Did a dumb thing, renamed music library folder

[dtpk]

My music library folder on my PC had this really long name (even longer boring story why, which I'll skip) and it was bugging me so I decided to change it. BIG MISTAKE. I thought I had all my bases covered before I did it...but I was wrong. I changed the folder name and I re-directed MM to the new location/folder name and everything seemed fine BUT I didn't realize that it would also wipe out all my playlists because all the file path associations changed. Of course I didn't think to back the playlists up first, so now I've got problems.

Like I said, all my playlists are wiped clean. The playlists' names are there but nothing's in them. Not so bad, I guess, I could either rebuild the playlists or just forget about them, except for the one playlist I can't even imagine recreating, the one that defined my iPod contents. My library is 35,000+ tracks and my iPod is 13,000+ so naturally I had made a playlist of only what would go on the iPod.

Then I thought, no problem, I'll just copy my iPod contents back into the empty iPod playlist in MM. So I did, but once again the file path problem kicked in and now I have duplicates of all those songs in my main library. Sure, I now have all my tracks in the iPod playlist but all their file paths point back to the iPod itself as their library home, not to their original sister files in my library on my PC's F drive where I need them to, ie they are now G:\iPod_Control\Music\... instead of F:\Music\Music Library\... So, I see and know which songs are on my iPod and should be in the MM playlist that tells them to be there, but I need them to be tagged as the songs that are actually in my MM library, not on my iPod. Make any sense at all?

Is there any way to undo or fix this mess I made? I thought about using a really good file renaming program called Rename Master to change all the iPod files in the playlist from G:\iPod_Control\Music\... to F:\Music\Music Library\..., but will that really change their paths and their library association, or will it just screw things up even more?! sigh

[rovingcowboy]

just an by the chance guess.

but i'll bet you renamed your folder for music from inside the windows explorer and not by using media monkey didn't you? now you got the mess.

one way to fix it is simple just undo what you did by renaming the folder back to the origanl name before you screw up the works by doing other stuff.

like readd songs from back ups to the origanal location making you have duplicates in the database?
if that is done then don't remove them or you will take them all out of the database. just go back in to
windows explorer and rename that folder back to what it was.

then re open monkey and see if all the stuff is found again. it should all be but back in to the playlists also.
so don't delete them or you will have to remake them.

once you get that folder renamed and get them back in the location that monkeys data base is looking for them.
then you need to do the move to the new hard drive the right way.
by using mediamonkey's Auto Organizer feature. that way monkey won't lose any songs because he will change the info in the database.

you will just have to select small groups of about 1000 songs at a time to move them to the new drive so you don't end up taking all day and all night doing it.

but if you messed up and re added all your songs to monkey before you did the rename undo then you lost your playlists, or got duplicates of the songs all over the place. and you will need to spend months cleaning the mess up.

just why people get an organizer for their songs and then go in to the computer file system by them selves is not known. but people do that stuff. of course that old saying comes to mind stupid is as stupid does.?

but if you realize most the fourm posts here are by users that have had the same problems then you know,

I did the same dadgum thing.

[Kilmatead]

...you will need to spend months cleaning the mess up.

Or, if using Vista, right-click the library folder (and after) the MM DB file, and select "Previous Versions" under Properties. Saved my bacon (rashers) plenty of times.

[dtpk]

Thanks rovingcowboy. I don't have Vista so I hope what you suggested works. Now, if I can only remember that original long folder name!

[dtpk]

Well, I did as suggested and all my library files are back as they originally were before I renamed the library folder but it didn't bring my playlists back. Apparently all the playlist tags got wiped clean when I went back and forth. Bummer.

By the way, the reason I didn't make my original changes in MM instead of Windows is that I just didn't know I could. To be honest, MM can be a fairly complicated program because it has so many features (which is good, don't get me wrong), and I have explored and learned a lot about much of it. Unfortunately, I hadn't gotten around to the Organizer part of it yet.

So, I've been wracking my brain to try to come up with a playlist that would somehow filter all my tracks so the playlist would only include the tracks that came off my iPod (G drive) and those same tracks that exist as differently tagged files in my library (F drive), but no luck so far. And it doesn't help that the files off my iPod are named in the iTunes style, so even though they are the exact same songs as those in my library, they are named differently. (Yes, I have since changed that configuration.) But I can't seem to figure which playlist criteria to use. If I can make it work, then I can rebuild my original iPod playlist with my library files, no problem. If I can pull it off I'll definitely let everyone know.

Otherwise, yes it will take weeks, if not months, to fix this.

[rovingcowboy]

sorry you didn't get the playlists back, you must have changed something before that you didn't remember.
i got mine back i guess because i did mine the same minute i noticed the mistake,

looks like a lot of work for you., you could try the auto playlists and see if they can set up your options the way you want.?

[dtpk]

I keep thinking an auto-playlist is the answer but I just can't figure out how to configure it to get what I want. So far it looks like there just aren't enough criteria options in there to do the job. Oh well.

[Lowlander]

If the only difference in paths between the iPod and your PC is the root folder(s) you might be save, but this is only the case if the same mask is used on PC and iPod.

You would only need to do a Find/Replace on the root part of the path in the playlist. Just open the saved iPod playlist in Notepad (or similar text editor) and use the Replace function. Replace the iPod root path with your PC's root path. Once done you can use Add/Rescan Tracks to scan the playlist into MediaMonkey (make sure you select the playlist file type to be scanned).

I doubt that you will be this lucky though.

For the future if you have important manual playlists you can use Tools > Scripts > Export All Playlists to create a backup of them. Also when renaming folders you can use MediaMonkey itself so that none of this mess happens in the first place.

[dtpk]

Yes, that is the big problem. The same mask was NOT used on my PC and iPod so the root paths are different. For example, the track "Ange;" by Massive Atttack from their album "The Best of..." looks like this on and from my iPod:
G:\iPod_Control\Music\F40\Ange.mp3

and like this on my PC:
F:\Music\Library\Massive_Attack\Collected_ The Best Of Massive Attack\03 Angel 2.mp3.

As you can see, it looks pretty hopeless because of the iTunes style format. Otherwise, the Find/Replace idea (which I had not thought of yet) would work perfectly. But I haven't given up yet.

Since all the necessary ID tag info is still contained within each iPod file, there is a chance I might be able to do a batch conversion of the file names. I'm waiting to hear back from the people at Tag&Rename to see if their software can do this properly. It looks like it might, but we'll see.

Even if it doesn't work, I want to thank those of you who have taken the time to help me. It means a lot. Thanks.

I have learned a LOT about MM!

[dtpk]

Oops, that third sentence should say "...the track "Angel" by Massive Attack..."