I am still diving deeper into the media network. A problem I head was that some zones did not show up in the media network, while others from the same MC instance worked flawlessly. I think I know not what the problem is: Some Instances like my laptop need their own fully functional startup for when I am on the go, but connect to the Server when I am at home.
In order to not have to setup the fields and views again I exported the library from my main instance, imported it again at the laptop and then renamed Zones, got a new access key and changed everything that needed to change. So far so good. But some zones where mutually exclusive then: I could not address the main playback zone of the media server from the laptop for example- and vice versa.
The problem, I believe, is that these sone had the same Zone ID, a randomly generated UID that is not visible to the user, but only retrievable via MCWS. Zones with clashing IDs where just dropped in favor of the local one. I had to delete the zone and then create a new one to fix the issue I think that this bug should be easily fixable (but what do I know).
Unfortunately, the problem seems to be more complicated, because I still had two more 2 more pairs of zones that were mutually exclusive. One staimed from a server cloned from the main library. where no amount of zone deleting helped - I had to reinstall MC and purge all data.
The same when for a pair of Raspberry PIs, where I duplicated an installation - I had to uninstall MC on one and remove the .jriver folder in order to make them work.
Finally, I wish there was some way to clone an MC instance from another instance that avoids these issues - a dedicated method for this process. I think I am not quite alone in needing an on-the-go instance.
Hope that helps some folks, and maybe it leads to a bugfix. I'll help in any way that I can.
TL:DR:
1) I believe that duplicate Zone IDs lead to silent supression of some zones in media network. Fixed by deleting and recreating the zone.
2) I believe that there is another deeper-lying cause that has the same effect. Both stem from cloning instances, but this one is not fixed by deleting and recreating
3) I would love a proper way to share MC configurations, especially field, view and tagging pane information. That could also lead to an exchange of configs on forum and site.