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[mllanos1111]

I just purchased the Windows license for MC25 to run it on my Microsoft Surface.
All the music is on an external USB drive for now that is connected to the Surface via a docking station.
I’ve been noticing that several albums are missing random tracks. for instance, Allan Holdsworth Atavachron only shows tracks 3, 4 and 6.
When checking the files with Explorer all the files are there and look correct.
Frustration set in and I cleared the database and had it import the files again, and still it is the same thing, so I deleted the album via MC25 and I copied it over again and imported it again and the files are still missing the data.
I checked the data and tags and it looks fine so I loaded MC25 on my other PC and imported that album and it looks correct on the other computer.
I’m not sure what needs to be done to get MC25 to recognize the missing songs, but whatever it is, it may need to do this for well over 1000 songs.
I don’t mind deleting the database if this is going to fix it but it hasn’t so far.
Is it possible that an earlier version of MC when I was first testing it may have left information on another database or registry?

[RoderickGI]

Welcome to the Forum and MC.

As the files are there, they will be in MC. Nothing is missing. It is just a display issue in the MC Views.

So for goodness sake, stop deleting stuff, re-importing, and so on. Just search for Atavachron and you will likely see all tracks, just with some incorrect tag information.

Another way to check that MC knows about the files, and check the tags in them is to use the "Explorer" function inside MC, which is not Windows Explorer. In the left Navigation Pane, click on "Drives & Devices > Explorer" then drill down to where the album files are stored. All the files in the sub-directory will be displayed. Now click on the "Show Only Files In Library" checkbox at the top. Now you should see only files that have been imported into MC, which in your case should be all the tracks for the album.

To check the tags for the files you will probably need to add more columns into the View. You can do that permanently (See https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Customize_List_and/or_Thumbnail_View) or just do it for the current session. This will help: https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,120294.msg831760.html#msg831760


Which View are you using in MC where there are missing tracks by the way? Just the default "Albums" View? Post a screenshot perhaps.

I see you are new to MC. You just need to learn how MC uses the tags [Artist] (which is a List field), [Album], [Album Artist] (which can only have one value), [Album Artist (auto)] (which is automatically worked out based on the earlier fields), and the concept of (Multiple Artists) and how that applies in MC.

https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Album_Artist_and_Album_Artist_(Auto) EDIT: Grrrr. That ")" at the end of the URL, caused by the bracket at the end of the field name, causes me no end of trouble. Click here.
https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Multiple_Artist_Albums

[Spike1000]

So for goodness sake, stop deleting stuff, re-importing, and so on.

This made me smile 

As you're new to MC take a look at the videos linked in my footer. Again, as you're new a 3rd party tagging tool like MP3Tag may help show the tag status of your file without having to dive into MC straight away. (Once installed you can right click a folder in Explorer and view the tags of those files in MP3Tag for example).

Spike

[mllanos1111]

Thank you for all the information, I didn't know about some of them. I'm an old school analog guy trying to get all my CD's into one place where I will play them more.
I'm posting some screen shots, I hope they make sense.

[Spike1000]

Hmm, that's odd. To dig a bit deeper what do the 'Views' under Audio show (eg albums or artists) rather than the 'file explorer' view in MC?

In the above views you can add columns to display more info.

Just to be clear, MC is database based and the 'Views' are where to find/search for media. The 'file' based approach is not the way to 'drive' MC. You do need accurate tags for this to work. .. . Which is what you appear to have (from what I can see) hence my confusion.

Also look at the 'Tag' option in the action window under 'Action Window' so show all the tag info and look for differences between tracks that are present/the ones that are missing.

Spike

[tij]

To me it looks like one track has been incorrectly tagged … and several tracks were no tag at all … no idea why

I did have similar problem when importing TV shows … 3-4 first episodes in season get correct information tag to them … then rest were not tagged at all (MC did not or failed to look up metadata from tmdb) … I usually manually load it … never gave thought why it happen

[RoderickGI]

Okay. I think I know what happened. But I won't explain just yet. I don't want to complicate this post.

Get the View up that is shown in your last image again. Select all seven files, then right-click on one, and select "Library Tools > Update Library (from tags)".

I think that will fix those specific files. If it does, I'll explain what I think happened, and what to do about any other such problems.

[RD James]

Are you tagging files with external tools, without those files being in a folder watched by auto-import to update them automatically?

[mllanos1111]

Sorry for disappearing, but I was messing with this thing and I figured out what happened to some extent.
In any case I have it working, but it took some fiddling around.
I cleared out the database and re-imported everything and the same issues were coming up, albums with missing tracks etc. a lot of them.
When I first started I cautiously ripped everything with dBpoweramp and made sure all the tags were good, but somewhere along the way some things got corrupted and some files lost some of the tags.
That was part of the story, the other part looks like there may have been an old database from a prior version that somehow it was possibly grabbing info from, not sure.
What I do know for sure is that the database when wiped would not import everything cleanly.
I finally went in with Windows Explorer and deleted any library files from this version and any other prior test version.
Once I did that things imported cleanly, then I was just left with some misc. albums that needed tags.
I had those on a backup drive and I went folder by folder with a tagging tool to see what was missing and I recopied that music back over and updated the database.
It now looks pretty good.
Maybe there was an easier way to do it, but I wanted to look at each folder and see what was missing.

[RoderickGI]

Once I did that things imported cleanly

Yep, that indicates what I thought was the case.

MC has a database called "Removed" which keeps track of files that have been deleted from the Library, and includes the metadata the Library had at the time of the deletion. If you delete a file from the Library then re-import it, MC uses the metadata from the removed database for the imported file. The intent of that is if you have updated metadata in the Library, but not all metadata is saved to the media file itself as tags, when you re-import a deleted file you get back all your metadata that would otherwise have been lost.

So if you imported a file that didn't have all tags, deleted it, fixed the file, and then re-imported it, MC would show the old incorrect metadata, unless you run "Update Library (from tags)" for the files after the re-import process. At least it is my understanding the MC doesn't re-read the tags in the file when such a file is re-imported, or more correctly, it might read the file but will not overwrite the metadata it already has in the Removed Database. Anybody interested in knowing can test for themselves. Also, I don't think the "Update for external changes" setting in Auto Import will trigger tag updates in MC under this scenario, as there are no file events (which MC uses to identify when a file has changed) to trigger the update.

If you have deleted some files and want to do a clean import on them without using the Removed Database metadata, perhaps for just a few files, you can create a View limited to the Removed Database, then delete the records in there for the files in question, and MC will cleanly import the files next time you put them into a directory Auto Import monitors.

Of course it depends how you cleared the Library as well. If you just selected all files and deleted them, you haven't actually cleared the Library, and the Removed Database will now include all your files, with their old metadata. However if you used the "Clear Library" function under Playing Now, the Removed Database is also cleared, and you shouldn't have had a problem with the tags/metadata. You would then have gotten a "clean" re-import. I'm not sure if settings are cleared when using the "Clear Library" function though. If so, you would need to go through all settings again.

So, by deleting all MC Library files you deleted the Removed database, and then a new import process found the files and read the corrected tags, giving you a clean import.


Simple really, huh?