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[chrisc]

Woke up one morning and the music HDD was inaccessible

Restored the files from a backup, but then noticed each album had 2 of each track instead of one.  After several days of fruitless fiddling about, I exported the Playlists to a .CSV file, deleted the entire library and imported it again

Now, the question is, how to import these playlists?

Tried File/Import playlist and pointed it to the csv file.  Nothing occurs

Is there another way please?   Am a bit desperate to get it done, since there are many playlists which have been compiled for concerts I give at retirement villages (two a week) and the one is this afternoon

Thank you

[JimH]

If the files are in the same place, you can restore a backup of MC's library.  Files > Library > Restore.

[chrisc]

The crashed drive seems to have a different name from its replacement.  After restoring the library as suggested (and what I did after attaching a new external drive), the report was that the file could not be found (little red - marks against each track).  Then did an import, there were now duplicated tracks, so I realised I was going backwards

Only the Playlists are needed.  If they can be exported, cannot they be imported?

Its possible to create it manually, but as my IT friend says:  Computers are here to make life easy.

[JimH]

If after the restore the files aren't found, the location may be wrong.  You can edit it with the Find and Replace Tool to change the drive or path.  The wiki has a topic called Moving Files that has more information.

[blgentry]

I've used the Rename, Move, and Copy files tool so many times that I'm pretty good at it.  I could fix your problem, if I was in front of your copy of MC, in about 5 minutes.

But it's hard to describe how to do it.  You could read the wiki article on it and probably figure it out.

All that said, I think Jim's original idea is really the fastest path to fixing your problem:

Rename your new drive to be the same name as the original drive.  Then the music files will all have the EXACT path they used to have and your library will work exactly right from a library restore.

I believe you can easily change the name of a disk drive from Finder, or perhaps from Disk Utility.  I'm not in front of my Mac now, so I can't be sure.

Good luck!

Brian.

[chrisc]

Thanks for all the replies

I looked for a "Find and Replace" in search and there were dozens of articles, but all for Windows

Looked at Finder and cannot see a way to rename a drive. In any case, what am I renaming it to?  I don't want to mess it up completely.

Have imported the 24 CSV files into Excel and am going through them one line at a time to rebuild the playlists

The original question was never answered - How to import a Playlist?  If it cannot be done, please say so.  Having to rebuild the house since one brick is missing seems an unduly onerous way of solving a problem

When you buy a new MacBook, there is a "Migration Wizard" which transfers all your existing information and settings to the new computer so you can start off from the same place you left off.

[RoderickGI]

The original question was never answered - How to import a Playlist?  If it cannot be done, please say so.  Having to rebuild the house since one brick is missing seems an unduly onerous way of solving a problem

The way you described in your original post.

Unfortunately, it seems that importing playlist using CSV files isn't working at the moment. If you had exported those playlists in MPL format then the import would have worked.

When you buy a new MacBook, there is a "Migration Wizard" which transfers all your existing information and settings to the new computer so you can start off from the same place you left off.

It's not really fair to compare JRiver to Apple. Think of the difference in revenue and user base!

But MC also does this, when you use the Library Backup and Restore functions correctly.


Did you Google how to rename a drive in OSX? There is heaps of information on how to do it, and the exceptions. Read BOTH of these links.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/renaming-the-hard-drive.1295428/
https://kb.iu.edu/d/abtq

What you should have done, and should do now, is;

Shut down MC.
Rename the replacement drive to the same name as the old drive, as per links above. The name of your old drive will be listed in the MC library as part of the file path.
Restart MC and make sure it doesn't try to start importing anything. It probably won't, since I assume that MC is installed on another disk, and still works fine, but is just pointing to the wrong spot.
Restore a Library Backup from before the HDD crash.

Then you will have your library back intact, with all playlists, as long as there aren't any other issues you haven't mentioned.


PS: "Find & Replace" is part of the "Rename, Move, and Copy files" function inside MC. it is at the bottom of the dialogue. If you can't rename the disk even with the above advice, you should still restore a backup and then use "Find & Replace" to change all references in your library from the old disk name to the new disk name.

If you get stuck on that, search the Wiki for the "Rename, Move, and Copy files" function, and search the Forum for descriptions (Brian's are good) of how to use the "Rename, Move, and Copy files" function "Find & Replace" to fix issues like this.

[JimH]

It's not really fair to compare JRiver to Apple. Think of the difference in revenue and user base!

Yeah, I feel sorry for Apple.  They think it's all about revenue and user base.

[RoderickGI]

Yeah, I feel sorry for Apple.  They think it's all about revenue and user base.

   True Jim. You know much better! They'll never understand!

[chrisc]

Thanks again, I'll know for the future.  I use CSV files since its not too much of a fiddle to import into Excel and from there into Word.  I have to make lists of the music I am going to play, or these old folk keep interrupting, asking what it is they are listening to, and some argue about it.   There is one on tomorrow morning, there are 75 people in the group and its a big event for them, once a month.

I wasn't comparing Apple with JRiver.  For the vast profit that Apple make on every device they sell, they should make it easy to operate

4 of the main playlists have been rebuilt.  Once I found a quicker way to do it, it only took 4 or 5 hours.  I'm sure if I'd been fiddling with renaming drives, etc, something else would have gone wrong

Murphy's Law always surfaces