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[Bigguy49]

Had occasion just recently to play back several albums from my music library.
When I clicked on the album in JRMC29 running on Win7 desktop, app indicated that it could not access the files?!
When I accessed the file folders in the source directory with Win Explorer, the folders contained only artwork...NO music files.
I DO know that albums can be deleted from MC several ways including removal from source library leaving only trackless folders.
However, I can honestly say that I did not knowingly delete these folders.
Questions...

1) Is there any scenario where this deletion could have inadvertently been done in MC?

2) Is there a function in JRMC29 which determines which folders in a music library are trackless folders?

[kr4]

I recently had the same experience with 3 folders.

[markf2748]

2) Is there a function in JRMC29 which determines which folders in a music library are trackless folders?

Have you tried a smartlist?

For example, create one called "Audio -- Tasks -- No Tracks", with two rules:
Media Type | is | Audio
Total Tracks | is less than | 1

You might also try:
Total Tracks | is | 0
which I would expect to work, but sometimes MC is fussy about zeros.

Update:
Test:  I deleted all tracks in an existing album folder, leaving its two artwork sidecar files (*.jpg) intact.
The album disappears entirely from MC's Audio view and neither of the proposed smartlists found the folder. Apparently smartlists can only list files, not empty folders.
The artwork files remain visible in an MC Image view. 
Then I copied backup audio files to same folder, and MC finds audio tracks again.

MC 29.0.55   Win 11 (64-bit)

[MusicBringer]

Under View there is an Audio Only Mode - does that impact what's happening here ❓

[zybex]

2) Is there a function in JRMC29 which determines which folders in a music library are trackless folders?

There's no way, unless you also import other files (like the artwork) from that folder. MC doesn't track folders, just files that have a path.
To find those folders you need to run some custom scanning tool/script outside of MC.

Longshot: have you checked your Recycle Bin contents?

[markf2748]

Under View there is an Audio Only Mode - does that impact what's happening here ❓

I would expect it only further limits the files that MC acknowledges.  It was not selected during my tests.

This smartlist does it, as long as there is an image file in the folder:
Media Type | is | Audio;Image
Total Tracks | is | 0

That lists image files (and hence their folders) for which the folder has no audio files.
Other file types could also be added.

[zybex]

That only works if you have imported the image files. For most users, the covers are there but are not actually imported into the library.
Also, "Total Tracks" is a tag like any other - image files usually won't have that tag set to any value. So the smartlist just returns audio or image files that don't have "Total Tracks" set, or it's set to zero, regardless of there being other audio files in the folder.

[markf2748]

That only works if you have imported the image files. For most users, the covers are there but are not actually imported into the library.

Thanks for pointing that out.  In my workflow, all album artwork is saved both in the flac file headers and as sidecar files in album directories. Then I always import both audio and image files into my library.  As you say, that is not necessarily the case for other users.

Also, "Total Tracks" is a tag like any other - image files usually won't have that tag set to any value. So the smartlist just returns audio or image files that don't have "Total Tracks" set, or it's set to zero, regardless of there being other audio files in the folder.

Per the library field manager, [Total Tracks] is a built-in non-relational audio-only field.  It is usually auto-filled when MC rips a CD; otherwise I set it manually.  However, as you imply, [Total Tracks] is not updated automatically if the track count changes on disk.

FYI aside - new work flow:  Because [Total Tracks] is hard-wired with Flags=Audio, it is not visible in image views. To make the info globally available, I define a custom album-relational, standard edit type field [Total Tracks UNV] (UNV=my code for "universal"), with all Flags set. I manually initialize it to same value as [Total Tracks] in my audio tags panel.  MC then auto-writes it to both audio and image files (MC writes MJMD tags when the image file format allows it).  Note:  I do not define [Total Tracks UNV] to calculate [Total Tracks] in the library field manager, since MC reverts the former to non-relational in that case.

One reason why my last smartlist revealed directories without audio files is because those directories were set up that way intentionally (for example, an "extras" subfolder which only contains images and documents).  The smartlist also revealed data entry errors where "Total Tracks" was not set, as zybex mentioned.

Conclusion:  As far as I can tell, zybex is correct in that, sadly, the answer to OP 2) appears to be "no".

[edited 6/2/2022]