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[Mike Foran]

This topic has come up many times before, most notably by the esteemed member Glynor here https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=97980.0, and it remains a huge defect in MC's functionality.

Moving large quantities of files from one location to another is a mess. JRiver assigns new paths before the files have actually moved so there is no way to interrupt the process without corrupting your database. There desperately needs to be a 'Cancel' button that can interrupt moving of files and preserves the database integrity. An Undo functionality would be exceptional.

There also needs to be a way to instruct MC to skip over all same named files or other file errors. When I am trying to shift 80,000 files over 100 hours to a new location, it's really frustrating to check in every ten minutes to find that the process has been halted because my naming instructions are producing identically named files. Perhaps I could fix that if I could stop and change the naming parameters, but I can't.

And we really need a progress meter in the Action window. The bit of text feedback at the bottom of the window is ok, but has to compete with other data and is not always there.

I know these are hard things to do, but these requests come up time and time again. I've been using MC since v.20 and it's come up several times in every version. Can we finally get some solutions to these requests?

[Spike1000]

From this I take it you're moving a lot of files and re-naming on the way. There may be limitations with the MC RMC function but maybe you could break it down into smaller pieces until you sort out your naming rules or maybe do a dummy run in MP3Tag as that can preview any renaming rules you have set up in a text window.

Remember that if your tags are accurate the actual name on the file and the name of the folder its in doesn't matter to MC's database.

Spike

[JimH]

Rename, Move, and Copy has a preview.  Just hover over a file when you have set the rules.

[Mike Foran]

From this I take it you're moving a lot of files and re-naming on the way. There may be limitations with the MC RMC function but maybe you could break it down into smaller pieces until you sort out your naming rules or maybe do a dummy run in MP3Tag as that can preview any renaming rules you have set up in a text window.

Remember that if your tags are accurate the actual name on the file and the name of the folder its in doesn't matter to MC's database.

Yes I'm trying to move my library from a old drive to a new drive, and I'm using a RMCF profile that I've been using for years when importing media. It does include renaming the files based on metadata. I made the false assumption that all my files were properly named and tagged, but with 80,000+ tracks there are inevitably some that have errors or conflicts. I've come across this before but when I'm just moving 10-20 tracks it's not a big deal. When I'm trying to move this many it's a big impediment. The computer is pretty much running this operation for about 5 days straight, so if it halts after I have gone to bed, I've lost up to 7 hours. And during my waking hours I have to babysit it.

In this case I would have loved to stop the operation and fix the renaming issue. But that's my point, JRiver doesn't have an option to stop a RMCF operation once it has started. I can force close the application, that's it. And when I re-open it the database is corrupted with thousands of entries that are pointing to the wrong location for all the files that haven't actually moved yet. I can restore the library, but then it is corrupted with entries for all the files that have already moved. I didn't hit my first dupe until I was about 7000 files in. Should I force quit and essentially orphan 7000 files? I have a lot of custom tags and I'm not confident that re-importing those files will preserve that data. This doesn't seem like a great option for a program as elegantly engineered as this one.

[Mike Foran]

Rename, Move, and Copy has a preview.  Just hover over a file when you have set the rules.

I recognize that, and that's a great feature for small or even medium sized RMCF operations. It's not practical for 80,000 files. I didn't realize this operation was going to cause conflicts until it had already moved about 7000 files. What are my options at that point? To my knowledge, it's either force quit, which breaks the database, or soldier through it, causing the transfer to take days longer than it should. There needs to be a 'Cancel' button that stops the operation without breaking the database. An 'Undo' option would be icing on the cake, but I'm not sure how to handle all the logistical issues it presents.

[squeedle]

My MC can't even rename files anymore as of the last update.

[JimH]

Let it run.  Windows will sometimes report that a program is unresponsive when it is still running.

[Spike1000]

Seems like you're creating a load of work for yourself with your template. Sounds like you have got an acceptable setup on an old hard drive. Why don't you just copy the files, without your template, to the new drive. You can then fix the problems that's causing your template to balk at your leisure a few albums at a time?

Check out the postings/videos in my footer. I've posted/shared a load of views that may help you tidy up your collection. If you have different issues you may well be able to edit some of my views to fix the specific problems you have? If not, ask on the forum for some help.

Spike

[Mike Foran]

Seems like you're creating a load of work for yourself with your template. Sounds like you have got an acceptable setup on an old hard drive. Why don't you just copy the files, without your template, to the new drive. You can then fix the problems that's causing your template to balk at your leisure a few albums at a time?

I totally agree. In hindsight I should not have done any renaming on this big move. It's entirely the renaming that is causing the problems. But I'm still unclear how to stop this operation so I Can fix that issue. I'm 45,000 songs through about 80,000 songs. About once every 4000 songs it hits a situation where the renaming causes a second file to have the same name as the first. At that point I get a Windows request to keep one of them or Skip. The answer is always Skip, but I don't have the option to do this for every instance. And this request halts the move operation as MC waits for Windows to give it an answer. How can I stop this operation to fix this without breaking my database?

[Mike Foran]

Let it run.  Windows will sometimes report that a program is unresponsive when it is still running.

I'm afraid in this case the renaming aspect of it is occasionally causing a second file with the same name as the first, which pops up a Windows request to pick one or the other or Skip. Windows is only getting one file operation at a time so there is no option to give the same answer for every instance. MC halts until the request has been satisfied, so it sits there until I intervene. This happens about once every 4000 files on average, which is why I didn't pick it up until I was well into the transfer. I would love to cancel the operation and fix this but I don't see how to do that.

[Mike Foran]

My MC can't even rename files anymore as of the last update.

Yeah as of v.21 they removed the ability to do this from a client computer sharing the library, even if drive letter assignments were the same. I can see why it was done as it's not obvious how the OS has to be set up for it to work properly, and I'm not even sure how it would be done on the Mac or Linux at all (although I am sure there are ways). It's still an irritant to me that I have to keep remoting into my server whenever I want to rename a group of files. It would be nice if MC could allow Renaming but disable Moving when working from a shared library. But that's a topic for another thread. Right now I think a Cancel option on RMCF is more important.

[JimH]

I'm 45,000 songs through about 80,000 songs. About once every 4000 songs it hits a situation where the renaming causes a second file to have the same name as the first.

So why not hit skip 9 more times?  It's not elegant, but it would work, wouldn't it?

[Mike Foran]

So why not hit skip 9 more times?  It's not elegant, but it would work, wouldn't it?

Because, as I mentioned in my first post, it drags out the file move operation by several days. If I get an error after I have gone to bed, nothing happens until I wake up in the morning and fix it. And I have to babysit it all day to make sure it hasn't stalled again. In the meantime JRiver is basically unusable because it doesn't know where anything is until it has actually moved the files. The database entry is pointing to the new location before the file has actually transferred over.

Is it really that difficult to add a Cancel option? This has come up many times in this forum over the years. I'm not the first person to notice it, and it's not the first time I have wished I had one.

EDIT: I don't mean to sound dismissive. I understand that this probably isn't an easy thing to do. It just seems that, from my comment and others I have read, this is an often requested function.