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[robojock]

Hi,

How do i prevent media center from creating duplicates when i use move? Coming from a different app it would warn me if the file existed in the folder that i wanted to move to. Media center gives no warning, just creates the file with (1) next to it. Is there a reason for this?

[blgentry]

I'm not trying to be argumentative.  But your question kind of implies that either your naming isn't very specific, or that you aren't sure where you're moving your files to.

Using a template based system to organize your media helps prevent this.  If you always store your files in the same kind of structure, like [Artist]/[Album]/[Track #]_Name , it's going to be almost impossible to get a name collision.  The Rename Move and Copy tool has this built in and it's really the way to go unless you have some sort of unusual requirement.

Maybe you're doing something special that I haven't anticipated though.  Just some advice for you.

Brian.

[robojock]

Hi Brian,

This is my scenario i get music from a dj pool via ftp so i try to keep it in the same order and filename as they have it as this makes it easier for me to skip files i have already downloaded before. When something gets released they add it to a weekly folder and also to a year folder when the song was released. After a few weeks i move the files in the weekly folder to the year folder and keep the naming as they have it [Artist] - [Name].mp3 What happens is that if there is exactly the same titled file in the folder [Artist] - [Name].mp3 media center will not "warn" me about it but rather add that file with (1) at the end. Which is causing duplicates in my case. My problem is media center did not warn me there was a file in that folder with the same name as most other similar programs do.

[Arindelle]

I see the OPs point, but I believe the Rename/Move does not use normal windows copy operations - it would be sort of cool, in some circumstances (I get a lot of folder1.jpgs) I admit .. like where the old windows box come up and ask if you want to over<rite the file or not.

What you might want to do is keep their week / year folder structure intact. That way when you have duplicates (and you will have them but they will be in different directories, you can easily create an admin view to find them with ... just select the newest ones (or even easier untagged ones and remove them. You would depend on your metadata for playback of course but that is what MC is really powerful at doing .. just a thought especially seen as how these are not commercial available files (ie legal remixes, original electronic music etc.) right? So you wouldn't have the normal [Album Artist]/[Album] directory structure anyways I would think. Just download all of it, and erase later .. probably faster that way. Just an idea though.

[robojock]

I did a test now, if i use the copy function (without adding to the library), media center uses windows explorer to copy the files and then it asks if i want to replace those files or skip  ?

[blgentry]

After a few weeks i move the files in the weekly folder to the year folder and keep the naming as they have it [Artist] - [Name].mp3 What happens is that if there is exactly the same titled file in the folder [Artist] - [Name].mp3 media center will not "warn" me about it but rather add that file with (1) at the end. Which is causing duplicates in my case.

Does that mean that these files really *are* duplicates?  Or are they distinct versions in some way like longer remixes, or live versions, or ... ?

If they are strictly duplicates, then you should be using MC's duplicate finder SmartList to find your duplicates and delete the ones you don't want to keep.  Playlists > SmartLists > Audio -- Task -- Possible duplicates

If they are distinct, you should use the metadata to name them in a way that you can tell which one is which.

All of this is just my opinion of course.  I believe in having the metadata be the important part and having the filename as secondary.  The filename ABSOLUTELY needs to make sense.  But I think you're driving the car backwards:  You're trying to rely upon the filesystem to find your duplicate songs, when the metadata will already do that for you.  Or maybe I still don't fully understand your methodology.

If you want help with what MC can do, I and others here will definitely try to help you use it to it's fullest power and potential. 

Brian.

[glynor]

The Copy modes of RMCF use the OS file copy function (at least on Windows, I don't remember for Mac).  The Rename and Update database modes change the [Filename] tag, which renames the files internally.

This tool is designed to be used on large sets of files at once, and so interactive prompts are undesirable (because they may come up hours after the user walked away from the console). In fact, I've repeatedly requested that the Copy modes be altered to do internal copies as well (which, incidentally, tend to perform better to boot).

For more information on how to use this tool, please refer to the Wiki article:
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Rename,_Move,_and_Copy_Files

[blgentry]

In fact, I've repeatedly requested that the Copy modes be altered to do internal copies as well (which, incidentally, tend to perform better to boot).

