GPM integration [#15002][#14983][#15023][#14980][#14981][#14668][#14955][#14958][#14959][#14936][#14933][#14934][#15072]

[Barry4679]

The pause for the uploads requested via right click is not possible, but you can see the progress in the bottom progress bar (by clicking the progress circle) or by hovering the circle and can add another batches to the queue.
i.e. works exactly like Send to > Device in MM4

I have not used MM for syncing until you added sync to GPM ... BTW, this why I bang on so much about the terminology in your UI ... your UI terminology for syncing is confusing for a syncing newbie ... I won't be able to see the difficulty after using it for a while ... I still think that it needs improvement.

Change of topic: The "Library Content" tab at Devices&Services>GPM

I am presuming that this tab allows filtering of what is to be sync'd to GPM ... correct?

Up to now I had selected nothing on this tab. ... ie. selected nothing for you to sync GPM ... you interpreted this as sync everything ... this is not clear from the UI

For my test I selected all but one Genre ... I was expected that tracks whose genre included the unchecked tag would not be sync'd to GPM ... correct?

It runs for about 30 minutes, and then white screens.

I can reproduce ... I run with logger on, and it happened again. I have PM'd you a link to the log.

I restarted MM5, to see what had been achieved ... EntireLibrary>AllTracks ... setup Column Browser for Source column ... and then also created a filter (funnel) to show just tracks containing the genre that should have been excluded from sync

I found that the filtered tracks are in BOTH source = speaker icon AND in source = speaker|cloud icon

ie. you have sync'd tracks that I excluded on the Library Content tab

There is something I don't understand?

btw. the genre tag I used in this test identifies duplicate track copies in my MM library ... so it is never used on its own ... ie. is something Genre = "Dups; Rock"

[Ludek]

I have not used MM for syncing until you added sync to GPM ... BTW, this why I bang on so much about the terminology in your UI ... your UI terminology for syncing is confusing for a syncing newbie ... I won't be able to see the difficulty after using it for a while ... I still think that it needs improvement.

OK, we are still trying to improve the terminology, e.g. for 2135 these changes have been made: https://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view ... 983#c51625 and I agree that the "Library content" tab terminology probably still needs improvement too, TBD

Change of topic: The "Library Content" tab at Devices&Services>GPM

I am presuming that this tab allows filtering of what is to be sync'd to GPM ... correct?

This tab allows to select what is about to be synced/copied from local library to GPM library after clicking [Apply] and [Sync now]

Up to now I had selected nothing on this tab. ... ie. selected nothing for you to sync GPM ... you interpreted this as sync everything ... this is not clear from the UI

Who interpreted as sync everything? If you selected nothing then nothing is synced after clicking [Sync now] button.
You used right-click > Send to > GPM which is independent from the items on the 'Library Content' tab -- although I understand that it might not be clear from the UI, to be improved...

For my test I selected all but one Genre ... I was expected that tracks whose genre included the unchecked tag would not be sync'd to GPM ... correct?

Correct

It runs for about 30 minutes, and then white screens.

I can reproduce ... I run with logger on, and it happened again. I have PM'd you a link to the log.

Thanks, but the last PM from you is from Fri Nov 23, 2018 7:54 am, can you PM it again?

I restarted MM5, to see what had been achieved ... EntireLibrary>AllTracks ... setup Column Browser for Source column ... and then also created a filter (funnel) to show just tracks containing the genre that should have been excluded from sync

I found that the filtered tracks are in BOTH source = speaker icon AND in source = speaker|cloud icon

ie. you have sync'd tracks that I excluded on the Library Content tab

There is something I don't understand?

btw. the genre tag I used in this test identifies duplicate track copies in my MM library ... so it is never used on its own ... ie. is something Genre = "Dups; Rock"

If the track has genre = "Dups; Rock" then it was synced, because the "Rock" was selected, you would need to deselect both "Dups" and "Rock" so that this track is not synced.

