After getting Portable Library working on my 2 PCs & Mac, I realized an old issue was still lurking in some of my files. Almost everything works perfectly, but special characters are causing trouble again on both Windows & Mac. (only posting on Mac forum for now since playback issue is only on Mac).
I am using the same external HD to connect to both my Mac & my PC. So all files referenced below are exactly the same!! Let me preface this by saying I have thousands of audio files with special characters which have no issues whatsoever! However, I have a few hundred (of 8124) files that have an issue with special characters. I thought I fixed this on my PC a long time ago... but perhaps not all were obvious. But now the fix isn’t quite as easy as before (explanation at end).
Someone previously indicated the issue may have been introduced by moving files between platforms and/or ripping files on both platforms. While I am interested in knowing the cause to prevent it in the future,
I am more interested in finding the easiest methodology for fixing it since special characters aren't generally a problem.
NOTE: The issue only becomes apparent during Rename.My Observations & Examples:MC Rename displays Filename as “Gólgota” on both Mac & PC, nothing unusual. However…
On Mac (see first 2 attachments)
Filename(name) is "
01 - Gólgota.mp3" but Rename displays it as "
01 - Go lgota.mp3".
These files do not play and all have “=” next to them!
Tools > Locate > On Disk(external) says file does not exist because it is looking for "/Volumes/E/Music/…/01 - Gólgota.mp3" (without the extra space).
On Windows (see last 2 attachments)
Filename(name) is "
01 - Gólgota.mp3" but Rename displays it as "
01 - Go´lgota.mp3".
All files play perfectly, however…
Tools > Locate > On Disk(external) points to My Documents when it should point to "/Volumes/E/Music/…/01 - Gólgota.mp3".
As soon as you exit Rename, everything looks normal - you would never guess there was a problem. Why they play fine on Windows and not on Mac is a mystery.
Remember, I'm using the same external HD to connect to both my Mac & my PC (not at the same time). So all referenced files are exactly the same on Mac & PC!!Two Critical Problems Preventing Me From Fixing This:1) My previous fix included isolating all files that don’t play by typing [=ismissing([filename])]=1 in the search field. But this time around it’s not locating anything. Once I isolated all files, I put them in a playlist. Then, selecting a group at a time (first testing 1-2) I used RM&FC to overwrite Filename(name) with Filename. Then I did the same for problematic Album names. But if I can’t isolate the files, I can’t fix them easily. I’m trying to solve this on Mac since problem files have “=”, otherwise I don’t know how I’d isolate them on the PC.
2) The bigger problem is that I’m now using Portable Library. First of all with Portable Library my original file path is always C:\Users\susie\Music\... because the music was copied to the HD from my PC. But using RM&CF changes the original path from C:\Users\susie\Music\... to /Volumes/E/Music/….. which I think that will break Portable Library.
I am resigned to having to fix this manually (hopefully not one by one), but any help addressing the 2 critical issues would be greatly appreciated!!
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Topic: Special Characters Prevent Playback on Mac (affects Windows too, but files play) (Read 652 times)