I'm unfamiliar with what you're explaining (internal copies).  Can you elaborate please? (or point me to a thread perhaps.)

Brian.

[glynor]

It uses a different API to do the copy/move. Copy modes call the OS copy function (which shows the OS copy progress dialog, but leaves the MC UI frozen and non-responsive while it completes), while Rename does the file operations internally (which shows only in MC's status bar and doesn't freeze the UI).

[blgentry]

Hmm. Ok.  I still want progress bars in RM&C for each file copy like we have in the Handheld Sync tool.  RM&C is really an outstanding tool.  But it would be even better, world class perhaps, with progress bars.  IMHO.

Brian.

[glynor]

Agreed. You +1ed my thread, right?

[robojock]

Does that mean that these files really *are* duplicates?  Or are they distinct versions in some way like longer remixes, or live versions, or ... ?

If they are strictly duplicates, then you should be using MC's duplicate finder SmartList to find your duplicates and delete the ones you don't want to keep.  Playlists > SmartLists > Audio -- Task -- Possible duplicates

Yes they are duplicates as the djpool puts the same file in a weekly folder and in a yearly folder. I download from the weekly folder to know what is new for the week and sometimes do a batch download from the yearly folder to get files i might have missed during the year. After a couple weeks they remove the weekly folder from their side on the ftp as it is in the yearly folder. I do the same by moving what i have downloaded in the weekly folder to the yearly folder to prevent re-downloading the file in the yearly folder. What media center then does is create the extra file with (1) as it is already in the folder. I am already using smartlists to find duplicates but it is a long list of files which is creating extra work for me to delete. Isn't media center supposed to make life "easier" and making things simpler to manager your collection?

This is the folder structure they have on the ftp which i stick to as well, they use tags but keep it simple with artist, title, genre, year.

Genre
 L week 32 folder
 L week 33 folder
 L week 34 folder
 L 2014
 L 2015

[Arindelle]

Like Glynor says the copy function is very useful, but it freezes MC totally. For a small quantiy of mp3s, this might be ok. But if there are lots of files, which I'm assuming there are, this is a real PITA

How about this for a workflow.

First set-up a temp directory and include the path in the import options for speed yu can avoid analysis and tagging on import for this). Set up a pane view where one of the categories is the filepath (you'll see "Location" in one of the panes), adding a modifier "Only duplicates" [Artist] [Name]

every week

-Dump all the files into the temp directory and import them into JRiver

-Go to the file pane view created; choose the "temp" directory path in the pane - only the new dupe wil show

-CTRL+A then hit delete and choose the option to remove from library and disc ... removes all duplicates from the temp directory in one go

-F6 (the Move/Rename tool) move the non-dupes from the temp directory into your main library area (you can create a preset for this). Tag them first if you need to add personal metadata, run audio analysis whatever. Temp directory will be now empty.

doesn't matter if you have 10 duplicate files or 10,000 -- this would be very fast. No tagging required even. You just choose the filepath as a temporary filter. If you get weeks behind, just use the windows copy function to get the newly down-loaded files into this temp directory and choose to overwrite or skip the files. In that way you will never lock JRiver using the copy function.

would that suit?

edit-- @Glynor where dat thread? +1 for me for sure

[robojock]

Arindelle,

I prefer to download it as it is on the ftp server as there are new releases everyday, the next day i just download the folder again and tell the app to skip files i have already downloaded. With media center i do a scan of that folder and it adds the new files to the library. There are cases where i am looking for something on the ftp server under the release year, then download all the remixes of that song and in some cases one or two of those remixes might be already been downloaded in the weekly folder. When i later move the files in the weekly folder to the yearly folder those same name files get added with (1) causing duplicates without warning. I have used mediamonkey and foobar, when doing those steps they warn me that there are files with the same name, then i just skip them and later delete the weekly folder with the leftover files which i don't need.