BTW: The "speaker" icon is supposed to be "drive" or "hdd" icon, and hovering the icon shows you the locations where the track is stored like this:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/f4wafepntjh8j ... 3.png?dl=0 (HDD, GPM, MMS in my case)

[Barry4679]

can you PM it again?

Sorry, I got distracted and forgot ... fixed now.

Who interpreted as sync everything? If you selected nothing then nothing is synced after clicking [Sync now] button.
You used right-click > Send to > GPM which is independent from the items on the 'Library Content' tab -- although I understand that it might not be clear from the UI, to be improved.

"Who interpreted"? ... you I suppose

But I did press Sync Now .... Maybe it depends upon whatever your definition of "sync" is ... I am configured as shown here (ignore the numbers)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fn99zpyigl66w ... d.png?dl=0

So the "sync" I am speaking about here, is sync the local tracks to the matched GPM tracks, by storing the google ID into MM db

In this case I have selected nothing on the Library Content tab, but MM5 appears to act as if I have selected everything

If the track has genre = "Dups; Rock" then it was synced, because the "Rock" was selected, you would need to deselect both "Dups" and "Rock" so that this track is not synced.

Exclusion, as well as inclusion, options would be good. ... more like we get when defining inclusion criteria for a custom collection.

I have tracks that I don't want to sync to GPM ... eg duplicate tracks from box sets, where I also have the original album ... or some of the filler tracks that they put on Extended Edition albums, like alt takes or mono as well as stereo versions. ... being able to exclude them makes a big reduction to the work involved in resolving all unmatched items, and avoids using too much of the 50,000 track allowance.

It would be good to be able to simply add a suppression genre to these tracks. ... But I suppose I can work around by defining a custom collection that includes everything, except tracks whose genre "doesn't contain" xxxx. ... it would have been nicer to do this on the Library Content tab.

BTW: The "speaker" icon is supposed to be "drive" or "hdd" icon, and hovering the icon shows you the locations where the track is stored like this.

OK, thanks ... I mostly see it in the Column Browser, where the tool tip of speaker and also for speaker|cloud both say just "drive"

[Ludek]

In this case I have selected nothing on the Library Content tab, but MM5 appears to act as if I have selected everything

I don't understand, if you selected nothing on the 'Library content' tab then NO library content is added to GPM, isn't this the case for you?
Or are you referring the terminology again? i.e. "Add library content to 'Google Play Music'" string isn't clear enough for you?
i.e. [Remote content] tab defines GPM -> MM direction, while 'Library Content' defines MM > GPM direction

But I suppose I can work around by defining a custom collection that includes everything, except tracks whose genre "doesn't contain" xxxx. ... it would have been nicer to do this on the Library Content tab.

Yes, you can define a custom collection and check just this collection on the 'Library Content' tab, this way only the collection will be synced from MM to GPM

[Barry4679]

Or are you referring the terminology again? i.e. "Add library content to 'Google Play Music'" string isn't clear enough for you?
i.e. [Remote content] tab defines GPM -> MM direction, while 'Library Content' defines MM > GPM direction

Yes, that is clear enough ... I just "saw" what I was expecting to see there.

The Sync Now button works the same way? ... ie. the one on the "Remote Content" tab only syncs in a MM5->GPM direction, and the one on the "Library Content" tab only syncs in the other direction?

The problem that lead to this confusion is that for someone who is using MM5 to sync their local tracks TO GPM, they use a sync TO GPM, and as part of that same process you store the Google track IDs in the MM database, ie info flowing in the opposite direction

But for someone who has already used the Google Music Manager to upload a large collection to GPM, they just need to complete this second part ... so it feels like it should be part of a sync TO GPM, but in this case it achieved via a sync from GPM.

