Organize Files 'Move' Actually Copies, Plus Weirdness

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Keeps
Posts: 19
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2011 4:25 pm

Organize Files 'Move' Actually Copies, Plus Weirdness

Post by Keeps »

I put my music on flash drives for my car. Because the random function in every car I've used sucks, I sync my music to the drive in organized folders, then have the Organize Files function move them all into one folder with the destination set to "<Random> <Filename>". If the drive is big enough, sometimes I'll copy them instead so I have the option to navigate to a specific song on the fly, but I want to do that so rarely that it's almost always a move operation. In MM4 and as far back as I've been doing that, the move operation was super fast - just to rename each file, even for a couple thousand files, would just take a couple of seconds.

And I'll point out that I use Organize Files frequently on my main library, and using it to 'move' files does actually move them, it all works the same as it always has, very reliable. This only seems to come up with flash drives, and this was the first time I tried it since upgrading to MMW2024, but I've done it several times now with two different flash drives.

I have screenshots with notes, and a debug log of the bug occurring (the pictures and log are from different attempts, so the filenames won't match) uploaded here:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/7hg273n1 ... 44ftj&dl=0

Steps I took:
  • So, first I put in a drive (G:\) and synced music to it.
  • Picture 1, the Organize Files dialog, to show I have it correctly set up to move files the way I want. The first time I tried it I had selected all files (like I usually did) and clicked 'OK.' It started going, taking way longer than I expected, so I walked away.
  • When I came back I found a 'disk full' error about a third of the way through the entire list, and discovered the originals were all still there.
  • I erased the newly copied files so I could start over, selected a subset of files that would fit in the remaining free space on the drive, and ran Organize Files again.
  • Picture 2, after moving them, MM reports that there are still 29.8GB free on the drive, while Windows (inset) reports only 384MB left on the disk. Interestingly, the bar at the bottom of MM does show the drive as full, but can't tell that the entire drive is music that MM has put there.
  • The new files were also not added to the library, and the old ones were still in the library - even though their entries should be pointing to the new location now.
  • Picture 3, I ran a manual scan, and it added those new files. This might have been a mistake, because later when I removed the drive all of those tracks still showed up in my general library as offline and I had to manually remove everything from drive G:\.
  • Picture 4, when looking at the flash drive's library, if I go through the By Folder tree node, I can see all the files piled into the \Music\ folder.
  • Picture 5, going through the flash drive's All Music tree node, only the original files show up - nothing from the base \Music\ folder appears.
  • Picture 6, when looking at the All Music node for the entire library, both the organized and jumbled files show up.
  • Shortly after starting to copy the second set of ~30GB files, MM crashed - the whole window turned white and stopped responding. After waiting a while I force-closed MM and reloaded it.
  • Picture 7, MM was under the impression that all 30GB had copied. It reported the drive as completely full (I took a screenshot of the wrong tab, so it doesn't show the actual numbers, but they agreed with the bar at the bottom this time) even though Windows showed there was still 30GB of space. The bar at the bottom does at least recognize that it's all music.
  • For completeness, with the last set of files to move, I changed the Organize Files settings to 'copy' to see what would happen. I didn't do any proper measurements, but it subjectively felt like it somehow took two or three times longer than the 'move' operation, even though they are currently doing the same thing.
I'm pretty sure I was using the current version of MM2024 (didn't write it down before replacing it), then replaced it with the Debug version 2024.1.0.3113 and got the same behavior. This was on 64-bit Windows 11 Home v24H2 with a 1TB M.2 C:\ drive, a 4TB magnetic storage drive D:\, and the bulk of my music located on a NAS M:\.
Ludek
Posts: 5119
Joined: Fri Mar 09, 2007 9:00 am

Re: Organize Files 'Move' Actually Copies, Plus Weirdness

Post by Ludek »

Hi,
watching your screenshot and I think the issues are caused by using MediaMonkey in a non-standard ways as:

1) You are organizing files on the flash drive and adding them into your MM library even if you want it to have for your car (and thus the files not available on PC)

2) Instead of auto-organizing it would be better to use concept of syncing the device:
i.e.
configure which library tracks to sync: https://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/index. ... 3E_Device)
and then configure the destination locations on the FLASH drive:
https://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/index. ... _Locations
and click [APPLY] and [SYNC NOW]
=> this should proceed wi th syncing/copying your library tracks onthe the flash drive, without resulting in duplicates on your flash drive or in your library
Lowlander
Posts: 59327
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2003 5:53 pm

Re: Organize Files 'Move' Actually Copies, Plus Weirdness

Post by Lowlander »

It seems that the issue is duplicates showing in MediaMonkey itself. Can you confirm you don't see both copies on the drive itself?

Did you use Organize Files using Devices & Services node or Entire Library node in MediaMonkey?

Does the provided log capture the crash or just the original Organize Files?
Keeps
Posts: 19
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2011 4:25 pm

Re: Organize Files 'Move' Actually Copies, Plus Weirdness

Post by Keeps »

I'm very sorry, I didn't mean to ignore you! I must not have checked the box for reply notifications, and after a week without a response I stopped looking manually. I made a new flash drive this weekend and experienced the same bug in version 2024.2.0.3184, so I thought to check again.


Lowlander:
Yes, I see both copies on the drive itself. Instead of a nearly instant file rename, like I get when using the function to move and rename files on my hard drive and NAS, I get a slow progress bar until the drive runs out of space and it aborts. In Explorer I can browse all of them and verify the drive is full.

I used Ctrl-R while in the device node.

MediaMonkey did not crash the second time, after I had installed the debug version, so that isn't in the logs.


Ludek:
I didn't think to include a screenshot of the copy operation - I keep the "Add copied files to the Library" option unchecked, so they are not added to the library. I don't have tons of missing files in my database.

Syncing doesn't work well when adding a random value to the name. In the past I've had issues where the transfer was interrupted, and attempting to resume it causes MediaMonkey to just start over at the beginning, since the new copy's target ends up with a different random number, so it can't tell that song has already been synced. I ended up with duplicates of some songs, inaccurate space estimates, and frustration. It has proven to be more reliable to deal with it in two stages: get the songs on the drive; then add the random number.

I could use syncing instead of organizing for the first step - and in fact I tried to do just that today, only to have the sync include an extra 7,000 tracks that I didn't select and the preview didn't include - but that isn't the step with the problem. The problem is that "move" is not moving, it's copying. I have the options "move" and "copy;" both of them copy, and neither moves - but only with portable drives. "Move" works perfectly fine on my hard drives and my NAS, and it also worked on portable drives prior to MediaMonkey 2024. Everything else is just explaining how I got here and giving a step-by-step to try to give clues about the one-off crash I experienced at the same time.
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