I have a very irritating and frustrating problem with the way MM stores the file paths to my audio files. Currently it uses the format [Volume Label]\<rest of path> instead of <drive letter>:\<rest of path>. I use two external disks for my audio files. The one has volume label AUD1A and the other AUD1B. I synchronise and swop them on a monthly basis. The one that is not currently in use is stored off-site as a secure backup. The active one always has the drive letter M:. My problem is that media monkey does not store file paths using the drive letter - it uses the volume label in the path. Whenever I swop my external drives all my file paths in MM become invalid since that volume is not available, although the drive letter M: is available.
I've tried changing the volume label to the one used originally, but as soon as I've changed the drive letter of a particular volume all my file paths become invalid, even if I keep the volume label the same. It seems that some internal lookup mechanism in MM is failing based on the change of the drive letter irrespective of the volume label being preserved.
My suggestion is to change the file path to use the drive letter. That is much more flexible, especially if different columes are swapped on a regular basis for backup purposes while keeping the drive letter the same.
Use of volume labels in audio file paths do not work
Moderator: Gurus
-
heinimuecki
- Posts: 415
- Joined: Tue Mar 28, 2006 12:16 am
- Location: nrw, germany
MM doesn't recognize the hd neither by label nor by drive letter.
it recognizes the hd by its volume id. each of your hds has its own id.
if you change the id from the one that doesn't work to the one that works,
so that they have both the same id, MM should find it.
you can do that with a small tool called "volumeid" (from sysinternals i guess).
it recognizes the hd by its volume id. each of your hds has its own id.
if you change the id from the one that doesn't work to the one that works,
so that they have both the same id, MM should find it.
you can do that with a small tool called "volumeid" (from sysinternals i guess).
heinimuecki,
Thank you for the information. Even though your information tells me how MM is supposed to work with disk volumes, it still doesn't work correctly and I'll describe why below:
I work with two external disks that have volume labels AUD1A and AUD1B. I do not know their volume ID's, but they should be different anyways. The currently active drive. let's say it is AUD1A, has the drive letter M: while the other is in off-site storage. When I do an Add/Rescan in MM it lists all the audio file paths as M:\<rest of path>. At the end of the month I connect the backup drive AUD1B to my audio server as drive N:. I do a synchronization and then I swop the drive letters. In other words M: is now drive AUD1B and N: is drive AUD1A. At this point in time I still have both drives connected to my audio server. However, MM indicates that it cannot find any of my audio files (indicated in grey). When I check the file paths for the files they are now listed as [AUD1A]\<rest of path>, even though this drive with its unique volume ID is still connected to my server. To me it looks like MM is trying to find the drive with the volume ID of AUD1A at M:, cannot find it there and then just fails, but lists the original volume label in place of the drive letter. In my opinion this is unexpected and incorrect behaviour.
To take this point further, I do not believe that storing file paths with respect to volume ID's is correct at all. It will cause more problems than it ties to solve. What will happen when someone upgrades their hard drives for a larger one? The new volume ID is different and suddenly all the data in MM is invalid due to invalid file paths. The only way to clear this is to clear the WHOLE library, which includes all playlists. That is just not acceptable. ALL other programs work by drive letter exactly for this reason. It just provides so much more flexibility for changing disk drives or even mapped folders without affecting the applications that rely on data on that drive.
By using volume ID's MM is way too rigid and complicated for everyday and typical usage scenarios. Therefore I am requesting that this behaviour be fixed to work with drivel LETTERS instead of volume ID's.
Regards
Jaco
Thank you for the information. Even though your information tells me how MM is supposed to work with disk volumes, it still doesn't work correctly and I'll describe why below:
I work with two external disks that have volume labels AUD1A and AUD1B. I do not know their volume ID's, but they should be different anyways. The currently active drive. let's say it is AUD1A, has the drive letter M: while the other is in off-site storage. When I do an Add/Rescan in MM it lists all the audio file paths as M:\<rest of path>. At the end of the month I connect the backup drive AUD1B to my audio server as drive N:. I do a synchronization and then I swop the drive letters. In other words M: is now drive AUD1B and N: is drive AUD1A. At this point in time I still have both drives connected to my audio server. However, MM indicates that it cannot find any of my audio files (indicated in grey). When I check the file paths for the files they are now listed as [AUD1A]\<rest of path>, even though this drive with its unique volume ID is still connected to my server. To me it looks like MM is trying to find the drive with the volume ID of AUD1A at M:, cannot find it there and then just fails, but lists the original volume label in place of the drive letter. In my opinion this is unexpected and incorrect behaviour.
To take this point further, I do not believe that storing file paths with respect to volume ID's is correct at all. It will cause more problems than it ties to solve. What will happen when someone upgrades their hard drives for a larger one? The new volume ID is different and suddenly all the data in MM is invalid due to invalid file paths. The only way to clear this is to clear the WHOLE library, which includes all playlists. That is just not acceptable. ALL other programs work by drive letter exactly for this reason. It just provides so much more flexibility for changing disk drives or even mapped folders without affecting the applications that rely on data on that drive.
By using volume ID's MM is way too rigid and complicated for everyday and typical usage scenarios. Therefore I am requesting that this behaviour be fixed to work with drivel LETTERS instead of volume ID's.
Regards
Jaco
More info and recent discussions regarding this:
http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8560
http://mediamonkey.com/faq/index.php?ac ... artlang=en
/Bex
http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8560
http://mediamonkey.com/faq/index.php?ac ... artlang=en
/Bex
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