Track ratings lost between launches

[shawn]

I am dismayed to find that on several occasions my track ratings are being wiped between MM program shutdowns and re-launches. Anybody experience similar behavior with this in the past? I am wondering if there is something I should be doing that I am not presently doing (like running "manual library backups" -- does such a thing exist?), or something I should be doing differently? I notice the "Maintain Library" option from the FILE menu — should I be be using this option routinely?

How do I tell where my "library files" are being stored? Would it be "best practice" to store these files on the same drive (external) where my mp3 music files reside? or does it not make much difference?

Just some added rambling/brainstorming toward the end there. Any and all help is appreciated.

[threehills]

Personally, this has happened to me a few times in the past with other programs. My work around for this is to use one of the tag fields as an alternative way of storing the rating. For example, I use the "comments" field and assign it the number 5 for 5 stars etc. To save time, I do this every 50 ratings or so, sort by star rating, select all the ones that need to be updated then update the en mass the comment field with the correct rating.

While the databases that house the "stars" get erased/corrupted from time to time, the mp3 tags themselves do not. So when this happens, I just reverse the above process, sort by comment, and then add starts by selecting all the files with the same comment "rating". I can usually recover all my ratings in this way in less than a minute.

Hope that makes senses.

[shawn]

Hope that makes senses.

Yes, that sounds like a very solid workaround. Thanks for sharing the steps with me.

[paulmt]

I am sure the only reason that your ratings are being wiped between MM start-ups must be that MM is not closing properly.
I have used MM for a long time now and have never lost my ratings in the way you are describing.

If MediaMonkey is not being shut down properly, then your changes are not being saved. Could there be a script that is not closing properly? Check you Task Manager after shutting down to see if MM has closed or if there are any other process still running that should have closed on MM shut down.

[shawn]

Check you Task Manager after shutting down to see if MM has closed or if there are any other process still running that should have closed on MM shut down.

Thank you, I will be on the lookout for this. Question: is there any way to save library changes manually between shutdowns? Say, if I were to spend a couple hours editing tags and wanted to periodically save all the changes I made? Or can I only rely on a program shutdown to initiate the save?

[nohitter151]

Check you Task Manager after shutting down to see if MM has closed or if there are any other process still running that should have closed on MM shut down.

Thank you, I will be on the lookout for this. Question: is there any way to save library changes manually between shutdowns? Say, if I were to spend a couple hours editing tags and wanted to periodically save all the changes I made? Or can I only rely on a program shutdown to initiate the save?

Actually the ratings should be saved immediately to the database and to the audio tracks, that doesn't occur when you close MM.

[benjaminnyc]

Does anyone know where the star ratings are stored? If it's in a database file, I want to make sure I back that file up every now and then. I have spent months rating my library and if I lose that

[Peke]

In Library and in file tags (formats that support ratings) also MediaMonkey 3 Settings can be found here:
o Windows XP:
C:\Documents and Settings\<USERNAME>\Local Settings\Application Data\MediaMonkey\MM.DB
C:\Documents and Settings\<USERNAME>\Local Settings\Application Data\MediaMonkey\MediaMonkey.ini

o Windows Vista:
C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\MediaMonkey\MM.DB
C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\MediaMonkey\MediaMonkey.ini

[nanite2000]

I have found this happening to me as well. I only seem to notice it between launches, but I also notice that my list of "Unrated" songs is growing every time I launch MediaMonkey, rather than shrinking. It's very frustrating.

I am using:
MediaMonkey Gold v3.1.1.1261.
Operating System: Windows Vista 64-bit Home Premium (SP 1)
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 @ 2.26GHz
Memory: 4GB

Could the OS being 64-bit (or a dual core processor) be causing some problems? I never experienced this problem on my old machine (Windows XP Pro 32-bit with single core AMD 64 CPU).

Like I said, this is very frustrating and really shouldn't be happening at all, especially if the ratings are kept within the file itself. No other tags in the MP3 file are being changed (Not as far as I can see anyway). Why is it just the ratings that are disappearing?