bi-directional sync

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frank.bungartz
Posts: 23
Joined: Thu Sep 15, 2022 10:29 am

bi-directional sync

Post by frank.bungartz »

Looking into how to sync my library from PC to Android phone and vice versa.
Is there no way top configure Media Monkey to do this in both directions, i.e., from phone to PC and PC to phone at the same time?
Lowlander
Posts: 56465
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2003 5:53 pm
Location: MediaMonkey 5

Re: bi-directional sync

Post by Lowlander »

frank.bungartz
Posts: 23
Joined: Thu Sep 15, 2022 10:29 am

Re: bi-directional sync

Post by frank.bungartz »

Hhhm, the link that you sent does NOT explicitly explain or mention bi-directional sync...
I am not sure I really understand that wiki page. Especially not that option under Device --> Library called "auto-sync".
If enabled, does that actually mean, syncing works both ways???
Also, if enabling it, it looks like I need to select a folder on the PC. But there is also "Destination" listed at the bottom of the screen which says "C:\Users\user". Why these two different sync folders?
For bi-directional sync, the destination folders on the PC should probably be the same as the source folders on the PC and not some generic "C:\Users\user"?
But for Library --> Device I have no option to even choose a destination folder.
Instead, there is "File Locations" also under "Sync Profile".
All completely confusing. I am simply lost...

Here is what I want:
I have iTunes to purchase songs (looking into buying from Amazon or others too)
iTunes downloads the files into D:\My Music and organizes them.
In Media Monkey, I scan that folder after purchase. The files are added to the library. I sync them to my phone.
On the phone I create or make changes to playlists, perhaps change star ratings, etc. I want these to sync back to my PC library.
At home, I have a Laptop, also with iTunes, occasionally purchase songs there. Another Media Monkey Library on that laptop, also syncing my phone.
If bi-directional sync works, I can simply use the phone to keep all libraries and files on both desktop, laptop and Android phone in sync.

But figuring how to do this reading the Help Sites, I am completely lost. Just too many options and folder locations...
frank.bungartz
Posts: 23
Joined: Thu Sep 15, 2022 10:29 am

Re: bi-directional sync

Post by frank.bungartz »

PS: sorry for all the dumb questions, but I am afraid of configuring anything. My C drive is small, and I certainly do not want to sync some 20+ gigabyte from my Android phone to C:\users\user and have the same files in their original directory D:\My Music as well. But I am also afraid of changing this Destination to D:\My Music, if Media Monkey then tries copying and pasting files to that directory at the same time...
Lowlander
Posts: 56465
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2003 5:53 pm
Location: MediaMonkey 5

Re: bi-directional sync

Post by Lowlander »

In the top section you need to select what to include on the device. The Destination is for where the files are to be saved on the PC.
frank.bungartz
Posts: 23
Joined: Thu Sep 15, 2022 10:29 am

Re: bi-directional sync

Post by frank.bungartz »

Thanks for the clarification!!!
frank.bungartz
Posts: 23
Joined: Thu Sep 15, 2022 10:29 am

Re: bi-directional sync

Post by frank.bungartz »

Sorry, but this is a real Mess !!!
I wish I had never bought the Android version of Media Monkey. What a wast of money. Fortunately I didn't buy the full "gold" version...