I was just looking to see if there was a way to restrict which GPM tracks you attempted to tag match to my local tracks, to reduce confusion regarding track duplicates in my collection (ie from box sets and alt versions, & stereo|mono versions). ... and also some way to tidy up the remaining mismatches, ie. some way to filter an EntireLibrary>AllTracks view of Source filtered to drive only, so that it only listed only racks that I care about ... there seems to be no way to meet the first part of aim, but I think that the idea of a custom index just for syncing will be an OK solution for the 2nd part



I am still finding the direction of flow confusing with MM5 ... eg. right click on a GPM synchronised track from EntireLibrary>AllTracks... there is an option "Synchronise Tags ..." .... OK, but in which direction? ... tags come from, or go to my web library (aka GPM)? .... it does not get any better if I click on the option ... the "explanatory" dbox says "This will update the tags of the selected files so that they match your Library" .... well it is a GPM synchronised track ... so there are two "libraries" ... one at each end ... so what gets updated?

And I don't understand the reluctance to say "MM" instead of the ambiguous "library" ... if MM has different identities in different markets, couldn't you just define a global variable for the product name somewhere, so that the UI is more explicit?

Other examples the "Remote Content" tab should be titled "Sync TO Remote Content", and the "Library Content" tab should be called "Sync to MM" IMO

But yeah, other than the "library" thing, "Add library content to 'Google Play Music'" is plenty clear enough, and I didn't read it carefully enough

Another white screen ... this time I got an exception first C4912454
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jfp693dtkygvu ... n.png?dl=0

[EDIT] it was one of those situations where MM5 had been sitting open, and it broke when I went back to it.

[Ludek]

I am still finding the direction of flow confusing with MM5 ... eg. right click on a GPM synchronised track from EntireLibrary>AllTracks... there is an option "Synchronise Tags ..." .... OK, but in which direction? ... tags come from, or go to my web library (aka GPM)? .... it does not get any better if I click on the option ... the "explanatory" dbox says "This will update the tags of the selected files so that they match your Library" .... well it is a GPM synchronised track ... so there are two "libraries" ... one at each end ... so what gets updated?

Thanks for pointing this out, the "Synchronize tags" is an old MM4 feature that is meant to synchronize track metadata in MM database with the metadata in the file tag (e.g. ID3v2 for MP3), it has nothing to do with cloud sync.
Entered as https://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=15226
I guess we should rather remove it from MM5 or make it available only for local tracks (not paired with cloud copy) and make it available only when
Options > Library > Tags & Playlists > [x] Update tags when editing properties
is unchecked.

In your test case any metadata changes to MM library tracks (that are originally scanned from GPM) are propagated to GPM library.
Can you confirm? And can you confirm that it is expected and desired behaviour?
I just see that the GPM library metadata of edited MM library tracks shouldn't be changed once
'[ ] Sync GPM metadata with library' checkbox is unchecked, I will fix it for the net build 2136

Another white screen ... this time I got an exception first C4912454
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jfp693dtkygvu ... n.png?dl=0

[EDIT] it was one of those situations where MM5 had been sitting open, and it broke when I went back to it.

Thanks, will be fixed in 2136

[Barry4679]

"Synchronize tags" is an old MM4 feature that is meant to synchronize track metadata in MM database with the metadata in the file tag (e.g. ID3v2 for MP3), it has nothing to do with cloud sync. ...[snip]... I guess we should rather remove it from MM5 or make it available only for local tracks (not paired with cloud copy) and make it available only when
Options > Library > Tags & Playlists > [x] Update tags when editing properties
is unchecked.

I don't know why you would remove it if it still has a useful function. ... Maybe just change its name so that it is not confused with MM sync functions, which have grown in prominence since MMA, and now with MM5 cloud sync capabilities. .... eg. "Groom track tags to MM values" or "Reset track tags to MM values", or something that best describes its function. ... and put some longer description in the dbox which is opened by the menu item.

