Auto-organize sometimes uses only first rule, moving files

[PatMcQ]

I have 7 rules defined for Auto-organize and I have MM4 automatically scanning/organizing on startup. The order of the rules is critical as the last rule handles everything else after the previous 6 rules (exceptions).

Sometimes MM4 uses only the first rule and ignores the rest, thus begins to move/rename most of my tracks on startup. I caught it and terminated the process within MM4. I closed MM and relaunched it. MM then started putting the files back, honoring all of the rules again. This has happened twice out of 25ish launches of MM4. I did not make any rules changes during that time.

Without being able to reproduce the problem consistently, not sure you can do anything about it. Just thought you should know just in case. It fixed itself but it scares the crap out of me as I use MM to work on my "golden" set of music files. I backup weekly but with 30,000 music files, it's not easy to notice if files were moved or removed when I backup the next time. Just need a warm and fuzzy that MM is playing nice.

Thanks,
Pat

[Lowlander]

I don't what to expect with conflicting criteria, but I think the best way to define Auto-Organize is to use exclusive Criterion's so that no file is matched by more than 1 rule.

[PatMcQ]

Thanks. Immediately after your reply and per your suggestion, I made Auto-Organize rule tweaks to avoid any overlap. I made no rule changes since. Seemed to be the cure... until today. Totally random. When MM4 started up, it grabbed the first rule in the list and used the file naming and path in that rule for all files in the library, ignoring all subsequent rules. Again, I just happen to notice in the status bar that the initial scan was busier than usual. I terminated the scan and looked out and my file/folders in Windows Explorer. MM4 alphabetically started moving/renaming files.

As long as I catch it soon enough (before it moves 30,000 tracks), the fix is easy. Just close MM and re-invoke it. It is very un-nerving though. And that great MM feature of moving album art and lyrics files along with the tracks makes for a lot of work in this case as it does not move those .jpg/.lrc/.txt files back unless that folder would otherwise be empty. I have to manually choose/move those files in Explorer, which are now intermixed with other .jpg/.lrc/.txt files.

If you have not seen or heard of this anomally, any way I can capture it for you?