Hi Matt,
Yes, it is hard to understand why the quirks in the UI have not been sorted out in earlier releases, maybe it is too late now?
It's funny how you don't appreciate the little things until they are gone! Like the triangles at each end of scroll bars to give a small movement to fine tune your display; like expanding a folder and having as much as possible automatically displayed; ditto for using just one letter to jump in a long list and seeing as many files as will fit that start with that character, . . . they make the product feel unfinished or thoughtless imo, which is certainly not the case, but it must frighten off many new comers to the product.

Learning to make those Organise files masks is high on my todo list, as is adapting to the new Auto-Playlists. Thanks for your encouragement, it is good to know that the little hurdles are worth putting up with to get to the powerful seriously good stuff. I'm pretty pedantic about my tagging so I should manage when I get my head around the syntax.
Cheers,

MM5 suffers from an idiosyncratic user interface, but if you need the power of MM5 and put the time in then you can become accustomed to it.
I rely upon Auto Organise to do all my file relocations, but that does depend upon you having a clear idea of what structure you want, knowing how to code that into the mask and then having scrupulously accurate tags. Do those things and then organising your files will be simple.

Lowlander and Peke, thanks for the reasurance that I can trust the [b]Auto Organise Files[/b] routine to help sort out the realigning of my disturbed .flac files/tags (because there is a chance to review the potential results - and quit if it is not ideal).

For the benefit of those following along, a ticket has been created with DEV for the issues that I have raised here and I am confident that they'll get them attended to soon, perhaps in the next upgrade. Thanks Peke for seeing my distress and taking this on - very much appreciated, you've been a great help, and I look forward to helping with some testing if that can help MM5w get even better.

Now I just need to let my full backup finish and then get to trying some of these ideas. Thanks again L & P.

Best wishes,
Jim Kelly

[url=https://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/WebHelp:Changing_Filenames/5.0#Manually_Auto-Organize_Files]Auto-Organize Files[/url] is a manual job. You get to verify the changes before it makes it.

Screenshots is explained here: https://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=97733

Hi,
[quote="Jim Kelly" post_id=513629 time=1696725006 user_id=63392]
I haven't tried to use Auto-Organize (Files) at all (being very wary at the moment of anything 'automatic').
I have checked the dialog and there is nothing set at all.
[/quote]No need to be worried you have previews of the results, before you even click OK.

I'll try to answer your concerns:
[quote="Jim Kelly" post_id=513629 time=1696725006 user_id=63392]
* the lack of status when MM5 is still busy doing this sort of thing to hundreds of files at a time.
[/quote]You have status bar and also busy icon that show info on mouse move.
[quote="Jim Kelly" post_id=513629 time=1696725006 user_id=63392]
* very odd jumping about of the focus as you are trying to make even small changes (say just one filename) typically ending with the focus jumping away to the next highest folder in the open tree on the left-hand-pane - very frustrating!
[/quote]You can always Drag and Drop using Location Tree node and filename you can easily edit inline in list no need to use properties. Auto organize is batch rename to mak ethings easier ant complicate things.
[quote="Jim Kelly" post_id=513629 time=1696725006 user_id=63392]
* It is very troublesome to edit many fields (EG Title) in that a lot of slow clicks are needed before it stops dismissing you and often jumping focus to the next higher file in the current list. It is hard to imagine that this could be tolerated by QA so it might give you a clue as to where my issue is.
[/quote]Open properties of one file -> Edit Title -> Click next Arrow -> Edit title -> .... Or I miss something?

Let me know if I got at least one of your concerns ;)

[url=https://ibb.co/MfXhjRh][img]https://i.ibb.co/MfXhjRh/image.png[/img][/url]

Hi Lowlander,

I haven't tried to use Auto-Organize (Files) at all (being very wary at the moment of anything 'automatic').
I have checked the dialog and there is nothing set at all.

I am pretty sure these bugs are showing up where lots of changes are being made to both the folder naming - and to moving folder trees to another part of the tree. I have been doing this to try to keep track of what albums have been checked and what still needs checking, a staged Work-in-Progress (WIP) if you like.

If you have a development machine available try and simulate it and you might just see:
* the lack of status when MM5 is still busy doing this sort of thing to hundreds of files at a time.
* very odd jumping about of the focus as you are trying to make even small changes (say just one filename) typically ending with the focus jumping away to the next highest folder in the open tree on the left-hand-pane - very frustrating!
* It is very troublesome to edit many fields (EG Title) in that a lot of slow clicks are needed before it stops dismissing you and often jumping focus to the next higher file in the current list. It is hard to imagine that this could be tolerated by QA so it might give you a clue as to where my issue is.
* eventally a crash of some kind with corruption of the folder structure in the vicinity of the folder being moved.

Yesterday I got elaborate error messages (two in a row) that I have captured as .JPGs.
If you send me a link as to [i]how to attach[/i] them, it is likely to help those of you trying to tidy this area of MM5 up.

