Dead link problem

[banquo]

I replaced the failing hard drive that contained my music collection with a new one that I copied its contents to before swapping. I kept the same drive letter (D:) but gave the new drive a new name. MediaMonkey 4 automatically recognized my music tracks on the new drive with this path:

D:\Users\me\etc.

…but it’s also showing dead duplicates of all tracks with this path from my old drive:

[SE_Internal]\ Users\me\etc.

For some reason, the old path uses the drive name but the new path has the drive letter instead. Unfortunately, all of my playlists now refer only to the old (dead) paths. Is there a way I can fix this? I’m posting this in the MM4 forum because I’m continuing to use that version just out of habit, but I also have MM5 installed and using the same library.

[Lowlander]

You need to update the driveID: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=63823&hilit=update+location

[banquo]

Thanks for the tip. Installing this add-on per its instructions (double-clicking on it) launched MediaMonkey 5 on my PC, with which it’s incompatible. That in turn had the unfortunate effect of spreading the duplicate file problem to my MM5 library via file monitoring. Meanwhile, a simpler possible solution occurred to me. My old and new drives are listed separately under the Location nodes for Entire Library and Music in MM4:

Location

• HD:SE_Internal-4 (D:) (new drive)

• HD:SE_Internal (removed drive)

Couldn’t I achieve the same result (though perhaps leaving some database bloat) by right-click->Remove-ing the node for the old drive? I don’t know if it would need to be done both for Entire Library and for Music.

[Lowlander]

Yes, you can remove the old drive, but this will loose Play History, unsaved tags and the files on any Playlists they're associated with.

You can Drag & Drop the installer of the Addon the Player or install from Tools > Extensions.

[banquo]

I ran the Update Location of Files add-on. It got rid of the ghosted tracks from my old drive, but now every track is listed twice. A Knowledge Base entry says it’s because MM already had the files in their new location.

o If this happened you can remove the files from the new location (make sure Folder Monitoring is disabled) from the library and then use the Addon to fix the old files.

A couple questions:
1. Since I’ve already run the add-on, I presume this means I should restore my database backup and start over?
2. After disabling Folder Monitoring, I’m not sure what the specific steps are to “remove the files from the new location…from the library.” Will simply right-clicking on the new drive’s node under MusicLocation and selecting “Remove” do it? And then run the add-on again, which should restore it

[Lowlander]

If you use a backup, you won't have files from their new location in the database (as you also disabled Folder Monitoring). So you just use the Addon to fix the Paths.

[banquo]

Thanks. I did this – turned off file monitoring, restored my database backup, ran the add-on, turned monitoring (at startup only) back on. Initially, everything looked fine – the duplicate entries were gone. Left it running and an hour or so later, I noticed the duplicates were back (except, oddly, not for one album recently added).
I turned file monitoring back off and launched the add-on again, but it could find no more files to fix, presumably meaning the duplicates must be at the new location.

[Lowlander]

It means that either the Paths weren't successfully updated by the Addon or that you have actual duplicate files. Check Paths of duplicates of what the problem could be.

[banquo]

No, the add-on definitely changed the paths of the tracks that were on the old drive, and each track exists in only one physical place. Here’s the structure of Music-->Location in my database backup before running the add-on:

New drive
--Track 1
Old drive
--Track 1 (ghosted)

After running the add-on:
New drive
--Track 1
--Track 1
Old drive
--(no tracks)

The duplicates have the same path. I didn’t do a backup before the drive swap because I was expecting the program to find everything OK since I kept the same drive letter. When I ran MM after installing the new drive to confirm it could see them, the file monitor must have added a second version of my library, which I wasn’t expecting. There’s gotta be a way to remove 9K duplicates other than by hand.

[Lowlander]

You shouldn't have new drive before you run the Addon, this why you end up with duplicates.

You can remove the new drive from Music > Location, then run the Addon.

[banquo]

I did as you described and my library finally looks right (yay!). I then noticed an audio stutter problem I didn’t have before, but thankfully, it went away after a system reboot.
Returning to the duplicate tracks issue. My MM5 database has the same problem, but the Update File Location add-on is incompatible with that version. But I haven’t played around much with MM5 yet, so I’m thinking I could just uninstall-reinstall it and have it pull in my (now repaired) MM4 database. After perhaps making note of some customizations I’ve made (mostly to field selection). Sensible?

[Lowlander]

Yes, using the fixed MM4 database would work. Uninstall is not needed, you can delete the MM5 database and copy the MM4 database in its place: https://www.mediamonkey.com/support/kno ... ini-files/

In MediaMonkey 5 it's an included feature: https://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/WebHel ... sign_Drive