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[Will N. Dowd]

I purchased MC25 and am enjoying it and I'm excited for MC26.
I have 2 laptops with MC25 on them, and a Home theater receiver and TV.
All of them are hard wired into my router.
I can play music and videos from laptop A and B through my receiver and TV.
My main laptop A is the one I load all my music and videos onto and update.
I want to keep my 2nd laptop B synchronized with laptop A so all the content on them is the same and laptop B will update when I make changes to A.
When I initially set this up, it worked.
All the music and videos from laptop A transferred over to laptop B.
But now when I make changes to something on A, laptop B doesn't change.
What settings do I use to fix this?
I thought after doing the first transfer from A to B it would keep doing it automatically.
If I close MC25 on laptop B does it cancel the sync?
I've fiddled with settings but no luck.
Any help is appreciated thanks.

[DrKNo]

Just to make sure we understand exactly what you mean - do you have physical copies of the files on
 laptop B and want to keep those in sync? Or do you want laptop B  to connect to Laptop A and use laptop A's library?

JRiver does not provide a physical sync feature, but that can be solved mostly painlessly with third party tools since JRiver is pretty good with keeping tags in sync.

[elo]

Let me expand a little on the last answer (hope it is not motherhood):

The way MC work is to keep a library (pointers,addresses,metadata etc)  of your media files. The files themselves can be located anywhere on your network an even in different places. Further MC provides means to play these files according to their type and the equipment used. Normally MC is set up with one instance acting as a server and the others as clients. MC does not provide sync of the physical data to the clients but rather transfers a copy of the server library to the client each time MC is started. This enables you to have your data only one place which is imperative if you have large amounts of data like Video and Music and pictures. For you the server would typically be your machine A (Tools-> Media Network -> Use media network to share this Library...) and B is then set up as a client. If you want to have a copy of your data on each machine you have to achieve this with dedicated sync software like rsynck , nextcloud etc. Please note that you can have your data on a local NAS on your network or you can have your data on A. Both can also  supply the data to the client when your client is outside your LAN making it possible to stream your data from more or less anywhere (if you have the speed and your LAN interface to the WAN is set up to support it). The server will of course need to be ONLINE all the time or when you want to use a client.

This is a very effective scheme and I think MC is more or less alone to supply this functionality. It works flawlessly and you only need to make changes to A. If you so chose you can also work from the clients and perform a Library sync when done. The your change will end up on the server and all the clients.

Hope this helps you!

Rgrds ../O

 

[Will N. Dowd]

Thanks for the reply.
But it does have the "sync with server" option under:
Tools>Options>Media Network>Client Option>Auto Sync with server.

I uninstalled MC25 on laptop B and then reinstalled it.
It picked up laptop A as the library server and then once sync was set up it transferred all my files from A to B.
I had done this previously but somehow it was seeing laptop B as library server and not A, so that's why I started all over again.

The first time I did the transfer, everything transferred over fine.
This time, everything but the album artwork transferred over.
How very annoying.
Yesterday I was very annoyed because I couldn't change laptop A to the library server from B.
Today I'm annoyed because I solved yesterdays problem, but have a new one now with no album artwork on B.
Ridiculous.
I'm sorry to say I'm very annoyed with MC25 right now.

[Will N. Dowd]

Things are improving.
The artwork is showing up finally after over 6 hours of transferring filed from Laptop A to B.

[elo]

I have that ticked off on all my units NO FILES are transferred between them only the library but then all my files are located on a shared NAS available on the network.

I do not understand  the setup are you using. Why do you want all your data to be located on each machine? Perhaps to use your machine and the system outside your network? The Auto Sync option is for a client that is connected to a server meaning that you have a server hosting the library in your system. The WIKI https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Library_Server_Sync states as follows:

What Is Synced

• File value changes (artists, keywords, playback statistics, etc.)
• File deletes
• File adds (server adds always go to clients, client adds go to server if the server can reach the file)
• Playlist creation, management, and deletion
• Playlist changes
• Television recording schedule

Library and File Tools
Missing from that list is the impact on Library Tools, the Locate > On Disk, and Send To > External Menu items. Generally, these tools that "touch the disk" only work from the Client side if you have direct filesystem access to the files from the client-side (the full path of the files must match the path on the Server-side).

Typically, this means to access these tools you need to map a network drive to your media volume, and give it the same letter as it has on your server. If this is inconvenient, you can also do this by importing the files on the server-side as a UNC path rather than a "drive letter based path". (The server will work just as happily on files imported via UNC shares even if they're "really" locally accessible on the server. And then the path will always match what the client sees so long as you're on the same LAN and the computer account has access to the share.)

A notable exception to this general rule is the Rename, Move, and Copy Files Tool, which doesn't work at all from the client-side, even if you do have your file paths set up right and all locally accessible.

Important: Mapping a network drive (or sharing the files via the OS) is not required for playback or for all of the functions supported by the Library Sync system (including tagging). This is only required if you want to be able to access these additional tool

The WIKI states that deleted files and added files will be synced. It is not clear to me if this means a physical sync as you require or simply the library representation. Perhaps someone from J River can explain further!

My set up is different so I am not able to enlighten more on this topic. When I use portable devices )without network access) I have a special contents list that I sync to the portable through the dedicated system for such sync provided by MC (Drives and Devices).
When I use a portable with network access I use the Server client system and stream the content over the network. I.e a mobile phone

Rgrds ../O

[rec head]

The media network auto sync option is for a server/client setup. You are trying to do 2 separate libraries. Maintaining 2 separate but but sync'd libraries is not supported. Some people do it though.

Unless you have a reason for having two individual libraries it is much easier to setup one computer as a Server and the other as a Client. The basics are on computer A turn on media sharing and get the access key. On computer 2 (and computers 3,4,5,6 and your phone etc) add the Server's library by using that access key. If I could remember all the exact steps I would list them. Best bet is to do a search of the forum or wiki.