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[Mastiff]

Because of some sound card problems (kX drivers for Audigy Rx doesn't play ball with Server 2019 and my Supermicro server board) I have switched to using ASIO with three different sound cards. In the multi-zone setup I use MC for music files, but I use the simple FooBar2000 for web radio, so I can for instance listen to the news by pushing 1 on the remote. That starts gives me the Norwegian NRK P1 and pauses MC automatically. After the new I can then go right over to the music album I was playing in that zone before by pressing play on the remote, which stops FooBar and starts playback on MC.

The problem with this is if I start FooBar with MC paused, MC crashes and disappears because of the ASIO violation. That shouldn't be a problem at all, because changing the automatic pause to automatic stop was as simple as changing "MC. Pause" to "MC.Stop" in the LUA script I have programmed for Girder to run the show. But now many files starts at the beginning again. I often play files that aren't yet in the library, and they won't auto resume. I know I can set Use Bookmarking to Yes in the action window, but the default choice is "Default".  Now I have set Options, Behavior, Resume playback using bookmarks to "Automatic". But shouldn't there be an option for "Always" there, or shouldn't the Automatic work on all files that haven't set "Use Bookmark" to No?

[glynor]

See the Deciding Whether to Resume Using a Bookmark section here: https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Bookmarking

It explains the logic. Long story short, you need to set [Use Bookmarking] to Yes on the files. That's the override. Should be reasonably easy to set this on your set of test files in one big swoop. Note, however, that Bookmarks aren't saved at all if playback is stopped within the first 60 seconds of playback, so your playback will have to be at least 61 seconds long (or start mid-file).

If you want just a toggle to put MC into a mode where it always resumes on all files, even Audio: that doesn't exist (but I can't imagine it is a common use-case). But, you can set it per-file without much trouble. And if, for some reason you really want it to always be that way for all files all the time forever (which would be weird, but):
1. Go to a view showing all files.
2. Command/Control-A.
3. Tag. Change [Use Bookmarking].
4. Set up a Tag on Import rule to auto-set this for all new files imported.

PS. The [Media Sub Type] Test Clip is handy for keeping a collection of specific test files "away" from your other regular files. Make a View that shows only Test Clips and then you can have a separate "section" in MC only for those files.

[Mastiff]

Thanks, but as I said the files aren't in the library yet, so they aren't imported. But if it's not possible, I guess I'll have to live with starting from the beginning. I'll just make sure I don't stop a 25 minute long progmetal track one minute before the end to listen to the news... I download a lot of music, listen to it once and then delete it if it isn't good enough, so I don't bother to import them into the library. That's why.

Edit: I just discovered that the files doesn't have to be imported into the library to save the tag "Use bookmarking". So either MC saves it in it's system without importing or it's saved in the file itself. I guess that's what I have to do.

[wer]

[Edit] It looks like there's bookmarking for non-imported files after all!

[Mastiff]

Yes, there is. I guess my edit came while you were writing.

[RoderickGI]

Edit: I just discovered that the files doesn't have to be imported into the library to save the tag "Use bookmarking". So either MC saves it in it's system without importing or it's saved in the file itself. I guess that's what I have to do.

MC can write tags to files that it hasn't imported yet, when using the "Drive & Devices > Explorer" function, or if you right-click on a file in Windows Explorer and select Play in Media Center, then while the file is playing you can edit the tag in Playing Now.

However, the [Use Bookmarking] tag isn't saved to files by default, so if you set that tag to "Yes" then close the MC Explorer function and restart MC, MC would forget the tag¹. So you probably want to change that tag so that it is always written to the file, using "Options > Library & Folders > Manage Library Fields > {select [Use Bookmarking] field} > Save in file tags (when possible)".

I don't think there would be any way to automatically set that tag to Yes for files that aren't imported though. So you would have to set the tag manually for each new batch of files you download.


Note 1: MC saves metadata about files viewed using the MC Explorer function its "Explorer" database, until the Explorer function is closed and MC is restarted.

[glynor]

Thanks, but as I said the files aren't in the library yet, so they aren't imported.

Sorry. I re-read what I wrote, and I guess I wasn't very clear at all (and made some poor assumptions to boot, probably). That was why I blathered on about the [Media Sub Type] Test Files.

I was assuming that the files weren't imported on purpose because you didn't want test files "polluting" your regular media library. My point was that you should just import them, because Auto-Import and Tag on Import makes it easy to hide away files you haven't dealt with yet, and lets you set the Use Bookmarking the way you want for those particular files.

That may have been a bad assumption, but that's what I meant.

[Mastiff]

@RoderickGI, it gets saved. I restarted MC, and it stuck. But it's very possible that I have it set to save all tags to file somewhere. I have never actively used bookmarks before. So I just open the files in Playing now, go to action senter and set the bookmark tag, and it works.

@Glynor, it works anyway now. And I never even import files I know I will keep before I have cleaned up the tags and set MP3Gain (I know MC has it's own version, but I have OCD about having all my files at 87 dB...

[RoderickGI]

Well as I said, when it is in Playing Now the field gets saved. I guess it doesn't need to be actually playing, but it has to have been temporarily imported, which is what happens when a file is viewed in MC Explorer or placed into Playing Now.

But if you haven't set the [Use Bookmarking] field to be saved in the file as a tag as I described, the data will be lost. I tested the process pretty thoroughly. It appears to stick for a while, if the file is still in either the temporary Explorer or Playing Now database, but once removed from both of those it will disappear after MC is restarted. It isn't moved to the Removed database when it is removed from one of the temporary databases either.

It may not matter for you, if you are just playing these files and then either discarding or importing them. But that is the way it works.

[Mastiff]

Yeah, I see that now, if I remove the files from Playing now, the bookmark is lost. But still it's actually exactly what I need for my temporary MP3's, so I'm good. And I think I understood why it wasn't saved before, the crash probably removed the temporary database.