More > JRiver Media Center 26 for Mac
Need help setting up Portable Library for an external HD
tangolovers:
--- Quote from: RoderickGI on July 28, 2020, 05:03:06 pm ---Once you have PC#1 working properly, change your PL rule in PC#1 to only include E:|/Volumes/E. The alternate form for the rule would be E:\|/Volumes/E/, but the extra slashes aren't required.
However, once you have deleted the old rules and created the one above on PC#1, restart MC and check that MC is still working on PC#1. Check on PC#2 as well. The reason to check the PCs first is that the media is now actually stored on the E:\ drive, and the MC PL rule may automatically change the media file paths to start with /Volumes/E. i.e. MC could change:
E:\Music\My Music
to
/Volumes/E/Music/My Music
which would be wrong. Use the Locate on Disk and RM&CF functions to check what MC is doing. I hope that MC checks if E:\ exists first, before applying the rule, in which case the rule will work fine on the PCs.
--- End quote ---
Ok, when I ran RM&CM "Update database to point to new location (no file rename, move, or copy)" I unchecked everything except Find & Replace and it appears to have worked, although I ended up with a duplicate of everything - 8124 files on both C:\ and E:\. I think it's because I never turned off Auto-Import on that machine. After turning it off, I selected all files on C:\ > Delete > Remove from Media Library. That' seems to have done the trick. Everything looks good, including playlists.
Do I really need a rule on PC#1 & PC#2 since the Library is now looking for "E:\", which is a windows based path? When I enter Rule 1 = E:\|/Volumes/E/ as you suggested, it does change the paths and nothing plays. I found that having no rule on either PC#1 or PC32 seems to work fine, which makes sense because the library is already pointing to E:\ and will permanently retain that. Wouldn't I only need the PL Rule on the Mac in order to change the path to Mac syntax? I got it working on both PC#2 & the Mac, but did not use PL Rule on the 2PC's because it changed the path. Otherwise, all seems good so far... 8)
My Big Question/Concern: Shouldn't I be be able to do DB editing from any of the platforms? Reason being, I tried this on the Mac and it updated the base path to "E_/Music/My Music/! NEW IMPORT/02 - Pedacito de Cielo.mp3", which messes up the Library and I get a Tagging error (yet playback still works) because everything else is E:\.... Also, why it inserted an underscore after the "E" is another question. :P Help!
RoderickGI:
--- Quote from: tangolovers on July 29, 2020, 07:11:16 pm ---Do I really need a rule on PC#1 & PC#2
--- End quote ---
No. Now that I know:
--- Quote from: RoderickGI on July 29, 2020, 04:30:46 pm ---It seems that the portable rule is saved to the installation, and not the Library. I didn't know that. That makes a lot of sense, and dismisses my concerns of Reply #58.
--- End quote ---
You don't need a PL rule on the PCs. What you have done is correct.
--- Quote from: tangolovers on July 29, 2020, 07:11:16 pm ---My Big Question/Concern: Shouldn't I be be able to do DB editing from any of the platforms? Reason being, I tried this on the Mac and it updated the base path to "E_/Music/My Music/! NEW IMPORT/02 - Pedacito de Cielo.mp3", which messes up the Library and I get a Tagging error (yet playback still works) because everything else is E:\.... Also, why it inserted an underscore after the "E" is another question. :P Help!
--- End quote ---
Mostly a question for Matt, but I think you should be able to do any DB editing you wish on the Mac except anything that updates the [Filename (path)] field. Tags should be fine, as should Views, Playlists, and so on.
I would have expected editing on the Mac to update the [Filename] to "/Volumes/E/Music/My Music/! NEW IMPORT/02 - Pedacito de Cielo.mp3" rather than what you saw. You would get "E_/Music/My Music/! NEW IMPORT/02 - Pedacito de Cielo.mp3" if the PL rule (Rule 1 = E:\|/Volumes/E/) wasn't set. I think. I can't check properly without a Mac. I did check with my test Portable Library, using RM&CF, and it renamed the file "G:\Music\AC_DC\'74 Jailbreak\01 Jailbreak.mp3" to "\\WILMA\Music\AC_DC\'74 Jailbreak\01 Jailbreak.mp3" as expected. That isn't desireable, but it can be fixed using RM&CF to "Find & Replace" "\\WILMA" with "G:" using the "Update database to point to new location (no file rename, move, or copy)" function only.
So the workaround would be to only do DB edits that change the file location on one of the Windows PCs, or if you makes those changes on the Mac, fix the path using RM&CF "Find & Replace" afterwards.
The colon would be changed to an underscore because a colon is not a valid character for a path, been on a Mac.
tangolovers:
--- Quote from: RoderickGI on July 29, 2020, 11:07:06 pm ---No. Now that I know:
Mostly a question for Matt, but I think you should be able to do any DB editing you wish on the Mac except anything that updates the [Filename (path)] field. Tags should be fine, as should Views, Playlists, and so on.