[Arindelle]

yeah I get all that. what i suggested is exactly that ... keep their file structure intact, but you just put it in a temporary holding folder on your drive that JRiver includes in its library, then let JRiver find the dupes and you filter to see only the dupes that are in the temp folder.

eg. Downtempo\Ambient Dub\wk32\artist-name.mp3 on server you put it into a folder like D:\tempDJ\Downtempo\Ambient Dub\wk32\artist-name.mp3 via windows .. no change.

provided that the [artist] and [name] are tagged and you have not changed their tags for these fields, you are just filtering in JRiver by location; the pane dupe modifier will pull out all the dupes at first, just change to only show the files in the tempDJ directory. and get rid of them BEFORE any move operations ... hence you will never have this issue.

The copy function as you have noticed has limitations, but the worst one is it blocks JRiver from functioning and if you have 10gbs of files to copy or more this is a real drag.

so it doesn't matter where or how your directory structure is once the files are in the main file structure of your library. As long the tags artist and name are the same, JRiver will find the dupes immediately and you just erase them.  Even if you download the same files from year ly or weekly directories from the FTP.

You could also do this using tags, but in view of the simple file names location seems the easiest. In that why you don't choose normally just DL all of it

PS - You could even create a network drive if for some reason you have an ftp sync going on (eg d:\Downtempo\Ambient Dub\wk32\artist-name.mp3 could become a virtual drive z:\Downtempo\Ambient Dub\wk32\artist-name.mp3 using the mapped drive Z as the location filter -- but with mp3 files they shouldn't be a real lot of space to worry about. Adding the temp directory shouldn't matter right?

[robojock]

Thanks Arindelle for the tip i will try that, i just need to understand how media center works as some of the terms you used like pane view etc. I am not familiar with it. Media center does things differently to how it gets done in mediamonkey and i was a long time mediamonkey user so its a big learning curve for me with media center

[blgentry]

Robo:  Are you importing files into MC?  Or are you just using the Drives navigator to find your files?   It sort of sounds like you're not importing files, but it's hard to tell.

If you*are* importing, what is your workflow?  You talked about downloading weekly files and sometimes yearly files, and keeping them organized on disk in a similar way to the FTP server.  How do these files and/or directories get added to MC?

Any other details about your workflow might help us help you to figure out the best way, using MC's design paradigms, to achieve your goals.

Thanks,

Brian.

[blgentry]

Scratch my last post.  I'm pretty sure now that Robo is importing files into JRiver MC.  Ariendelle's suggestion is a good one.

But I don't think you need the temp directory at all.  Just make a Panes View with two Panes:

1.  A Search List Pane with a selection for only duplicates.  So this becomes a "switch" you can turn on that only displays duplicate files.  When you want to find and eliminate duplicates, turn it on.
2.  A File Path Pane so you can navigate by directory structure.

The idea would be to do this procedure (roughly):

1.  Go to this new View we are outlining here.
2.  Click on the Duplicates selection in the first Pane.  Now you see only duplicates of everything in your library.
3.  Go to the next Pane over and navigate to the weekly folder that you want to move files in.  Click it.
4.  Now you'll see a list of files in that folder, but ONLY duplicates that are in other folders too.  Select all by clicking and then Control-A.  Press the delete key to remove them.  Choose to have them removed from disk also in the box that pops up.  Boom, duplicates gone.
5.  In the first pane with the duplicates selection search, unselect your Duplicates search.  Now you will see all of the files that are in the folder you selected.
6.  Click and select them all.  Run Rename, Move, and Copy as normal.

There's something important to realize here:  The duplicates ARE IN THE LIBRARY as soon as you import them.  When you move the duplicate files to the Yearly directory, you're just moving the duplicates.  They aren't being "created".  They were already there.  The processes that Ariendelle and I are describing are ways of finding these duplicates in a fast convenient way so you can get rid of them as part of your normal workflow.

Here's a wiki reference about Panes and Views in general that might help some:

http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/View_Schemes#View_Items.2C_Panes.2C_and_Populate_Tree

If you are interested in setting up a View like Ariendelle described, or like I described, let us know and we'll try to guide you through the process.  It's really not that hard.  Just a good number of details to get right.

Brian.

[glynor]

edit-- @Glynor where dat thread? +1 for me for sure

I bumped it, but here:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=97980.0