In your test case any metadata changes to MM library tracks (that are originally scanned from GPM) are propagated to GPM library.
Can you confirm? And can you confirm that it is expected and desired behaviour?
I just see that the GPM library metadata of edited MM library tracks shouldn't be changed once
'[ ] Sync GPM metadata with library' checkbox is unchecked, I will fix it for the net build 2136

OK, I will look into it.

At this stage I can't confirm, because I have not looked at it yet. ... the only "syncing" that I have looked at, so far, is is what would have been a by-product of an MM upload to GPM, if I had used MM5 for this purpose (instead of using the Google Music Manager to upload) ... ie. the matching of GPM tracks to MM tracks, and "syncing" the GPM track IDs into the MM db.

What I got was not the "expected" behaviour, but that was because I didn't read the onscreen instructions properly.
And because it is complicated .. and because I have no experience with syncing yet .. I have never needed to sync a small subset of my collection to my phone, because my whole collection is in my GPM library, and also because I travel with a small (if 3tb is small!) portable disk drive which contains my whole collection in lossless format.

I bought some noise cancelling headphones in the recent Cyber Monday sales, so I now have some motivation to check out syncing to phone for plane trips. .. I did my first sync to my phone yesterday with MM5 ... it worked OK, after a few stumbles.

So give me a few days, and I will be in a better position to answer your question.

[Barry4679]

Tag Matching

I spent some time tiding my MM & GPM tags, and my GPM library ... The MM5 tools work well, making this a relatively easy task. ... I now have have only 165 unmatched from my 43,000+ tracks uploaded by the Google Music Manager ... with only a couple oh hours work once I figured out the best way to approach the task ... and I am confident that I will fix those also when I have time.... so that is all good.

I think that there is one remaining problem with your matching logic.

If a track in the MM4 db has a trailing blank in the album tag, it is uploaded to MM5 db with the trailing blank, and is uploaded to GPM with the trailing blank ... but MM5 cannot tag match these tracks during tag sync GPM -> MM ... it looks like you may be stripping trailing blanks from one side of the comparison, but not the other.

Devices&Services>GPM does not protect unsaved config changes
============================================================
ie. make some changes, and then exit the window w/o press Apply ... MM5 does not warn that there are unsaved changes. .. can this be fixed?

[Ludek]

I now have have only 165 unmatched from my 43,000+ tracks uploaded by the Google Music Manager

I am glad to hear this

If a track in the MM4 db has a trailing blank in the album tag, it is uploaded to MM5 db with the trailing blank, and is uploaded to GPM with the trailing blank ... but MM5 cannot tag match these tracks during tag sync GPM -> MM ... it looks like you may be stripping trailing blanks from one side of the comparison, but not the other.

Are you saying that album tag like 'Album1 ' isn't matched with 'Album1' tag from GPM ? That seems strange as currently spaces and separators are ignored during the comparison so this should pass. But maybe the trailing blank char is not space?

EDIT: You seem to be right: matching 'str' with 'str ' fails, so trailing space really is an issue, thx, will be fixed in 2136

Devices&Services>GPM does not protect unsaved config changes
============================================================
ie. make some changes, and then exit the window w/o press Apply ... MM5 does not warn that there are unsaved changes. .. can this be fixed?

Yes, I have also observed this, gonna to fix this as https://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=15230

[Barry4679]

You seem to be right: matching 'str' with 'str ' fails, so trailing space really is an issue, thx, will be fixed in 2136

Could you also check 'str ' vs 'str ' ... ie. it looked like these two indentical strings were failing comparison ... ie. maybe trailing blank suppression on one side of the comparison only?

[Ludek]

Could you also check 'str ' vs 'str ' ... ie. it looked like these two indentical strings were failing comparison ... ie. maybe trailing blank suppression on one side of the comparison only?

Yes, all these are fixed in 2136 and covered by unit testing

[Barry4679]

removal of the GPM specific download location from the RemoteContent tab of Devices&Services>GPM was intentional?

