Stream music directly from Dropbox

[Ludek]

Hi Luke,
as for your error:

1) I don't see the image links that you attached, try suggestions here https://www.mediamonkey.com/support/ind ... orum-posts
or open eSupport ticket and attach the images via ticket: https://www.mediamonkey.com/support/ind ... ets/Submit

2) I am going through the logs submitted within 24 hours, but I don't see any from user id Luke6, but maybe it is that your user name in Windows is different ?

And as for your use case, I guess htat this is what should work for you:

1) Scan your extrnal HDD containing all your music by 'MediaMonkey instance 1' and sync the content into your DropBox:
- in File > Add/Rescan select external HDD and scan
- in Devices & Services click (+) button and add your Dropbox there
- in Devices & Services > Dropbox > 'Library content' tab select the content that you wish to sync/copy to your Dropbox and click [APPLY] and [SYNC NOW]
=> this way the content from external HDD will be added to your Dropbox using all metadata (including rating+playcount) and all your playlists (if you selected them on the 'Library Content' tab).

Note that if you want to keep the content only in Dropbox and no longer on the external HDD then just select the files and presss Delete and in the confirmation dialog chose choice:
(o) Delete local copy and update the database
=> this way only the remote copies in the Dropbox remains (and the copies on the external HDD will be deleted)

2) Use 'MediaMonkey instance 2' (be it on another PC or not) and scan the Dropbox content into its local library
- either via Add/Rescan > ADD LOCATION... > Cloud > Dropbox (EDIT: just found that ADD LOCATION button does not work in recent build 2233 - will be fixed as #16445)
- or again via Devices & Services > (+) button and select [x] Scan Dropbox content to the local database
=> this way all track, playlists and metadata will be imported from the Dropbox to your local library and you can stream the tracks from Dropbox
- you can also check '[x] Download Dropbox content that is not accessible locally' if you want to cache the files, or simply right-click the file > Download

Is this what you are looking for ?

[Luke6]

Hi Ludek, thanks for all the instructions. Much appreciated. I have not yet tried all this, but just one question: do I have to do both 1 and 2, or are these two options?

Thanks,

Luke

[Ludek]

You can do just 1) if you don't need to access the files from another computer.

[Luke6]

Hi again Ludek,

Apologies for being so sporadic in my responses to this thread. I have kids, a business and precious little time for me, which includes this sort of thing. But last weekend I managed to push forward a bit. I got to the last part of point 1 in your instructions (copy-pasted below for your quick reference):

1) Scan your extrnal HDD containing all your music by 'MediaMonkey instance 1' and sync the content into your DropBox:
- in File > Add/Rescan select external HDD and scan
- in Devices & Services click (+) button and add your Dropbox there
- in Devices & Services > Dropbox > 'Library content' tab select the content that you wish to sync/copy to your Dropbox and click [APPLY] and [SYNC NOW]
=> this way the content from external HDD will be added to your Dropbox using all metadata (including rating+playcount) and all your playlists (if you selected them on the 'Library Content' tab).

The sync is still ongoing. I have 135 GB of music files and the upload to Dropbox is going pretty slowly (24hrs and counting). Hopefully it will end soon (I'm assuming I'll get some sort of confirmation. For now the little wheel on MM is just spinning and spinning). Once done I may attempt to remove the local copies
by selecting the files and pressing Delete and in the confirmation dialog choosing "Delete local copy and update the database"

But whether I do or not will depend on your answer to the following question: if I do this, can I still delete individual music files via the desktop MM5 program? i.e. if I delete a file in a playlist in the program, will it delete it from Dropbox? This is a feature that is very important to me because I do like to sort and pare my music as I go, and I loved that feature about MM 4 where you could choose where you were deleting the file from: playlist only or computer too. I hope that I could do the same if the file is located on Dropbox only. Please let me know.

Thank you for all your help.

Best,

Luke



I have a couple of complemetary questions when you have time:

1)

[Ludek]

But whether I do or not will depend on your answer to the following question: if I do this, can I still delete individual music files via the desktop MM5 program? i.e. if I delete a file in a playlist in the program, will it delete it from Dropbox? This is a feature that is very important to me because I do like to sort and pare my music as I go, and I loved that feature about MM 4 where you could choose where you were deleting the file from: playlist only or computer too. I hope that I could do the same if the file is located on Dropbox only. Please let me know.

Yes, you can choose from where to delete, whether only from the playlist or also from the location(s), the confirmation looks like this for cloud tracks:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/90920225qk3lj ... 6.png?dl=0

[Luke6]

Great! That's perfect Ludek. Thanks a lot for all your help. One last question if I might: does the android MM Pro App allow reading files from Dropbox too? Tx

[Luke6]

There is one more thing: sadly, I keep running into interface problems with MM5. Drop down menus are cropped and I can often only see about 50% or so of what should be showing. This is notably a problem for deleting files from the database, as you indicated I could. Anything I can do about this? If not, any chance this will be fixed any time soon? The program is borderline unusable this way. Thanks

[Peke]

Hi,
Can you give bit more details on your screen Resolution, and if possible attach screenshot (see my signature how).

[Luke6]

Hi, for now it is working. I'll let you know and upload a screenshot if it acts up again. My resolution is 1920x1080.

I tried to sync my MM App on Android to my music on Dropbox, but this doesn't seem to be possible. Or am I missing something? All I have found is a way to sync to my laptop, but I'm assuming this will add all music files to my phone, which clearly is not what I want. Is there a way to play my music from Dropbox using the App on Android?

Thanks,

Luke

[Ludek]

Hi,
DropBox is not integrated to MMA (MediaMonkey for Android) yet, but if you have the DropBox app installed on the Android then you can play the DropBox files using MMA.

[Luke6]

Hi, ok, thanks for letting me know. That's a real shame, and I must say I'm surprised that a music player as popular and reputed as MM does not have an app that can read music off a cloud-based location. This seems almost a sine qua non nowadays and does seem like a major Achille's heel for MM.

I'm sure I'm far from the only one that wants synergy between his/her PC-based and Android-based versions of MM. I can only highly recommend developing this feature on the MM app so that it doesn't become obsolete. Then again, perhaps I'm over-estimating the number of people who still stream their own music, rather than paying for Spotify, GooglePlay and so on.

Thanks a lot for your help. I will look into using MM to export playlists that I can then import into Astiga, a user-friendly app that can read music off Dropbox.

For what it's worth, if you do develop an app that can also do this, I recommend incorporating the feature that allows you to delete files from your cloud-based location from the app.

All the best Ludek and thanks again for all your help.

Kind regards,

Luke

[Joehays]

I agree. Giving both mma and mmw the ability to both stream and use offline files from shared/sync'd playlists (and DB) is highly desired. I currently use pcloud but would switch to whatever if mma/mmw had this ability.