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[sadaunhe1]

Hello,

Thanks to Spike1000 and ~OM~ for replying back in June. I've finally been able to return to working on my library. Many of the problems I was having have been fixed by changing the means by which I rip and store files to my NAS. But...

I'm still having the same problem with some perfectly good files not importing to MC. These files will play in any player (iTunes, VLC, Synology Audio Player, etc). I did try addressing the tags, as was suggested, but that doesn't seem to be the issue. The problem has carried over to MC23 from MC22. I cannot find anything wrong with these files, yet MC refuses to import them, stating they were "previously determined to be bad". Is there a bit flag that can be reset, somehow, so that MC will "forget" that it thinks these files are bad?

I have tried everything that I can think of, short of deleting the files. I don't want to delete them, because I have no faith that Apple will allow me to download them, again.

Any suggestions would be most welcome.

Scott D.

[Vocalpoint]

Or tell us - exactly - what is "bad" about the files.

[sadaunhe1]

Hello, Vocalpoint,

Thanks for replying. Unfortunately, beyond testing all of the tracks in other media players (the ones I tried were iTunes, VLP and Synology Media PLayer), where all of them played flawlessly, I don't know what else to do that might allow me to tell you "exactly what's bad". I attempted to attach one of the files to my post, but they were all too large. I thought of converting the format, but that would have (1) probably reduced the fidelity of the files, (2) possibly fixed the problem. I was afraid that if the problem were fixed, the opportunity to learn from the error would be lost. All of that may be silly, from the perspective of an expert.

A bit of history on the files: All of these files reside on a Synology NAS. The reason I discovered the files "missing" is that I was trying to locate missing tracks from the albums, as listed in MC, after importing my iTunes library to MC. I located the missing tracks, attempted to import them again, and failed, with the only error message that I received being "previously determined to be bad". This message appeared in the history window under "Import".

If you can suggest anything else I could try to diagnose the problem or suggest another means or location where an example file could be placed, I'd be happy to try. Any ideas that might help resolve the problem would be helpful.

Thanks for your help.

Scott D.

[Vocalpoint]

Thanks for replying. Unfortunately, beyond testing all of the tracks in other media players (the ones I tried were iTunes, VLP and Synology Media PLayer), where all of them played flawlessly, I don't know what else to do that might allow me to tell you "exactly what's bad".

Scott,

My original post was asking if JRiver could have the software tell us (the users) what is bad about files we are trying to import.

I did not mean to have you try to explain what is bad. I am certain that the files are good as far as you are concerned.

VP

[RoderickGI]

Create a new View or Smartlist for all Audio items. Either will work.

In the Smartlist, which selects just Audio files, add a rule under "Modify Results" to "Limit Database to" and select the "Bad" database.
In the View, similar process, but the rule is set under "Set rules for file display"

Find the problem files in the View/Smarlist. Delete them from that View/Smartlist.

Re-import them. Done.

[Vocalpoint]

Find the problem files in the View/Smarlist. Delete them from that View/Smartlist. Re-import them. Done.

Roderick,

"I'm still having the same problem with some perfectly good files not importing to MC"

The files in question (as I understand the OP and from my own experience) are not yet in MC - so a view/SL will not help.

This message ("determined to be bad") is displayed when a user tries to import files into the library.

VP

[RoderickGI]

The full message reported is "previously determined to be bad".

Therefore, either they were previously in MC, or MC attempted to import them previously, and determined they were bad, or an earlier version of them with the same file name stored in the same location was bad.

MC isn't magic. It has to store that information somewhere. The only way MC knows that they were "previously determined to be bad" is if they are in the "Bad" database. Hence, removing them from that database should give the OP the opportunity to attempt to re-import them.

[Vocalpoint]

The only way MC knows that they were "previously determined to be bad" is if they are in the "Bad" database. Hence, removing them from that database should give the OP the opportunity to attempt to re-import them.

Wow. Did not even know there was a "bad" database. Learned something today. Thanks!

Still - it would be nice to know - on the fly - why MC is thinking it's "bad" - so the user can at least make some planned attempt at a repair.

