Advice please to recover from a very bad folder move . . .

[Jim Kelly]

Greetings readers!

I needed to move a folder (an album) to it's proper place in the tree of completed music ready for inclusion in AutoPlaylists, etc.

It was a new Artist so I also needed to create a New Folder and I was delighted to be offered that opportunity. But when I completed the operation all of hell broke loose. 2090 music tracks(only) from 250 adjacent folders and sub-folders and sub-sub-folders etc. would have all ended up being moved into the ONE newly created folder!!!! (the 250 folders are all still there - just ~80% of the music files were moved**).

PREAMBLE:
I had began by RMCg the completed album's folder in it's 'Locations' tree and selected:
Send to > Folder (Move) > {I followed the browse dialogs} > +New Folder > Move to . .
But I digress.

What I need to know now is How to Recover? Please!

I have a simple file backup of the whole music collection that is a day's work old. The corrupted (destination) portion has not had much attention during that day so swapping it in would not be too bad. BUT I would hate to lose any of the metadata connections with the database of all those 2090 favourite tracks.

I don't have a clear understanding of the dangers involved in proceeding so would appreciate if someone who does can guide me to the necessary steps to (a) AVOID and (b) Attempt.

NOTES:
1. My storage device does not have enough space for both copies of the 2,090 tracks = 38GBx2

2. ** MM5 crashed before it had finished and multiple folders appear to be partially transferred by checking the root sizes of several branches and they do not match that of the backup - so the existing files cannot necessarily just be deleted and copied in again.

3. MM5 is running fine after a reboot, Manage database ran with all boxes ticked. Have done it twice, and rebooted. All seems normal. But . .

4. MM5 did not try to complete the move process (thankfully)

5. The newly completed folder of tracks never got moved - that might help any debugging that needs to be done . . .

So pleased that I have the music files backed up, and I will have a MM5.db file close to that time too.

Thanks for reading
Really hoping for a way out of this mess.

[Rob_S]

Bearing in mind, I am just another user, with much more experience in file and folder management that with mediamonkey itself. Given that background, this is what I would do.

Make sure MM is running with "monitoring" of scanned folders turned on.

Then, I would use file explorer to manually reorganize my folder structure back to what it was.

I would move a few folders, and then check that they show the updated path in MM, and play as they should. Then move a few more, and check again.

Then gather my courage and do a whole bunch at once!!!

This way, MM will keep all info on the tracks including playlist membership, and only the paths will be updated.

Others may have better ideas.

Possibly it could be done using auto-organize, but this needs to be set up very carefully.

[Jim Kelly]

Hi Rob, thanks for being there!

I think I understand what you mean (handle each track singularly?) but I will have a huge job ahead of me because I need to load each one into MM5 to see which Album it belongs to (where there were multiple releases, etc, etc). And what did MM5 do when it tried to move exact filenames into that same folder?? Maybe there wasn't any!

Maybe I could identify which Artists and all their Albums have been entirely moved and treat them one Artist at a time:
1. Copy their backup files back into "the right place",
2. Delete/archive the Artists files from "the wrong place". Problem - this needs MM5 running to see the artist's name, although probably Window's File Explorer has a column for that.
3. Get MM5 to find them again and update the path and reconnect the metadata.
BUT, my experience with MM5 to date is such that when it tries to find any "missing files" it is absurdly sloppy. IE it might mix a short pop song with a long classical music piece etc - I am not talking of a simple, understandable mixup.
IIRC, we get a chance to focus that routine on to an exact URL which should help to reduce it's errors.

Just reiterating things:
The folder structure is intact in "the right place" (and some tracks are randomly sprinkled among about 20% of them as shown by 'Treesize' - they never got moved. I could easliy filter them out and delete them - or attempt to copy over them and skip all those that still exist). The misc files of artwork, etc are still there too.

I might be better to archive the mess of tracks in "the wrong place" (just one huge folder), then:
1. delete the original tree (even though it contains some good tracks).
2. paste in the same tree from the one day older backup.
Whether this is all done with MM5 running or OFF will determine how to get them reconnected.

What a conundrum of possibilities!
I don't care if I lose "last played", etc., and I don't have any standard Playlists of value (I have lots of AutoPlayLists - hence my need to keep the tags intact!!).

One other thought, I could use MM5's Folder node to open the backup which is not on the 'always monitor' list. But it seems clumsy looking in two places at once (I only have one computer at the moment).

Some of these thoughts are conflicting I know. Forgive me, my mind is trying to find a way through the maze but lacks the knowledge of how some steps will destroy the database links. As you suggest, I could just try and see what happens to a few files.

Thanks again Rob,
Cheers,
Jim

[Rob_S]

I was assuming you could recognize the filenames possibly in album groups and slide them into the correct folders.

If you delete and replace files they may not be recognized and matched with database

[Jim Kelly]

There will be some that I can recognize easily of course, but hoping for a method tried that will do it quickly and certainly (lazy, eh!).

Will wait another day before I start to see if anyone else has had to work out a safe way to fix the is.

Thanks,
Jim

[Rob_S]

Windows file explorer can display and sort on any existing album name tags, making this bit easier.

[Jim Kelly]

Looking like that will be the best approach . . .
Because the database thinks they now all belong in that one new folder it makes my backup of no help on this occassion!
A strange world!

Thanks for your guidance Rob,
Cheers,
Jim

[kncuk1969]

Just a quick question.

Jim, how did you tag these files? (Using MM or an alternative tagging prog).
I don't use MM for tagging as I use MP3TAG & MusicBrainz Picard, so I don't know whether MM puts the MB ID's into the files, if it does then you should be able to use picard to group the files into their respected albums.

