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[Ad Astra]

Hi

I have two PCs, a main PC and a HTPC. I run JRiver MediaCenter on the HTPC though my Hi Fi system. I am looking at putting J River on my main PC as well to replace Windows media player. At the moment I copy new music from the main PC to the HTPC which makes it difficult to keep ratings etc in sync. I do like having a copy of the music files on both systems as it acts as another backup copy.

If I put JRiver Media Center on both PCs and wish to keep two sets of music files how can I configure JRiver to sync items like star ratings and play lists between the two PCs?

Many thanks

[BryanC]

I have a similar setup. There are two ways to go about this:

1. First, use syncthing to keep the actual files in sync between the two computers.

2a. If the file paths on both systems are exactly the same, you can choose one computer to have the master library, and use MC's Library Server on the second machine with the option to play a local version of the file if found, checked. This will keep everything in sync and keep network traffic to a minimum. If you really need to use the master library on the secondary client machine (say you are traveling without internet access), then you can also use syncthing to sync the master library's automatic library backup directory. Then you can just restore the master library on the client.

2b. If the file paths are different (this is my issue, since I use MC on Windows and Linux) OR you wish to have a truly independent MC library on both machines, then make sure that MC is set to automatically update the file tags when the library changes. Then, if you retag the file, or add a rating, etc, the new file tags will be written to the actual file, causing syncthing to sync the file with the new tags. The only problem with this approach currently, is that there is no simple way to handle syncing the playlists.

[Ad Astra]

Nice, thanks BryanC. I will have a look at Syncthing.

File paths should be the same I use M:\music on both PCs 

I can see how Syncthing would copy a file across when a tag is updated, would the recipient JRiver library notice that a tag had been updated? It appears the way I have mine configured if I copy an existing file with updated tag I have to manually run update library from tags to get the new ratings into the library. Am I missing a settings to get this to monitor changes automatically? New files are read automatically OK it is only changes to tags for existing files that are not read automatically on my setup.

[BryanC]

Yes, the folder will need to be included in Auto-Import with the "Update for external changes" box checked.

[wer]

Yes, this (2b) is what I do too, and it works well.  I have tried the master/slave library setup, but I have seen many synchronization prooblems when making changes from the remote client.

By having two libraries, and two sets of files, you also have an intrinsic backup.  Some people prefer a NAS solution, but to each his own.

I do all my editing/tagging/etc on the regular PC and sync the files to the HTPC which picks up any changes.  I also have a reverse sync in case I add ratings from the HTPC, as often my first listen is there.

There's a bit more maintenance and housekeeping with this approach (like adding any new db fields twice) but it's stable with no unexpected strangeness so I'm happy with it.

[rec head]

Would the easiest way be just to use the Server and Client model and just back up the audio files to the other computer? Maybe backup the library too.

[wer]

Feel free to try it out.  My experience has been that sometimes tagging and other changes made from the client don't get properly saved at the server.  Your mileage may vary.

[rec head]

I know certain operations aren't available on the client but I haven't had any problems syncing the ones that are available.