VP

[sadaunhe1]

Roderick and Vocalpoint,

Thanks very much to both of you for your help. Roderick, I did previously attempt to import the files into MC from iTunes. The "bad" database makes sense to me, in retrospect, but I would never have thought to try this, without your guidance. Like Vocalpoint, I had no idea there was such a thing.

I will try this, following your instructions. Sounds like it should work for me.

Thanks and regards,
Scott D.

[sadaunhe1]

Hi, Roderick and Vocalpoint,

I finally had time to come back and try to display the "bad" portion of the database, using your instructions. Although I believe I followed your instructions correctly, Roderick, I could use a bit more advice.

Here's what I did... I set up a Smartlist with "Media Type=Audio" and "Limit database to=Bad". This gave me a null result. I then edited that Smartlist and changed it so there were 2 "Modify Results" rules. The first was "Limit database to=All". The second was "Limit database to=Bad". That gave me a long list of files that included some files that play correctly and some files that don't play at all. I don't think that this long list includes all of my audio files, but the search didn't return a file count, so I can't be absolutely sure. (BTW, is there a way to get a search to return a count of the items it finds?) I also tried the search with the first "Modify Results" rule set to "Main" instead of "All". Both "All+Bad" and "Main+Bad" seemed to return the same results.

To test whether some known "Bad" files were in the list, I searched for 3 files I know MC23 had "previously determined to be bad". As before, these are files that MC refuses to play, but every other player I own will play flawlessly. The test files were in the list the Smartlist generated. I deleted them from MC by choosing the "Remove from Medial Library radio button. When I attempted to re-import them, I received the same message I had received before...i.e. "Imported 0 new files. Skipped 3 files (previously determined to be bad)".

What did I not understand? Any help would be appreciated.

Regards,
Scott D.

[RoderickGI]

Okay, I have seen some strange behaviour with displaying bad files, where they just seem to disappear from Smartlists and Views for no obvious reason after a while, but I think that happens when the files are deleted or something.
EDIT: I just tested what happens when I delete the bad files. They do indeed disappear from the Bad File Smartlist and View, because MC has Fixed Broken Links, as per my settings.

Anyway in this case I think I made a mistake.

You see, until a file is imported, MC may not and probably will not know what type the file was supposed to be. So by telling you to restrict the file type listed to "Audio" in your Smartlist, the bad files are excluded from the display.

Remove the "Audio" file requirement from your Smartlist, so that all file types are displayed. See if they now show up.

Note that if any (or any future readers) were using a View to display the bad files instead of a Smartlist, you would need to make sure that it also displays all file types. That means that the View needs to be set to not using the parent View's rules for display if the View was created under one of the existing major headings in the Navigation Pane on the left, for example the "Audio" View group. It is easy to stop a View from using the parent View's rules, just by editing the View and unticking the "Use parent scheme rules for file display" checkbox.

As I don't have any bad audio file to test with at present, I tested this by finding a small video file outside the MC import directory structure, copying it several times and renaming all the copies as mp3 files. I then moved them to the MC Audio import directory. MC tried to import them, failed, and subsequent attempts to import them failed with the "previously determined to be bad". All those bad files appeared in both my Bad Files Smartlist and View. MC didn't know what "Media Type" or "Media Sub Type" they were though, with those tags blank, which is why they didn't display when I had specified the "Media Type" as "Audio".

So try that and let me know if that still doesn't work.

[Richard@Harbury]

I can get the datatabse of bad files up as described above and delete them but the list then reappears when I try and import one or more of the mp4a files that are failig to import to the library.  They play perfectly well in other players and the failure message is always the same 'Skipped xx files previously determined to be bad'
Anyone got any ideas?

[JimH]

There are several kinds of delete.  Try Shift-Delete and read carefully,.

[RoderickGI]

Also, though I have never seen it, it has been reported before that when you delete files from the bad files database, they can reappear, and you need to delete them again. I don't know how that would happen, but it has been mentioned.

So after you delete the files, wait for a bit, then refresh the View and if they are back, delete them again. See if that helps.