--- End quote ---
Ok... I hope Matt is reading. ;) For sure, I know edits to Filename(name) causes the path to update, so that's a bummer if that's the case. But at least it's a lot of progress from where we were before Portable Library!! ;D
--- Quote from: RoderickGI on July 29, 2020, 11:07:06 pm ---I would have expected editing on the Mac to update the [Filename] to "/Volumes/E/Music/My Music/! NEW IMPORT/02 - Pedacito de Cielo.mp3" rather than what you saw. You would get "E_/Music/My Music/! NEW IMPORT/02 - Pedacito de Cielo.mp3" if the PL rule (Rule 1 = E:\|/Volumes/E/) wasn't set. I think. I can't check properly without a Mac. I did check with my test Portable Library, using RM&CF, and it renamed the file "G:\Music\AC_DC\'74 Jailbreak\01 Jailbreak.mp3" to "\\WILMA\Music\AC_DC\'74 Jailbreak\01 Jailbreak.mp3" as expected. That isn't desireable, but it can be fixed using RM&CF to "Find & Replace" "\\WILMA" with "G:" using the "Update database to point to new location (no file rename, move, or copy)" function only.
So the workaround would be to only do DB edits that change the file location on one of the Windows PCs, or if you makes those changes on the Mac, fix the path using RM&CF "Find & Replace" afterwards.
The colon would be changed to an underscore because a colon is not a valid character for a path, been on a Mac.
--- End quote ---
Yeah, I don't understand why /Volumes is necessary in PL Rule, but it doesn't display in the base path name. And the "/E_/" still has me baffled. I just can't figure out what would cause this, but it's probably a moot point if I have to reset the path with RM&CF anyhow.
Regarding the colon being changed to an underscore, are you saying that when it tries to change the base path it automatically converts the colon to an underscore? Seems rather odd... but ok.
Hopefully Matt will have some insight on editing from various platforms. Boy, if that would be possible it really elevates the value of Portable Library!!
RoderickGI:
/Volumes is needed in the PL rule because Macs use a mount point, and not drive letters. The name of the mount point on your Mac is /Volumes/E.
/Volumes doesn't show in the Base Path because you haven't selected it before, and you haven't browsed to it using the RM&CF Browse button. I can browse to and select \\WILMA\Music in my Test Portable Library and select that location.
I did some more testing of the RM&CF function in my Test Portable Library, and I conclude that a file rename, move, or copy done on the Mac needs to be done in two steps. First rename, move, or copy the file using the "Rename (moves files if directory changes)" function, then fix the "broken" [Filename] field using the "Update database to point to new location (no file rename, move, or copy)" function. As those are two different functions, the two steps can't be done together. I tried.
MC needs to rename, move, copy, and tag the files using the real path to that file, which on your Mac is /Volumes/E. But if you transfer that Library back to a PC, the Library needs to point to E:. The only way that can be done is in two steps at the moment. It wouldn't be hard to do. Just make all the changes you wish to on the Mac, then before backing up the Library to move back to a PC, filter a View to only show files that start with "/Volumes/E", then run RM&CF using the "Update database to point to new location (no file rename, move, or copy)" function with "Find & Replace" only to replace "/Volumes/E" with "E:".
That is a lot less work, and much more reliable, than the process you were using before.
":" isn't a valid character for a file name or path on a Mac, so MC will convert it to an underscore if you are doing something that tried to change the filename.
If you still don't understand, tell me what edits exactly were you doing when you saw the "/E_/"? What function were you using? Shows a screenshot.
HaWi:
--- Quote from: tangolovers on July 29, 2020, 11:34:55 pm ---Ok... I hope Matt is reading. ;) For sure, I know edits to Filename(name) causes the path to update, so that's a bummer if that's the case. But at least it's a lot of progress from where we were before Portable Library!! ;D
Yeah, I don't understand why /Volumes is necessary in PL Rule, but it doesn't display in the base path name. And the "/E_/" still has me baffled. I just can't figure out what would cause this, but it's probably a moot point if I have to reset the path with RM&CF anyhow.
Regarding the colon being changed to an underscore, are you saying that when it tries to change the base path it automatically converts the colon to an underscore? Seems rather odd... but ok.
Hopefully Matt will have some insight on editing from various platforms. Boy, if that would be possible it really elevates the value of Portable Library!!
--- End quote ---
I can confirm that editing from different platforms works, at least between MacOS and Linux. I have my library on the NAS which runs the Linux version of MC26 in Docker. I edit this library from my Mac. It's a little slower but works perfectly. My media are on the NAS as well so I point to them on the Mac directly (no portable rule). On the NAS MC installation I use a portable rule to access the same media files.
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