My MM4 Syncing Experience

Get answers about syncing MediaMonkey 4 with iPods and other devices.

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jjfnk
Posts: 48
Joined: Mon Jan 07, 2013 7:46 pm

My MM4 Syncing Experience

Post by jjfnk »

I-5 Intel 2-core processor
24 GB of DDR-3 ram
Nvidia GeForce GT 1030 GPU
Windows 7 -> 10
Two 500 GB SSD Drives (C: and D:), one for operating system, one for music and video files
106 GBs of DATA of music and videos (20,000 mp3s)
300-watt power supply

Here’s my story. I’ve been a user of MediaMonkey for at least 10 years, on both my Windows computer and Android device. I am a Gold/Lifetime user and I always upgraded to the latest version of each. While I was able for a time to sync MMW with MMA via USB, it never worked very well and there were always issues. And, I never was able to sync via WiFi. About a month ago I became frustrated with the slowness and difficulty of the whole MM experience, despite reading the MM forum for what seems like forever. I must have uninstalled MMW and MMA at least 15 times each over the years and tried every setting I could find. One caveat, while I am pretty good at understanding most technical aspects of hardware and software, I am not an expert by any means and know just enough to experiment and often get myself in trouble! As my rig was fairly outdated, I recently decided to build a new system to the following specs, mostly just for fun and to try this MMW/MMA experience once again:

AMD Ryzen 5600X 6-core processor
16 GB of DDR-4 ram
Nvidia GeForce GT 1030 GPU
Windows 10
One 500 GB m.2 C: Drive (Operating system)
One 500 GB SSD D: Drive (Data storage)
106 GBs of DATA of music and videos (20,000 mp3s)
650-watt power supply

I built the rig in about 5 hours. I physically moved my SSD d: drive, which contained all the data, from my old computer to my new one and left it as the d: drive and then I was facing the issue of what to do with my 60 playlists and 2,000 tracks to sync with my MMA phone. Even though MMW could easily find the .mp3 tracks, I wasn’t excited at all about recreating the playlists and the amount of time and effort it would take. Fortunately, the MM forum explained how to move the relevant MM files from my old computer (.ini, .DB, and .m3u) to the proper directory in the new computer and that if you are using the same data drive (d:) as before it that all should work without any problems. So, I did that, and it worked perfectly! Media Monkey recognized everything: playlists, meta files, artwork, etc.

Then came the big question, could I sync with MMA on my phone via USB. I went into my installation of MMW on my new computer and rescanned my files to the library (at least I think I did that), connected my MMA phone via USB, set the proper parameters in MMW under the portable sync device options in the Tools menu, right clicked on my MMA device in the MMW Media Tree, left clicked on Auto Sync, and low and behold it worked perfectly. For the USB sync I did nothing on my MMA phone that I can remember. I added and delete tracks, clicked on Auto Sync again and everything synced beautifully and quickly. It was truly music to my ears, literally and figuratively.

A few days later it occurred to me that I should try syncing over Wi-Fi as the forum suggests that after the initial database is established. So, I added and deleted a few tracks in MMW and then went to MMA. I opened the main menu in MMA and clicked on Sync now, nothing else. Again, everything worked perfectly and has for the past two weeks. WiFi syncing is fast and is so much easier than via USB. In over 10 years I never had that capability. I did notice in the Options for MMA, that when I clicked on select sync server, 1 MM library shows up and 4 MM servers show up all with the same IP address. I don't understand that and would like to know why 4 show up.

Now, someone may ask, what did you do differently. And my answer is I don’t know. The only difference is the new Windows computer. Maybe some of the default communication and Wi-Fi settings had been modified in the old computer and I just didn’t know which ones or how to change them even though I tried way too many times to count. My MMA would never find the MMW library or servers or if it did it would lose them after one attempt as syncing.

In any event, I’m a happy MMW and MMA user and syncer and want to thank all the people who have posted over the years and whose advice I have utilized to try fixing my syncing issues. I know you all have spent many, many hours trying to help people like me and it is truly appreciated.

Thank you!
IanRTaylorUK
Posts: 536
Joined: Fri Dec 27, 2019 4:41 pm

Re: My MM4 Syncing Experience

Post by IanRTaylorUK »

Good to see that you have resolved your MMW4 sync issues and have a working system. Like you I have found WiFi synching has come and gone a few times. Several of the recent threads have helped me restore my MMW5 WiFi synching but not certain I can explain exactly what has happened!

Please think about somehow backing your music and playlists up to either an external hard disk or cloud service. Similarly use the MMW Backup addon to "Automatically Backup Essential Files" (ideally to a Google Drive / One Drive folder).

Why did you go for less RAM on the newer machine? I recently pushed my machine to 32 GB and have seen a lot of benefit. Also managed to off set the cost of the increased RAM (4 x 8GB) by selling the old (4 x 4GB).

Did you change the version of Windows 10? I have Windows 10 Pro but have a feeling Windows 10 Home might be easier for WiFi sync! Might try and test this theory soon.

