MM made a mess of my library

[Lowlander]

Embed: Tools > Options > Tags & Playlist to change the predefine setting and when adding art with Auto-Tag from Web set it to embed if possible.

FreeDB doesn't tag Art, actually you still can't tag art before ripping.

Sound, make sure volume isn't muted and the correct audio device is enabled in the output plug-in used: http://www.mediamonkey.com/support/inde ... ticleid=90

[tgalea]

Sorry, I found what the problem was. The volume was completely turned down,,,,and I could not find where it is. I never touched it, but it could have been down when I upgraded. Anyway, that is one fewer worry.

[Lowlander]

You can always find it in the context menu of the tray icon. Most skins will also have it on the player.

[tgalea]

I am back, still trying to find time to repair my library. I had managed to select as you suggested, using location, and it turned out that the back-up titles are only shells, as they depend on there being the external usb disk connected. Anyway, I deleted them all, but now I have to restore about 1000 tracks. How shall I do it. If I do a synchronise, which criteria should I use? Is that the best way to do it, or to use some other way, bearing in mind that the same track could have different file names on the backup disk and the c disk. Also, once the missing tracks are recovered from the backup, will they continue to have a file name starting with "backup" which is the name of the external disk, or will they take the c-disk name. I would still have to rework the art on many of the albums, and might have to brink out all the cd's to check what is there or missing.
Thanks.

[Lowlander]

For a backup you generally want an exact copy and often actual backup software is the best to use to achieve this. If you already have differing filenames, but want them to be associated with the regular files you're not going to be able to do this I think.

You could use Auto-Sync which would facilitate the differing names, but I'm not sure you're going to get existing backup files recognized.

[tgalea]

Thank you Lowlander. Since I last wrote, I decided to take the plunge and tray something. I did "Add/rescan..." from the backup library, with settings to analyse for duplicates (title,album, track #, disc#,length, size). Unfortunately I got 6340 tracks instead of the expecte 4000+. I also got 147 duplicate tracks to edit. This is a problem in itself, but probably I will find the patience to delete the duplicated F/ files (the external back-up hdd) manually. But.... those tracks have not been imported onto the C/ hdd, and when I remove it, only the shell name remains. So, How do I make the software import the F/ hdd files into the C/ hhd and MM library!?
As for synchronising, what happened last time is that all files on the F/hdd were added, but again when the F/hdd was disconnected there was nothing to play from those titles, that still show in dimmed (grey) text.
Thanks for your help

[Lowlander]

You can remove the F drive files from the Location node in the Media Tree. Select the F drive, right click, Remove. This will remove all tracks from the F drive from the Library.

You can move/copy files several ways: http://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/index.p ... enames/4.0

[tgalea]

To remove the F drive items is easy, as you said. I would like to be able to import the missing files only, but whatever I tried, save individual manual copying/moving, always brings in all files from drive F. I tried synchronising again, and I ticked the check for duplicates, bit that only eliminated about a hundred tracks. I went into options to set up search, and I just left the most basic things, like track no., album name, bit rate, size, title. I thought that when then you set up check for duplicates, the software would use those criteria.
Any Ideas?
If I use add/rescan function, the same thing happens, and the files are not actually imported into the C-drive

[Lowlander]

MediaMonkey doesn't import files to another drive.

You can use Tools > Auto-Organize Files (or the automatic, but more risky Tools > Options > Auto-Organize) to move (by default, but Auto-Organize Files can copy too) files from F to C: http://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/index.p ... enames/4.0
You can use Auto-Sync, however it is meant for portable device syncing so make sure everything is set correctly: http://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/index.p ... evices/4.0

The duplicate scanning (enabled under Tools > Options > Library) does an audio fingerprint and you can access files found as duplicates under the File to Edit > Duplicate Content node. The Duplicate Titles node under same Files to Edit only compares tags (I believe only Title): http://www.mediamonkey.com/support/inde ... icleid=113

If C and F contain the same files, but some of F drives files are missing on C you should be able to use backup/sync software like SyncToy to get the missing F files onto C (depends also if you have the same folder structure setup).

[tgalea]

Thanks a lot Lowlander. At last I feel that I am very close to restore my library completely. I downloaded a programme called FreeFileSync, similar to the one you suggested. With it I could see both the F and C music content, and it showed also which side has duplicates of the other, etc etc. So finally I transfered in one direction (F to C) and it looks like I have nearly all albums. When I have time I will take all my CDs out and check if there are any missing in C. Also, I will have to scan some art to fill in the empty Art of some Albums.

It would be wonderful if MM integrated a program like that into their Software.

Best regards,

[ongbenghui]

Hi,

I dunno if I am having the same problem, but I do see a lot of duplicates appear in the lower panel.

see

[ongbenghui]

I am also using dBpoweramp to rip my cd. Is there some imcompatibility here ?

[tgalea]

It's best to set "view" to "Art and details" to see what is associated with the particular art. Then click on "Album" in the main tree. and you will get a list of all albums with art and all tracks. You could have duplicate tracks within each Album itself, or duplicate whole albums. I used dbpoweramp to rip my CDs and found it very good, except that if there was no Art available, if you used the scan facility, it takes ages, so usually I skipped that, and then edited the Art inside MM. Now that MM also has "Accuraterip", which I have not yet used, I suppose there is little scope for using dbpoweramp. But I liked dbpoweramp because it showed you up to three lists of tags, and allowed you to choose and edit, before you start ripping, so you can be sure that you have the right information. In the case of MM you have to edit each track individually, which although quite detailed, does not always make it easy.
To come back to the duplicates, if you are on "Album" view, you can see, at the right top corner, in the preview pane, under "Album" the total number of albums you have, and in the bottow left corner, how many files (tracks) you have in total.

[Lowlander]

You can edit any group of files in MediaMonkey. Just select several files and right click > Properties. Of course any changed values will apply to all files.

EAC allows Art to be added from internet prior to ripping.

[tgalea]

I used EAC, but then learnt about dbpoweramp, and its ability to verify agains others' rips, and so bought it, and used it. It give you a sense of security. It may or may not find art in its database, but if it does not, it allows you to add your own, the only thing, as I said before is that it looks like it hangs up for a while, but really it is extremely slow (or maybe something with my pc/video card!!). In most cases I added Art using MM edit and add art facilities.