Here is what I tried:
1) I have all my music in iTunes, both on a Laptop and Desktop PC, using a SyncBack Pro to keep the Music Folders on both computers in Sync.
2) I installed MediaMonkey on both Laptop and Desktop. Importing the media files from "My Mucic" worked like a charm.
3) Quite happy that this worked quite well, I installed MediaMonkey for Android on my own cell phone and the cell phone of my wife.
4) I synced my phone with the desktop via USB. That was a rather frustrating experience, the connection frequently timing out. So, I thought I try Wifi sync instead, bought the upgrade. On my desktop that would not work, the desktop being on a LAN, not Wifi. Syncing my wife's Android with the Laptop via Wifi, however, worked well - both music and playlists.
5) Then, on my cellphone, I bought some mp3, this time not on iTunes, but bandcamp (my whole objective is to get rid of iTunes). This worked well, the files were recognized and added to my MediaMonkey library on the cellphone and I could easily add the files to a playlist on the phone. Syncing my cellphone to the Desktop via USB, the mp3 files were synced, the playlist on the desktop was updated, even though I had to re-connect the cellphone a few times before the sync would complete. But at least no duplicate files, mp3 were uploaded to the Desktop and the playlist updated. All good so far...!?
6) Well no: now I wanted to get that same playlist updated and the mp3 files added to the laptop. And that's where the whole mess just started...
7) I tried syncing my own cell phone with the Laptop, via Wifi. Remember: the files on the desktop and the laptop were exactly the same, all in the same folder structure, all previously managed quite nicely by iTunes.. The ONLY files that recently changed, were the mp3 files I had added to my Android Media Monkey library and one playlist that I had updated there, adding those files.
But here is what happened: the mp3 files were not added to the Laptop library, the playlist on the Laptop was not updated. And much worse: on my cellphone I suddenly now had thousands of duplicate files, all added from the laptop to my cellphone, instead of ca. 20 GB now almost twice the size, ca. 40GB...
Which means: syncing via cable to my Desktop works ok, but I regularly have to reconnect the cellphone, because the sync process constantly times out. Very inconvenient, but at least it works. Syncing my cellphone with the Laptop via Wifi, does not sync the files, but creates tons of duplicates on my cellphone and doesn't upload files to the computer, and doesn't update any playlist there.
8) I tried one more thing: using Google's duplicate finder, I deleted all duplicates from the cellphone. The Media Monkey library didn't complain. Then I tried Wifi Sync to the laptop again. Now, instead of ca. 4,000 files being uploaded to the cellphone, "only" ca. 300 files were uploaded. No idea why. And the files on my cellphone, but missing from the laptop didn't get synced there. And the playlist on the laptop again didn't get updated...

What a complete mess!
Just to say - I used exactly the same settings on my phone, and both on the laptop and desktop. The only difference is the syncing, to the desktop via USB cable, to the laptop via Wifi. The USB cable sync regularly times out, but ultimately works. The Wifi sync "seems" to work like a charm, but files get duplicated on the cellphone and not updated on the computer.

:(
Lowlander
Posts: 56465
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2003 5:53 pm
Location: MediaMonkey 5

Re: bi-directional sync

Post by Lowlander »

4) It doesn't matter if MMW5 is connected via ethernet instead of wi-fi. As long as both MMW5 and MMA reside on the same network you can use wi-fi Sync. If it fails, it generally is the firewall blocking the connection or the Router doesn't connect wi-fi to the rest of the network (generally the case with guest wi-fi). For troubleshooting, please see: https://www.mediamonkey.com/support/kno ... rk-at-all/

7) Did Sync try to match the files?
frank.bungartz
Posts: 23
Joined: Thu Sep 15, 2022 10:29 am

Re: bi-directional sync

Post by frank.bungartz »

Thanks for getting back.
4) It doesn't matter if MMW5 is connected via ethernet instead of wi-fi. As long as both MMW5 and MMA reside on the same network you can use wi-fi Sync. If it fails, it generally is the firewall blocking the connection or the Router doesn't connect wi-fi to the rest of the network (generally the case with guest wi-fi). For troubleshooting, please see: https://www.mediamonkey.com/support/kno ... rk-at-all/
My Desktop PC at work is on a different LAN only network than the Wifi. So, using Wifi with the desktop definitely doesn't work.
7) Did Sync try to match the files?
That's what I thought sync would do. It's called "sync" for a reason, right? What use is "syncing" files if the software doesn't try to match the files??? Sorry, if my answer sounds cynical, but I simply don't understand your question. It duplicated the files on my cellphone, so, obviously it did not manage to recognize they were the same and thus did not match them. Connected to the desktop via USB that worked flawlessly. Connected via Wifi to the laptop cause file duplication, a complete mess. And, ironically Google's duplicate finder easily detected the duplicates and managed to remove them.

This should really be something simple:
laptop:
folder A - file 1, file 2, file 3
folder B - file 5, file 6, file 7
...

cellphone
folder A - file 1, file 2, file 3
folder B - file 5, file 6, file 7, file 8 (new)

Synching, I would expect:
laptop:
folder A - file 1, file 2, file 3
folder B - file 5, file 6, file 7, file 8 (added)

Instead:
laptop:
folder A - file 1, file 2, file 3
folder B - file 5, file 6, file 7, no file added

cellphone
folder A - file 1+duplicate, file 2+duplicate, file 3+duplicate
folder B - file 5+duplicate, file 6+duplicate, file 7+duplicate, file 8 (new)
frank.bungartz
Posts: 23
Joined: Thu Sep 15, 2022 10:29 am

Re: bi-directional sync

Post by frank.bungartz »

Now I am really not sure how to proceed. My cellphone is a mess.
I tried removing the app and re-installing. Same mess.
I tried deleting the Media Monkey folder and then removing the app, re-installing. Same mess.

