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Author Topic: Need Help Moving to New PC  (Read 1217 times)

Peter1001

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Need Help Moving to New PC
« on: September 05, 2021, 12:02:39 pm »

I just moved my JRiver 25 license from one PC  to another.   It's a "master" license as my old PC was 32-bit and my new is 64 - don't think this will be an issue. I've backed up my library and copied it over to the new PC and am able to open it.  My initial questions are how do I point the library to my NAS - the consolidated location of my music files, and how to find my thumbnails and get them to the new PC.  I believe my thumbnail file is within my music files on the NAS.  I've done this in the past but I'm having trouble remembering.

Peter
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JimH

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Re: Need Help Moving to New PC
« Reply #1 on: September 05, 2021, 12:11:57 pm »

The wiki has a topic called Moving Files.

https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Moving_Files
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Peter1001

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Re: Need Help Moving to New PC
« Reply #2 on: September 05, 2021, 04:04:12 pm »

Thank you.    Wish JRiver was more intuitive.
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JimH

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Re: Need Help Moving to New PC
« Reply #3 on: September 05, 2021, 04:17:11 pm »

Thank you.    Wish JRiver was more intuitive.
How would that look?  What do you imagine?
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rec head

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Re: Need Help Moving to New PC
« Reply #4 on: September 07, 2021, 07:41:13 am »

If you previously mapped your NAS in Windows then using the same drive letter on the new computer should work. Open the library backup on the new computer and it should see the files.

It is all I had to do.
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Vocalpoint

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Re: Need Help Moving to New PC
« Reply #5 on: September 07, 2021, 12:01:59 pm »

I just moved my JRiver 25 license from one PC  to another.   It's a "master" license as my old PC was 32-bit and my new is 64 - don't think this will be an issue. I've backed up my library and copied it over to the new PC and am able to open it.  My initial questions are how do I point the library to my NAS - the consolidated location of my music files, and how to find my thumbnails and get them to the new PC.  I believe my thumbnail file is within my music files on the NAS.  I've done this in the past but I'm having trouble remembering. Peter

Peter

It is a bit of a chore to "move" (or reinstall) MC on a new PC - but I have done it a number of times - and it's gets better each time.

First and most critical item is to "backup" your existing library (and be sure to check the boxes for all settings etc) - this will will give you a failsafe archive that your can use to "restore" the library on a new install on a new PC. The key here is to "restore" the backup and NOT copy it over to the new machine. A restore - will instantly restore everything - including the all important pointers to your music files on the NAS

Thumbnails have always been a pain up to v27 - but now v28 backups allow you save all thumbnails with the backup. But if you are using v27 (or earlier) you will need to backup the MC thumbnails prior to the reinstall and copy those over to the new install. I now have a dedicated backup (using SyncBack Pro) that backs up my MC thumbs daily and can restore automatically.

Thumbnails are located here:

C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\J River\Media Center 28\Thumbnails\

Hope this helps.

Cheers!

VP
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dtc

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Re: Need Help Moving to New PC
« Reply #6 on: September 07, 2021, 02:06:12 pm »

I just found a somewhat obscure issue when restoring a library to a new machine - the restore brings along the network access key from the original machine, but the JRiver database still points to the old PC. Plus, if you keep the old system active, you now have 2 machines on your LAN with the same access code. You need to create a new access key on the new PC in order for other systems to be able to access the new system as a server. And, that means that on the other computers on the network you have to add the library access keys in Playing Now  for the new system. It would be nice if the restore created a new access key for a new computer (or gave you the option to do that) and, in the extreme, optionally added that new key to each of the other systems on the network. I guess the other option would be to have the new computer tell the JRiver database its new address so that it is associated with the original access key. That works if you are replacing the old system with the new, but does not work for cloning a system. I understand there is no easy solution to this, but this problem can be hard for an inexperienced user to identify.
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markf2748

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Re: Need Help Moving to New PC
« Reply #7 on: September 08, 2021, 08:15:29 am »

the restore brings along the network access key from the original machine, but the JRiver database still points to the old PC. Plus, if you keep the old system active, you now have 2 machines on your LAN with the same access code. You need to create a new access key on the new PC in order for other systems to be able to access the new system as a server. And, that means that on the other computers on the network you have to add the library access keys in Playing Now  for the new system. It would be nice if the restore created a new access key for a new computer (or gave you the option to do that) and, in the extreme, optionally added that new key to each of the other systems on the network. I guess the other option would be to have the new computer tell the JRiver database its new address so that it is associated with the original access key. That works if you are replacing the old system with the new, but does not work for cloning a system. I understand there is no easy solution to this, but this problem can be hard for an inexperienced user to identify.

FYI, I recently submitted a Feature Request to highlight Access Key issues associated with library restores, but no action on it AFAIK:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,130258.msg903527.html#msg903527
That may not be the best all-around solution, but something should be done to at least warn the user.
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dtc

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Re: Need Help Moving to New PC
« Reply #8 on: September 08, 2021, 11:00:42 am »

FYI, I recently submitted a Feature Request to highlight Access Key issues associated with library restores, but no action on it AFAIK:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,130258.msg903527.html#msg903527
That may not be the best all-around solution, but something should be done to at least warn the user.

Yes, I remember seeing that. Good suggestion. I have run into this before, but not very often, so it took me a bit to remember what was going on.  As I said, less experienced people can have more problems with this.
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bob

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Re: Need Help Moving to New PC
« Reply #9 on: September 09, 2021, 10:14:43 am »

If you uncheck the "restore settings" box on the new PC that you are restoring to you will get a new access key.
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dtc

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Re: Need Help Moving to New PC
« Reply #10 on: September 09, 2021, 10:22:15 am »

If you uncheck the "restore settings" box on the new PC that you are restoring to you will get a new access key.

But then you do not get your other settings.
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bob

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Re: Need Help Moving to New PC
« Reply #11 on: September 09, 2021, 10:29:00 am »

But then you do not get your other settings.
You don't want a lot of them when you are moving to a different PC, window positions and size, hardware settings, etc.
There isn't a fine tuned way to do that at this time. You can either accept all of the settings and reset the access key in Media Network settings on the new PC and adjust all of the other settings or don't accept the settings and have a new access key created and tailor the reset of the settings to your new machine.

In my experience it's better to only restore the settings when restoring to the same machine.
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dtc

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Re: Need Help Moving to New PC
« Reply #12 on: September 09, 2021, 01:10:50 pm »

Sorry, I deleted my last post by mistake.

The idea was basically to change backup/restore to have a special mode for moving a library to a new machine.  The restore on a new machine could recognize the that this was a new machine and ask the user what settings he wanted save and also ask if a a new access key should be created. It could also change the base location of the media files, like changing d: to e:. Alternatively, a new Move option on the original machine could initiated the dialog before creating the backup. Obviously, either would require some changes, but it would make the process easier.  Saving thumbnails was a good first step. Now, dealing with the other settings would help the process of cloning a setup to a new computer.
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