Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[pantagruel1]

I need help copying my library from my laptop to my desk top. I made a backup of it and copied it to a flash drive and then used "restore" on the copy of YRMC on my desktop. It appeared to upload this library, but none of the playlists would work (all had red circles with a minus sign next to them). It also duplicated most of the songs. One version would play  from the Audio tab, but none would play in the playlists.

[dmac6419]

looks like you have to set the path where you keep your music files on your laptop as the same on the desktop so MC can access the files

[pantagruel1]

What do you mean?
I want my desk top to access the music files on its hard drive, not on the lap top's hard drive

[pantagruel1]

I don't see anyway to have the same path.

[ferday]

i don't understand your question very well, sorry

- are there separate libraries on each computer (MC libraries)
- where are the actual files themselves?
- are the PC's hooked together through MC client/server?

[pantagruel1]

The file names on my laptop are different than on my desk top because the user name is different.

So when I "restore" the copied library from the laptop to the desk top, none of the songs on the playlists work because they have the file names that don't match those of the music files on its hard drive. Meanwhile, under Audio>Artists,there are duplicates of every song. One version is the one copied from the laptop, with file names that won't allow them to be opened; and another copy that does play, but is not on the playlists.

I spent hours reformatting all my music on my laptop because itunes had screwed everything up so badly and was hoping to copy the newly formatted songs and the new playlists onto the desk top, both as a back up and so I could play them in another room.

[pantagruel1]

I was copying and transferring the library with a flash drive.

I tried adding a dynamic library using my laptop as a server and this worked just fine--all the music files opened and the playlists worked. Only problem was that I couldn't save a copy on my hard drive of my new computer and it will only play when my lap top is on.

[blgentry]

If you want to make a one time copy of your library from one machine to another, you need to do a little extra work.  You've already copied the folders with the media files.  I hope you copied them "as is" without rearranging anything.  You probably did.

You also make a database backup on the source machine and restored it to the destination machine.  Good!  Now you need to do some extra stuff on the destination machine:

1.  Start with a totally empty library.  Do NOT set up auto import yet.  If you let MC import files at this point, you'll get duplicates.  Hey, you've seen that haven't you? 
2.  Restore your library (the database backup you made) and see that all of the files have little red minuses ( - ) next to them.  This indicates that MC can't find them on disk, because their paths are wrong.  Either the drive or part of the path is different on the Destination machine from how it was on the Source machine.
3.  Let's fix that with the Rename, Move, and Copy tool.  We want to use this in "Update Database" mode.  This changes the paths inside of MC, but it doesn't try to actually move or rename files on disk.  Which is exactly what we want!  In particular, you're going to want to use the "find and replace" section of the RM&C tool.  It's documented quite well here:

http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Find_%26_Replace_Template

Try doing this on a small group of files first.  Make sure the preview looks right.  Then, after you press OK to change the paths, go look at those files and try to play them.  If they work, then you did it correctly.  Go do the rest.  If not, you should start again.  But let's hope you get it right the first time. 

Good luck.

Brian.

[pantagruel1]

Thanks. I did a test on a few files and they converted and played in the playlist.

This will be pretty time consuming and cumbersome to do for all my files. Is there a shortcut?
Also, what about all the duplicate files (virtually every one of the songs was duplicated in their group/album folders)?

[blgentry]

1.  Doing many files:  You can do ALL of them at once with the Rename, Move, and Copy tool.  Just highlight them all in a view, and run the tool.  The easiest view might be Audio > Files ; that should show all of them.
2.  Duplicates:  This is why I advised you to start with an EMPTY library first.  When you do the database (library) restore, you should not have any duplicates, unless you had all of these duplicates on your source library also, which I'm guessing you do not.

If you need to start fresh, you can do File > Library > Clear Library .  That will remove all database entries and let you start anew.

Brian.

[pantagruel1]

I did clear the library and did start from scratch and MC still duplicated most of the songs.

The playlists looked correct (except for the red minus signs), but the library, itself, had duplicates of almost all songs. One version had the same path as the source library and the other copy had a path similar to where the files are stored on the destination computer.

[blgentry]

It sounds like you have auto import turned on in your new library. 

Tools > Options > Library & Folders > Run auto import in background > (uncheck to turn off)
Tools > Options > Library & Folders > configure auto import > (set up your directories here)

I'd keep auto import totally disabled until after you get your library restored, and the paths fixed and working.

When you restore the library, you have the option of taking just the database entries (media) or the settings, or both.  Don't restore the settings.  The settings probably have auto import turned on.

Brian.

[pantagruel1]

I tried these suggestions, but MC is still duplicating files.

[pantagruel1]

Actually, when I unchecked auto import in the background AND run auto import on empty libraries it seemed to do the trick

Thanks  so much

[blgentry]

Glad to hear you finally got it working. 

Brian.

[pantagruel1]

I was able to upload and get most of all my playlists functioning on the other computer. However, several songs came up with the red minus sign and wouldn't open.

Any idea how to fix them so they'll play properly?

Thanks