Not saying that removal is necessarily a bad thing ... and I did query it function in relation to Default Download Loaction at Tools|Options|Downloads.

But the other side of this POV, is that the MM UI and all its options settings, is probably the most complex app that your average music fan interacts with.

I have spent quite a lot of time with MM4, and now MM5, but still quite often get frustrated as I try to find things.

It would be a user experience service to at least display the default download location on RemoteContent tab of Devices&Services>GPM.
And allowing for a service_specific location override was an OK idea, especially if was labelled as being an override.

[Ludek]

removal of the GPM specific download location from the RemoteContent tab of Devices&Services>GPM was intentional?

Not saying that removal is necessarily a bad thing ... and I did query it function in relation to Default Download Loaction at Tools|Options|Downloads.

Yes, this was removed in course of https://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=14983

But the other side of this POV, is that the MM UI and all its options settings, is probably the most complex app that your average music fan interacts with.

I have spent quite a lot of time with MM4, and now MM5, but still quite often get frustrated as I try to find things.

It would be a user experience service to at least display the default download location on RemoteContent tab of Devices&Services>GPM.
And allowing for a service_specific location override was an OK idea, especially if was labelled as being an override.

OK, but isn't that adding the additional sub-options that you requested (and we implemented) as https://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=14983
actually makes the things even more complicated and harder to understand?

I don't think that overriding the default download location would help something, it unnecessarily complicate things (especially when single library track can be stored in various cloud locations - GPM, OneDrive, DropBox...) and is cached in single location. In that case it is a mess having the tracks spanned over multiple directories.

[Barry4679]

Sorry if I offended. .. I wasn't meaning to complain about removal of that option. I posted just in case the removal was accidental, like the label that accidentally went AWOL from the Auto-Sync(->Device) tab in the current release.

And I wasn't meaning that MM5 is significantly more complex than MM4, because I think that MM4 was already a fairly complex tool. I have steered a number of music fans towards MM, and it is not uncommon for people to stall, saying they don't know how to use it.

OK, but isn't that adding the additional sub-options that you requested (and we implemented) as https://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=14983
actually makes the things even more complicated and harder to understand?

I hope you don't regret those enhancements, as IMO they have had a far greater positive impact on the Use Cases offered by MM5-GPM integration, than any added complexity problem caused by adding two extra check boxes.

I was just meaning that it can be hard to remember where things are in the MM UI. Examples:

• skins selection is not part of Tools|Options|Appearance

• the sync action is not visible in the top level of the right click menu, like the "download" action is ... instead it is down in the 2nd level of the SendTo option

• toggle logging to status bar has no menu option, and is invoked what is usually a "pause" action

• MM5 UI has controls situated in many different places; the main menu, the Media Tree, the modal tool bar, and the right click menu ... ie. if I were looking for how to authenticate MM to my GPM account, I probably would not expect that I have to gain access to this via the "Media Tree"

Discovering where things are stored, in a product as complex as MM, can be a hassle. ... eg. in MM4 there was no way to discover the location of the MM db, and even in MM5 you can't see it without pretending to do a db backup.

I was just saying that displaying the download location in Devices&Services>GPM Remote Content tab could be helpful ... because that is where you configure the download option on ... you could add the location to the check box tool tip .... and to the Download option on the right click menu ... or <sarcasm> to the "Sync|Download" audit log </sarcasm>

The way that Google addresses config complexity is by providing hyperlink connections between config pages ... ie. maybe an "Edit" button which navigates, from a new download location label on the Devices&Services>GPM Remote Content tab, directly to Tools|Options|Downloads.

