Finding tracks that had filename changed by iTunes

[Scratchy]

Hi

I've been using MM Gold for a few years but at some point a few months ago I added my library to iTunes (iPhone issues and I wanted to use the Genius feature). Unfortunately, seemingly by default, iTunes had "Keep my music files organised" so before I knew what it was doing, it completely re-organised (ie stuffed up) the years of folder structure and filename organising I had done through MM. I was obviously annoyed by this but I didn't have time to do much about it so I had to stop using MM (for the reason below) and begun using iTunes as a compromise. Problem with that is I lose all my playlists and the tagging abilities of MM, and I now have some more free time to resolve the issues.
Basically, I thought MM would be able to find all the tracks though by 'Locate missing/moved tracks' but it could not find any tracks which changed file name, which left much of my library unusable. For the tracks which iTunes simply moved I was able to use 'Locate missing/moved tracks' as you would expect.
It may be important to note that no tagging information has changed.
The 'Locate missing/moved tracks' apparently works on filename alone because it cannot find anything which had a change in filename.
It seems the change iTunes filename rule is '<Track0#> <Title>' so it changed much of my library which was in the format <Track#> - <Artist> - <Title>.
When I tried using File monitor to sort it out this did no good (thankfully I was making backups of my MM database). File monitor just wanted to delete all the tracks it couldn't find (or if 'Remove unavailable tracks' was unchecked then it would leave them all and add all the 'new' tracks (which are the same things except for filename).
So for all those tracks which MM can't find with 'Locate missing tracks' I can force MediaMonkey to find them by manually going into song properties and changing the stored (old) filename to the new one (typically by deleting <artist> from the filename). As I already implied MediaMonkey unfortunately treated all those tracks with changed file names as new tracks so has added several thousand duplicates. I can obviously delete these new additions easily enough, but I'm wondering if there's any quicker way (than manually) to change the record of the filenames that MM has stored for all the original entries. The reason I want to keep the original entries rather than using the new ones which have the correct filename is play history and playlists etc.
I have tried using 'Auto-organize Files' to change the file name of the tracks it can't find but because it can't find them it doesn't work (ie. it says 'Could not find X, it will not be moved'). This is particularly annoying because it gives the same error when I do it manually but I press Enter twice and it then fixes it and plays the track!!
It will be an insurmountable task to do it manually (I believe it's around 4000 tracks) so I really hope there's another solution.
By the way I do want to keep my iTunes library as it is because I update my iPhone with it and I like the Genius function. So I don't want to completely mess around the file names to the extent that iTunes won't be able to find them either (that would mean both players can't find my music).

Hope that all makes sense (4am over here)
Thanks.
S

[Lowlander]

If you change the filenames in MediaMonkey, iTunes might not be able to find them anymore.

You could scan in files (keep copy of original DB). Then use Auto-Organize Files on all files to original filename (or even folder/filename structure). Replace new DB with original DB start MediaMonkey and now try Locate Moved/Missing for files listed under Library > Files to Edit > Dead Links.

You also might find the following addon useful: http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... icate+find

[Scratchy]

Thanks Lowlander. Yeah, when I was changing the filenames in MM, I was changing them to what iTunes had them stored as so it would still be able to find them

I will definitely check out the addon, might be just what I need if I can use the 'new' location but the old play history, but not sure it will preserve playlists since they are all linked to the old location...
Skimming though, it looks quite powerful so that gives me hope and something to do tomorrow. Sleep now.

Cheers