I am not sure if I should even dare connecting the phone to the desktop again. I am afraid of corrupting the files there.
frank.bungartz
Posts: 23
Joined: Thu Sep 15, 2022 10:29 am

Re: bi-directional sync

Post by frank.bungartz »

OK, I think I figured out what went wrong.

On a Windows PC the Music Folder is generally called "My Music". I know this is dumb, but that's the way it is.
On an Android phone the Music Folder is just called Music.

So, when I first synced from my Desktop to the cellphone, it would copy the files from "My Music" on the desktop into "Music" on the cellphone, all good. That worked via cable. Fine.

Then I synced my Laptop to the cellphone of my wife, via Wifi. Also went well. Files got copied from "my Music" on the laptop to her cellphone folder "music". All good.

Now I purchased some music on my cellphone and added it to my library there. Then, I wanted to sync that music back to my computers. And what happened?
In Media Monkey on both laptop and desktop, I selected "Sycn List(Device-->Library)" the check boxes "Music" and "Playlists", because that is what I wanted to sync back to the laptop from my cellphone. And as destination, I choose D:\My Music.

In "SyncList (Library-->Device)" I also chose Music and Playlists, assuming the sync goes both ways (bi-directional).

Well , it did, sort of...

On my Desktop , a new folder was created as "D:\My Music\Music". And all the music files got copied from the cellphone into that new folder. Which means I now have duplicates of everything. All my music files in "D:\My Music" and then again in "D:\My Music\Music" - great !!!

The same probably happened on my Laptop, although I cannot check that right now. It's back at home.

Likewise, from the files ALSO got duplicated on my cellphone. There it looks like the files got copied into the Music folder, but the file names got a "_2" added to their names.
So, now, on my cellphone I do have two of all the media files, e.g.:
01_Die Zauberflöte.mp3 AND 01_Die Zauberflöte_2.mp3

On both the computer and the cellphone I now have 40GB instead of 20GB music files.

No idea how to fix this. Yes, on the computer, I can delete the redundant "D:\My Music\Music" and just keep "D:\My Music" - but next time I sync again, the same mess is back.
On the cellphone, I probably best delete the entire content of the Music folder. Else, I'll never find every duplicate...

What a fantastic mess.
frank.bungartz
Posts: 23
Joined: Thu Sep 15, 2022 10:29 am

Re: bi-directional sync

Post by frank.bungartz »

OK, I deleted the D:\My Music\Music folder erroneously created on my desktop and also deleted the desktop library database.
Then I re-built the library. I also deleted all media files on my Android phone.
And now I am syncing in one direction only from the PC to the phone.
It means I cannot make any changes on the phone, but at least that should work.

It also means, if I want to keep the desktop and laptop in sync, I have to continue using SyncBack to keep folders on the two computers in sync and then scan the changes to the Media Monkey Libraries.

One learns this the hard way, I guess...
My original idea was to sync from phone to computer and computer to smartphone, use the phone de facto as a bridge to keep both laptop and desktop in sync. That obviously doesn't work.

One thing that still befuddles me:
m4a files that the computer can play always seem to be converted to mp3 when syncing to the Android phone, presumably because Android doesn't play the Apple format?
Could that be why the matching of files doesn't work, thus the duplication of files?
On the computer I have m4a files, on the Android phone mp3 files. Perhaps Media Monkey simply doesn't check that these are the same files?
frank.bungartz
Posts: 23
Joined: Thu Sep 15, 2022 10:29 am

Re: bi-directional sync

Post by frank.bungartz »

Would it help to convert all m4a files on the computer and get rid of those?
frank.bungartz
Posts: 23
Joined: Thu Sep 15, 2022 10:29 am

Re: bi-directional sync

Post by frank.bungartz »

Actually, m4a is supported on android. So, why does Media Monkey convert these files when uploading to the cellphone???
Lowlander
Posts: 56465
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2003 5:53 pm
Location: MediaMonkey 5

Re: bi-directional sync

Post by Lowlander »

Check your Auto-Conversion/Supported Formats settings if you don't want M4A files converted. However MMA only supports what the device natively supports.
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