One other thing: Now that there is no override facility for download locations, you should remove mention of the "default" location from Tools|Options|Downloads control and its tool tip

[Barry4679]

Version 2138

Summary:

• white screen problems ... debug log links PM'd to you

• some matching problems introduced by this version

• some Column Browser weirdness

• funnel filter not working well with the Source col

Matching problems introduced by this version
I did a fresh install of MM5, and allowed it to import my MM4 db.
Authenticated to my GPM library, and did a GPM tag sync, accepting no new tracks.
Only 40 tracks unmatched from from my 43,341 tracks ... this sounds a great result, but those tracks were successfully matched by your prior version.
And I have compared tags in my GPM library, with the tags in my MM5 library ... I can see no reason for the mismatches. ... I have claimed that before, but all those previous "unexplained" issues were caused by the invisible trailing blank problem that you have fixed .... so up until now everything has ended up being explained.

Something seems different now. ... I know that 40 tracks is not a huge problem, but hopefully you can sort out this problem introduced by the new version ... or explain what I can't see.

I reinstalled MM5 and did everything again, just in case there was some random timing glitch ... this time I also produced a debug log. .... the same tracks were mismatched.
can you check a couple of these please, and let me know if you see anything.
I have PM'd the log link to you

here are the mismatches
https://www.dropbox.com/s/tly8f8tyqlhsw ... s.png?dl=0

Here a comparison of one of the tags. the rest of the album is OK
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wwdpeaw1gnj5l ... d.png?dl=0

White screens.
After I had installed a fresh copy of MM5, I did a couple of config changes (ie. authenticated against MM, and made the EntireLibrary node visible, and renamed the MediaMonkey4 Server name, etc) ... ie. nothing I haven't done dozens of times before.

I then closed MM5, and zipped a copy of the whole MediaMonkey 5 directory.
Then I restarted MM5, and did the sync run mentioned above.

When I got the unexplained mismatches I closed MM5 ... deleted the MediaMonkey5 directory, and then extracted the pre-sync version from the zip ... and rerun the sync against GPM

This should be OK ... correct? ... everything is in the MediaMonkey 5 folder?

After this procedure I got some white screen instances while running GPM syncs .... I recorded the debug logs from a couple of them. ... see PM

It did not white screen every time, but it did about 50% of the time.
I have no solid evidence, but I have not seen a sync white screen while I have had the status bar messages toggled off.


Column Browser when Source is the 1st Browser column.

Source in col 1 doesn't work as expected... AllTrack node, with Column Browser showing ... set Browser col1=Source, col2-AlbumArtist and Col3=Album ... filter to source=disk, and I see 41 tracks, and when source=disk|cloud I see 43,300 tracks.

Now reset Col 1 filter to Disk ... and select an AlbumArtist from Col2 of the Browser ... and then click Radio|Cloud in col 1 of the Browser ... it does not visually reset the Browser selection in col 2 to All ... and I can now see only 85 files in the list, not the 43,300 tracks ... most, but not all (?!?), of the tracks listed are associated with the albumartist I previously set for the Radio filter

But when col1 of the browser is Genre, everything works (nearly) as expected ... ie. if I change the selection in col 1, this resets Col2 of the Browser back to All .... not quite perfect though, because while the list is re-filtered as expected, the row selection highlighting from the prior selection is not reset correctly

ie. see diagram I selected an albumArtist while filtered to Genre = Blues ... and then I also filtered to the 3rd AlbumArtist ... then I changed col 1 filter to Jazz ... this time it initialised the selection in column 2 to ALL, as expected ... but the small problem was that the row highlight also remained displayed in row 3, as indicated by the arrow.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2wt9zniiokcsf ... m.png?dl=0


Filter (funnel): Filter options by Source is inadequate IMO and has a problem
most Source filters options show no rows ... ie. after import of MM4 db and sync to GPM (as described above) I see no rows when (funnel) filtering to isLocal, or is Network, or isCloud, or isCloudDownloadeed, or is MediaServer ... my local tracks ore on a NAS on my LAN

And also (funnel) filtering by Source is not really useful unless there are also NOT filter options ... eg. filter IS network AND IS NOT cloud.