Then all you need to do would be rescan MM to pick up the change of metadata & use Auto Organise to move them back to the original folders.

Hope this may help.

[AlanH]

Im a bit confused from my understanding you tried move certain files but ended up moving a lot more into one folder.

Are the album and album artists tags still the original or have they been changed. if original couldnt you just use auto organise to move the files back into the same folder structure you had it before.

[Jim Kelly]

Ah!! Two new answers - many thanks!
Hi kncuk1969:
All done with MM2, 3, 4 & 5 Gold over the past 16 years. I loved the idea of AutoPlaylists so that as I added CDs etc to my library the usefuness of my algorithms grew automatically (for music to suit dining times, driving, parties, etc.). I have used custom tags to add my keywords for Tempo, Mood, Occassion, Grouping, Quality, and Genre. And many of the standard fields like rating & comments). Of these, only Mood is present in Windows File Explorer and that is truncated as it ignores multiple Mood entries that MM allows (using the ; seperator). I did use the MM addin "RegExp Find and Replace" to help tidy track names at times.
Sorry, I am not familiar with MP3TAG nor MusicBrainz Picard.

Hi AlanH:
Yes, I tried to move just one small folder (an album of six 'completed' tagged tracks) from a 'Work in progress' folder to the 'finished' folder structure of the usual . . /Finished/Quality/BroadGenre/Artist/Album/CD# (which is still intact). The RMC 'Send to . . ' function that I used (because it included an add 'New Folder' option that I had found impossible elsewhere) let me add the new Artist's folder BUT when I completed the 'paste' [or whatever], it mopped up every track from Quality down and tried to put all of them into the new artist's new folder!! It was trying to move 2090 tracks but crashed at about 1561. At no time did I get asked "Do you really want to move XXXX files all at once?" and I could see no way to stop the process . . . The selected folder of six tracks never got moved.

Yes thankfully, the album and album artists tags look ok, and my added tag info too.

I have never tried AutoOrganise (seem to remember that 'it takes a lot of caution'?). Now might be the time to get on top of it? (kncuk1969 mentioned it too).

I hope this helps clarify my issue?

Thanks very much for helping
Jim

[AlanH]

Ok its good that the tags are still there.

Im only a novice user of MM, the trick is to match the mask to your folder structure.

My file structure is like this: Music \ album artist\ album name\ track number ~ title

Its just a case of matching the mask to your existing folder structure. Heres the page on what you can select and if your unsure i would start a thread with your exact folder structure and im sure one of the power users will be able to match you up with the exact mask.

https://www.mediamonkey.com/sw/webhelp/ ... enames.htm

[kncuk1969]

Hi Jim

I also never use the auto Auto-Organize feature which is the one that most people have the trouble with. (i.e. If activated moves files as soon as they are added to database. Which is no good if you still need to tidy up the tags.)
Which is why I only use the manual version (Invoked by Tools>Auto-Organize files (for both MM4 & MM5) once the files have been selected.
Then as AlanH stated it's just a case of matching the correct masks.

E:\Music\<Album Artist>\<Album>\<Track#:2> <Title>

The above would produce the following (foe example)

E:\Music\The Cardigans\Gran Turismo\01 Paralyzed.mp3

It will also create the folders if they do not exist.

So do you have an example of how your folders look.

kncuk1969

[Jim Kelly]

Thanks AlanH and kncuk1969, your help is very much appreciated.

This is typical of my structure (TMO is Tempo, Mood and Structure):
M:\Music\+6. Classified TMO\P\a. FLAC\Carly Simon\The Best of Carly Simon\{filenames}.
The bug has hit everything in my . . \P\a.FLAC\*.flac tree (so all album art, etc is still in place as well as notes, logs, etc.).

I could go through the original(and thankfully still existing) file structure and look for anomalies;
or I could just merge any discrepancies later.
Or maybe I should begin by renaming the existing tree (say \P\ to \Pp\) in a way that the function creates all new folders?
[btw, P and Pp both simply represent 'Pop music'].
Please remember that the existing folders still have ~20% of the tracks in them.

I followed your link read it and and then went on to the MM5 link ( https://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/WebHel ... enames/5.0 ).

Sounds like just the thing!
I feel ready to try a small batch when I hear from you again.
At this stage I'd like to leave the filenames intact though. Just using \Artist\Album\ will cluster the files into managable clumps for the manual fine-tuning I think.

Thanks again for being there!
Jim Kelly

PS: Is there any way to 'show all folders' including those without music tracks in them - in the Location node?
I have tried using the Folders node (where they do show) but other things are not working for me (including selecting a group of tracks by using: click then shift+click . . .
Lots of QA tidying up still needs to be done it seems.

PPS: Did you notice the irony that the sequence in the AutoOrganise process includes the exact same function (Move to . . ) that created the havoc that is wasting all of our time!!

[kncuk1969]

Hi Jim

I think we're on the final lap now.

If all of the affected files should go in M:\Music\+6. Classified TMO\P\a. FLAC then I think you would get away with a mask like so:
M:\Music\+6. Classified TMO\P\a. FLAC\<Album Artist>\<Album>\<Filename>

The Filename part will keep it as is. e.g. 12345.Flac will remain 12345.Flac just in the new directory.

But JUST to make sure I would only do a couple of affected albums at a time until you are happy that they have moved to their original places.

Re the PS:

I believe that is only available in the Folders Node as the Location Node is only for content that is media related. (i.e., mp3, mp4. mkv,, etc... and NOT txt, bmp. jpg, pdf)


kncuk1969

[Jim Kelly]

OK!!
I will try over the next day or two (it's midnight here).
And I will be careful - thanks for the heads up and the syntax.

I'll let you know.

Cheers,
Jim