Digital Copy of Collected Albums doesn't sort right.

[dwilliamsamh]

Hi. I have a digital purchase of a artist's entire major album collection. It spans 15 separate albums, but obviously it's one large file, comprised of 154 individual files.

While each file name contains a unique number (01-10, 201-211, 301-309, etc.), the track number repeats with each album (1-10, 1-11, 1-9, etc.). Initially MM5 displayed then by track number, so 15 Ones, 15 Twos, 15 threes ... etc.)

After deleting this mess from the MM5 Database:

1) I created sub folders for each Album, and moved each file into the appropriate album folder, and rediscovered. Result: Same block of 15 ones, 15 twos etc.). This yielded the same block of 15 each of Ones, twos, threes etc.

2) Then I renumbered the tracks through Windows File Manager. (101-110, 201-209 ... 1001-1011, 1201-1212 etc.)

NOW what I have in the Compilation is, a block of files with the numbers in the numerical order that I set... - that's what I was willing to deal with.

BUT....

Seeming random files are placed under the collection and it's large block of files into "Disk #" - SEPARATE from the large block of files.

So ...

"Disk 1" has file/track numbers 401, 402, 1002, and 1005 ... Then "Disk 2" has file/track numbers 210, 1007, 1008, 1009, and 1210. None of those files are in the large block in numerical order.

What the roller skating panda is going ON here??

How can I at least just get the songs to appear in the album and track order according to the numbers I painstakingly set even if they aren't divided into Disks? My fondest wish would be I only saw that the Compilation displaying in MM5 as "Disk 1" and "Disk 2" etc. and would actually contain their respective tracks all neat and tidy. What am I doing wrong, and/or what can I do to fix this mess?

Thanks in advance for any help!

[Lowlander]

It sounds like you need to properly tag the Disc# field. Also check what you're sorting on.

[dwilliamsamh]

Thank you! Worked like a charm. Now If I could only figure out how to prevent ever multiplying duplicates! LOL


For future reference, is it safe to say that I should be doing any editing of tags in MM5, over Windows Explorer?

[Lowlander]

I would recommend tagging in MediaMonkey especially as File Explorer isn't the greatest with tags.

Do the duplicates have the same Paths or different in MediaMonkey. You may be renaming files in File Explorer and then scan the files in, creating duplicates.

[dwilliamsamh]

There are definitely duplicates due to duplicates on the source storage. They exist because I have exported iTunes libraries and restored to several computers over the years, and I'm too lazy to go through all of those files (especially because the fruit company screwed me out of music that I ripped in from CDs, they converted to their DRM format) to clean up. That is my fault and I know MM can't be expected to deal with the BS.

BUT...

There are several more recent purchases that only exist in one place, because, I can at least do the right thing going forward. And I find that for some reason duplicates start showing up for those files as well. I don't rename them (that would be silly, no?) and I have wiped out both the MM DB and started from scratch, as well as the MM Mobile* app several times. Things stay as expected for some time, but then dups start showing up and soon it gets out of control. 3-5 dups in the the Database. Resulting in albums with say, 14 tracks showing 56 tracks.

* I have cleared ALL write back categories "Sync List (Device --> Library)" and set "Delete Other Files and Play Lists from Device storage" to "all other Media Files," Under "Sync List (Library --> Device).

[Lowlander]

Do the duplicates have the exact same Path in MediaMonkey's Path column or different Paths? In the case of different Paths check if files exist in each of the Patch.