I have just ordered a couple of new 480GB SSDs as one of my hard drives is a get quite old now. I notice that you re-used your D: drive SSD "as-is". Personally, I would consider (once the data is reliably backed up) re-formatting as moving the data back onto the freshly formatted drive. I "always" seem to generate a bunch of hidden / temporary etc. files and a reformat / fresh drive can help performance in my experience.

Hope this helps.
Ian Taylor
jjfnk
Posts: 48
Joined: Mon Jan 07, 2013 7:46 pm

Re: My MM4 Syncing Experience

Post by jjfnk »

Thanks for your comments and advice, Ian. I haven't been on the forum for awhile so I didn't see your message until today.

I went from 24 gb down to 16 gb simply because I didn't think I would need the extra ram as I mostly use the computer for relatively simple tasks using MS Office. Everything seems to work very quickly as it is. I would probably add more gb if I need to do some heavy db work or worked with graphics programs. I'd be interested to know what type of performance benefits you had by going up to 32 gb.

I have Windows 10 Home...not sure what version I had before.

Take care.
JJF

Windows 10 PC
MMW = 4.1.31.1919
AMD Ryzen 5600X, 3701 Mhz
16 GB ram
500 GB m.2 SSD
500 GB SSD

Samsung Galaxy S10
MMA = 1.4.3.0950
MediaMonkey Pro
128 GB Internal Storage
jjfnk
Posts: 48
Joined: Mon Jan 07, 2013 7:46 pm

Re: My MM4 Syncing Experience

Post by jjfnk »

Forgot one last question: Why have you not migrated to MM5? I didn't because I wanted to still rip CDs and I understand one can't with MM5. I'm pretty happy with my setup at this point and do not want to screw everything up until I have plenty of time to fix or redo if necessary. As with most everyone else on this forum, I've invested a lot of time and energy getting to a good place with MM.
JJF

Windows 10 PC
MMW = 4.1.31.1919
AMD Ryzen 5600X, 3701 Mhz
16 GB ram
500 GB m.2 SSD
500 GB SSD

Samsung Galaxy S10
MMA = 1.4.3.0950
MediaMonkey Pro
128 GB Internal Storage
Lowlander
Posts: 56465
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2003 5:53 pm
Location: MediaMonkey 5

Re: My MM4 Syncing Experience

Post by Lowlander »

You can Rip CD's with MediaMonkey 5.
IanRTaylorUK
Posts: 536
Joined: Fri Dec 27, 2019 4:41 pm

Re: My MM4 Syncing Experience

Post by IanRTaylorUK »

jjfnk wrote: Tue Apr 05, 2022 1:47 pm Thanks for your comments and advice, Ian. I haven't been on the forum for awhile so I didn't see your message until today.

I went from 24 gb down to 16 gb simply because I didn't think I would need the extra ram as I mostly use the computer for relatively simple tasks using MS Office. Everything seems to work very quickly as it is. I would probably add more gb if I need to do some heavy db work or worked with graphics programs. I'd be interested to know what type of performance benefits you had by going up to 32 gb.

I have Windows 10 Home...not sure what version I had before.

Take care.
Hi JJF,

32 Gb seems to give me overall performance benefits and improves responsiveness. To be fair I have quite a few programs running - a couple of blockchain programs, OneDrive, Dropbox, Indexer, Whatsapp, Signal. I can also sometimes use some "heavyweights" such as Project, Visio or photo-editing or video editing.

To some extent, I am probably compensating for a relatively old CPU (i7-3770), graphic card (NVidia GT640) and slow (by today's standards) hard disk. I think I bought the PC in 2013, so I might need to think about updating it soon!
Ian Taylor
IanRTaylorUK
Posts: 536
Joined: Fri Dec 27, 2019 4:41 pm

Re: My MM4 Syncing Experience

Post by IanRTaylorUK »

jjfnk wrote: Tue Apr 05, 2022 1:51 pm Forgot one last question: Why have you not migrated to MM5? I didn't because I wanted to still rip CDs and I understand one can't with MM5. I'm pretty happy with my setup at this point and do not want to screw everything up until I have plenty of time to fix or redo if necessary. As with most everyone else on this forum, I've invested a lot of time and energy getting to a good place with MM.
Hi JJF,

My "master" copy of my music library is MMW4. I run MMW4 as it (together with a few add-ons) provides all that I need to organise my music. This includes tagging, artwork, lyrics, the ability to burn CDs for the car, add beats per minute, import/export playlists, backup the MMW database, randomise playlists etc.

Whilst MMW5 is improving all the time, I think it is a few versions away from where it needs to be for my use case.

I run MMW4 / MMW5 on a couple of laptops based on a copy (Salty Brine Foldematch) of the master files from my desktop so I can see how MMW5 behaves and keep an eye on new add-ons.

Hopefully, in the near future we might see a few key MMW4 add-on developers migrate their products to MMW5. I can appreciate that some are waiting for a little more development before they make this investment.

If you have a spare laptop or second PC, then you might want to do something similar and run both MMW4 and MMW5. To me this is the way to convince yourself that you are ready for MMW5 with little or no disruption to the investment made in the MMW4 library.

Hope this helps.
Ian Taylor
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