ etc etc.
And these playlists actually get synced to my device.

With this set up, just by tagging a song into the right grouping, and rating etc, will add it to the appropriate playlists either as the actual artist or the “Various Artists” version. I don’t have to actually add any songs to playlists. This happens automatically.

The problem I have at the moment, is I have used directory junctioning to create a “Various Artists” version of the song, with Album name derived from the Genre. I have to have every version of the song duplicated in the database as a “Various Artists” version. (I could alter the directory structure to reduce this, but don’t really want to if I can help it).

What would allow me to use Track Redirection to solve my problem would be for Track Redirection to monitor my library, and automatically create a redirection, based on a filter. So for example, any file that has a grouping which begins with the string “(!)” or “(!!)” and had a rating of 4* or above, would automatically have an ascx created. I would be able to set properties for these ascx files. So AlbumArtist would become “Various Artists”, “Album Name” would become the Genre, and I would be able to fake the bitrate of file type, so that I can tell MM only to convert the redirected files (I have to convert so that the metadata properties are altered on the device for those songs). The ascx files would be in addition to the original file, not replace it.

I hope that makes sense.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks

[ZvezdanD]

What would allow me to use Track Redirection to solve my problem would be for Track Redirection to monitor my library, and automatically create a redirection, based on a filter. So for example, any file that has a grouping which begins with the string “(!)” or “(!!)” and had a rating of 4* or above, would automatically have an ascx created.

Wow! I like such detailed descriptions, it helps me to understand what is really needed. Now, about your request. Maybe I could add one more option to the Options box, let say with a name "Automatically create redirections when Rating is more than ... and Grouping contains ...", but I am not so sure how this should be implemented exactly. When do you think that this automatic creation of redirections should happen? Whenever you add some new track into the Library or whenever you change Grouping/Rating fields of some track or both of that or something even more? What about tracks that are already added into the Library and have proper values for Grouping and Rating? Should this script automatically create redirections for all of them when you activate this new option into the Option dialog box? What about deleting of the master track, should this script delete all linked tracks automatically? What if you already have created redirections and if you change Rating or Grouping of the master track so that criteria are not satisfied anymore, e.g. if you change Rating to less than 4 or Grouping different than (!) or (!!) - should this script automatically delete all linked tracks in such case?

Isn't it much simpler just to create auto-playlist or Magic Node with a filter for Rating/Grouping? For example: My node|Filter: Rating >= 80 AND (Grouping LIKE '(!)%' OR Grouping LIKE '(!!)%') AND NOT Songs.ID IN (SELECT IDref FROM TrackRedirection). Using it you could get filtered tracks that should be copied using existing options of this script. Of course this would be a manual process, but I suppose that you don't change Rating and Grouping of tracks so often. Also, I am not sure if you could use .asx files for sync with the device using the built-in Sync Device option. Did you already try such thing?

[toof4st]

Can I sync asx files? Now I’m certain I managed to solve that, but can’t seem to get it to work. I did hack your old version a year or so ago, so I imagine I must have registered it in the database as source file, not the asx. If you can't sync asx, it kind of makes it a showstopper, unless you added a flag to change the way you registered the file.

With respect to the monitor of the files, I would have liked to cover every scenario, although the deletes would be less critical.

…

However, I have come up with a different solution entirely. Essentially, Rename the Songs table, t_Songs, then provide a View called Songs, which returns the data in t_Songs unioned with duplicated dummy versions of the Songs that match my filter, with a AlbumArtist of “Various Artists (Compiled)” etc etc. And then add Instead Of Triggers on the views, to Update/Insert/Delete data in t_Songs, if a change is attempted against the View for one of the real rows (stop corruption if an attempt is made to update one of the fake rows). I have found implemenation of even a simple view, dramatically slows down re-scanning for new files, so going to enable the code change to be applied/removed with script.
The advantage will be, I only have one copy of the song in the database.

Thanks for you help / discussion and keep up the good work on your other scripts.

[m_bojangles]

I am trying to Create Redirections for Specified Tracks...
I have one track highlighted (the desired master track). I'm getting this error:
Error # 3004 - ADODB.Stream
Write to file failed.
File: "C:\Program Files (x86)\MediaMonkey\Scripts\Auto\TrackRedirection.vbs", Line: 8433, Column: 8

I am on Win 7 Ultimate 64-bit. The Master and target files are on a server referenced with UNC paths (\\MainPC\Music\...etc.). The server is Win XP Pro and the music is shared with write permissions. MediaMonkey 3.2.4.1304
I've used this script successfully in the past with an earlier version of MM (3.2.x) on a machine that was running Win XP (not my current Win 7 machine) using the same UNC path structure.

Can anyone help? Thanks.
-mb

[ZvezdanD]

I am trying to Create Redirections for Specified Tracks...
I have one track highlighted (the desired master track). I'm getting this error:
Error # 3004 - ADODB.Stream
Write to file failed.

Thanks for the report. I don't have Win 7, so I cannot reproduce the problem. Could you try to create a redirection file on some local disk just to see if it is working in such condition? Also, you could try to create ANSI .asx file instead of UTF-8 just to be sure that this is not a cause for the error (although, not very likely).