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[HPBEME]

I recently had a major computer crash, forcing a fresh OS install (Win10 20H2 64bit).  I backup every single night, but my computer refused to recognize the emergency boot disk I had created on a thumb drive (EaseUS ToDo backup software), so I was unable to restore the system image … as I said, major crash.

Once I got everything back up and running, I restored my MC library from my data drive, and all was well… or so I thought.  I added some music and it refused to import.  At first, it looked like it added the 10 new songs (as the total file count increased by 10), but the import summary indicated 0 new files added.  When I clicked on import summary details button, there was also nothing.  MC turned up nothing when I did a text search. I investigated the usual suspects… confirmed the auto-import drive letters & folders were the same as before, cycled thru the 3 different “Fix Broken Links” choices, and tried various combinations of other import options, all with no luck.

I then deleted an existing album from the sync folder, and ran auto-import - the library updated/decreased correctly.  I then added the album back to the sync folder, but it would not re-import. I then tried MC’s “Clear Library” tool, and when I ran import again, it found exactly zero files - empty music library. I restored from my MC backup and got back my pre-crash library, but it simply will not import new files. I can launch the new files directly from Windows Explorer (well… I use Directory Opus actually), and they play just fine in MC, but auto-import appears to be dead in the water (for me). 

I am sure this issue is specific to my machine, but I cannot think of what could possibly be driving it. I have never had any issue similar to this over 15 years of MC use, and I have had my fair share of crashes and done 4 or 5 fresh OS reinstalls over that time frame, so I am baffled.  I have exhausted my knowledge trying to resolve this, so I am now counting on the collective wisdom of the MC forum legends to help me figure this out.

FYI… this occurred with both MC27.0.079 and .085, and it only fails on music imports - new images and movies import as normal (which are stored on the same Media drive as my music). 

[JimH]

Did you configure Windows Defender?

[HPBEME]

I have never had issues with MC and Defender myself, so it is not something I have ever bothered doing before.

That said, I do exclude the JR Visualizations folder so my computer does not waste time scanning the Milkdrop2 folder.  The files there are admittedly small, but there are nearly 60,000 of them.  Anyway, I went ahead and excluded the entire JRiver program folder just now, and it made no difference.

[JimH]

Edit the folders in Auto Import to check the filetypes you're importing.

[HPBEME]

Yep... I had already done that.  It is configured to import ALL audio file types.

[JimH]

Search for the files in MC.  They may have been imported.  What type of files?

[HPBEME]

The file type for the problem files is MP3. But as I mentioned in my 1st post, I did do a text search on artist and album name, and it came up empty.  I also deleted an existing FLAC album, and it would not re-import either.

Now for a total segue: I believe Jim, you and I are of a similar... umm... vintage shall we say, and the import problem songs are by a classic local Minnesota band...  The Daisy Dillman Band (I am originally from Minnesota).  Now if I can just find Gypsy, Mary Jane Alm Band, The Flaming 'Ohs, The Suburbs, etc., nostalgic memories of my misspent youth will be complete.  Of course if your musical tastes are not rock, none of those bands will mean anything to you.

[David Sydney]

Not completely across your issue HPBEME, but not sure if you realise that there is a setting in the Auto Import to "ignore files previously removed from library" which sounds like your is ticked as on. It will never re import them. Go into settings, Library then the 'configure auto import' and about another dialog box there is a list of settings per profile (music, video) that has been set up. Perhaps that is preventing your reimport?

[Mistaj]

Not completely across your issue HPBEME, but not sure if you realise that there is a setting in the Auto Import to "ignore files previously removed from library" which sounds like your is ticked as on. It will never re import them. Go into settings, Library then the 'configure auto import' and about another dialog box there is a list of settings per profile (music, video) that has been set up. Perhaps that is preventing your reimport?

Would this setting also affect if you completely changed drives, specifically drive letters? 

[HPBEME]

I solved this a few weeks back and should have posted what was causing the issue... better late than never.

I had changed what files are displayed for all my Audio views via Customize View/Set rules for file display... .  I wanted to exclude the downloaded JR Radio cloud files from getting mixed in and displayed along with my own local files, so I made a rule to exclude files where Album Artist is <empty>, since I noticed this field was not used by the JR Radio files.

But this field is not pre-populated by brand new files being imported either. This is why MC would show them as being imported, even display the details of the import after completion, but none of the files would show up in any view or even when I searched for them, as I had applied this rule to all my Audio views!  Pretty obvious in retrospect, but since the rule worked to exclude the JR Radio files, and I did not import anything for several months after creating that rule, I did not connect that the new rule was the causal factor of the import issue. I have since changed all my Audio views to only show files using the hard drive letter where I store all my media files, which also excludes all the JR Radio cloud files.

FYI... all my previously existing files continued to display despite the new rule, because after I import files, I always manually populate that field to create a last-name-first sort order.  For example, if I import a Van Morrison CD, it auto-populates Artist as Van Morrison. I then manually fill in Album Artist with Morrison, Van.  I much prefer to view detail lists via last-name-first. I even change band names with "The" in front - e.g., The Whites Stripes is modified to White Stripes, The in the Album Artist field.  I know I can make MC ignore articles (the, an, a, etc.) when sorting via the Tree & View/Sorting/Ignore Articles in the options dialog, but to my eyes it looks much cleaner to have the very first letter be exactly the same in a long list (as opposed to mostly the same, but broken up here and there with band names beginning with "The" or "A" or whatever, and then the first letter of the next word is the actual sort character).

The downside is I have to manually enter the info into Album Artist this way.  If anyone has an automatic technique for putting the last name first, or just a better way of accomplishing the same goal, I would love to hear your approach.

[marko]

You could possibly automate this using tag on import rules, and expression functions Swap() and MoveArticles().

Some experimentation would be required to know exactly what would happen. I do not know, for example, how "Swap()" would deal with "The White Stripes". The order is probably going to be important, with the added possibility of combining both functions into a single complex, but effective expression based rule.

[HPBEME]

Great idea Marko! I forgot that you can apply functions/expressions for file importing... thanks for the refresher.  I will experiment with that approach this weekend.