Thanks,

Jim Kelly

Hi Rob,

Vice Versa Pro is very good - Where it finds a difference it deletes in the destination and replaces with the newer file.

You can set the 'job' to be one way OR two way (which keeps both disks identical, catering pretty well to a shared folder used by yourself on two computers - say your desktop and your notebook - but you cannot change both versions of the file of course - just a matter of synching often which is no drama, and quick because it just has to deal with changed files and folders).

It is very folder based so you can have several synched folders from a huge desktop disk system synched with a smaller disk in a notebook.

I've been using it for years and it has never let me down.

One cause of cascading folders could be improper configuration of Auto-Organize (Files). If you use absolute Paths (ie. drive:\folder\file) this isn't an issue, but if you use relative paths (ie. .\folder\folder\file) it could potentially be creating sub-folders of the folder you're starting in each time it's run.

I had not heard of that one, it sounds pretty good.

How does it handle renamed or moved files and folders? Can it detect these automatically, and rename them similarly on the destination?

On mine, I have to review those manually and decide what to keep, or end up with lots of duplicates

Thanks for your concern Rob,

I use Vica Versa Pro to backup the files - I like it as it simply creates a copy of the files at the destination (and doesn't need to copy those that have the same date/time/size. I use the one-way method for the music files so that it always behaves as expected.

Not a cloud fan, so I'm all safe from cloud issues thankfully.

And, yes, the folder where all the MM5 backups accumulate is always updated too.

Thanks for your thoughtful reply,

Best wishes,

Jim Kelly

Just a note as I was reading the above

I trust you realize that backing up the MM database does nothing towards backing up your music itself.

This you must do separately, unless you have it all in a folder that backs up to cloud service. If you do cloud, it must be getting quite confused by now. :)

I keep a couple of portable hdd's myself, and use Total Commander to sync my PC music to a folder one of the portable HDD's alternating, and then store them in a separate building, or a fireproof safe might work as well. A copy of the matching backed up database should be on there too.

Hate for you to do all that work, and then lose any part of it.

1. Great that has always been set correctly then

2. That's good as if we decide to start again the most valuable value-added will be in the files.

3. Yes, I spent many hours trying to resolve that! There were over 2,000 folders in a huge staircase! I found the music files scattered through the folders and pieced it all together without loss it seems.
I need to establish why I am having so many odd problems. Windows isn't behaving perfectly elsewhere, and so a rebuild is probably in order. Or a new computer . . .

Just now I decided the reconstruction of the .flac files was finally tidy enough to warrant backing the music system up. So:
Did the MM backup - finished OK.
Did the optimise database - finished OK.
Ticked the other two database management boxes - and it has stuck with a message "[b]Problem with copying file {path}MM5.DB.new to {same path}MM5.DB.
[/b]
Cancel/Retry/Ignore . . . none of them allow me to continue!

By moving the error message box I can see:
[b]Rebuild database: copying content of database table(s): Radio
[/b]

I had waited plenty of time for processes to be finished before I started any of this. And another hour - still no progress.

Curiously, the subject of this thread had recurred during the hour prior - several times, but in most cases if I waited for ten minutes and tried again I could rename a folder inside MM5. At least one folder wouldn't and I was wanting to reboot to try again . . .

I expect that I should use Task Manager to stop MM5, then shutdown and unpower for a few minutes - and bootup again . . .

Any ideas what causes this behaviour?

Thanks,

Jim Kelly

1) Yes, if both source and destination are within a monitored folder it is enough.

2) By [url=https://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/WebHelp:Editing_Track_Properties/5.0#Basic_Concepts]default[/url] tags are stored in both file tags and database: https://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/WebHelp:About_Track_Properties/5.0

3) Any steps the cascading folder issue?

OK, that sounds like a really good option thanks Lowlander.
I have had one continuously monitored pointer on the whole of my active music folder structure - and any folder movements have been inside that tree of folders starting at M:\Music\ . Should that have been enough?

Is there a way to force the tags that I assume are kept in the database to be also stored in the .flac files?
A link to a current chart of managed metadata would be appreciated showing what fields are 'safely' stored in the .flac files if the MM5.DB collapses on me. And what fields can only be stored in the MM5.DB?

I have just found a couple of odd and ridiculous faults that look like they are a failed cut and paste (I use the right mouse click method). Hundreds of pairs of folders cascading away until any more itterations became impossible. I think in this case the files have been lost; and the weird tree is in my last file-system backup of a week ago.

Thanks.
Jim

If you have [url=https://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/WebHelp:Adding_Existing_Files_to_the_Library/5.0#Using_Folder_Monitoring_to_Automatically_Update_the_Library]Folder Monitoring[/url] set to Continuous on the source and destination folder and have MediaMonkey running the changes should be picked up as you make them (this may not work for network locations).