Sounds like I'm not alone with this issue.
True, renaming the files with all 4 parameters may decrease the likelihood of collisions - there is a good chance that there will be typos in some of the parameters so they new names won't match!
But that's precisely what I am trying to avoid. I have downloaded a lot of files from different sources with varying filename conventions. My disk is overflowing with duplicate copies of the same song recorded with different data rates, different filename conventions, etc.
Since some of the downloaded files only specify "Artist - Title", I have chosen that as my standard naming convention --- unfortunately I'm stuck with a "lowest common denominator" situation. If the ID3 info contains more data --- that's wonderful. I can always rename the files with a more complex scheme sometime in the future.
My goal is to rename all the files to this standard "Artist-Filename" format. Once I've accomplished that, it becomes easier to search for, identify, and delete the duplicates and near duplicates.
The renaming works fine if there are no collisions (once you realize that on the properties page, only the "selected" files will be updated by the SAVE operation!).
But when there are collisions, the program is a nightmare. A numbering scheme such as (1) (2) (3) would be an acceptable solution. Equally acceptable, for me, would be if the program would simply allow you to continue working after the collision occurred. But this current situation of needing to restart the program and reload the library for each collision is clearly a bug that ought
to be fixed.
takoma