Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Tango-DJ]

MC30 refuses to import random files from my music collection. There appears to be no pattern in the files excluded from the import, except that it's usually a few (1–4) files from folders containing 20 or so files (my collection is organized into folders each of which corresponds to an individual album).

So far, the only way I managed to get MC to import these files is to give them a short, random name (e.g. 'blah'), and then run 'auto-import'. Once the files have been imported, I can change the names back to the original one and everything will work fine. Note that the files that MC refuses to import do not have special characters, do not have special permissions, and are not particularly long (~20 characters, and fewer than other files imported without a problem).

The box 'Ignore files previously removed from library' is not ticked. I have tried setting "Fix broken links" to either 'No', 'Yes' and 'Yes (protect files on missing drives)', to no avail. I have also tried clearing my entire library and running auto-import again, but this didn't help either.

I have a very large music collection (around 60,000 files) and this issue seems to be affecting hundreds of files. Manually renaming these files is not really feasible, especially given that I have no easy way of identifying which folders have not been fully imported.

I would appreciate any suggestions on how to resolve this issue.

[Tango-DJ]

In case it helps with diagnosing, here's an example of a folder containing files not imported by MC:

Code: [Select]

  -rw------- 1 pablostafforini 8.1M 2018-12-25 12:45 01 Juan D'Arienzo - Trago Amargo.flac
  -rw------- 1 pablostafforini 8.8M 2018-12-25 12:45 02 Juan D'Arienzo - Corrientes y Esmeralda.flac
  -rw------- 1 pablostafforini 8.5M 2018-12-25 12:45 03 Juan D'Arienzo - La Madrugada.flac
  -rw------- 1 pablostafforini 8.3M 2018-12-25 12:45 04 Juan D'Arienzo - Mandria.flac
  -rw------- 1 pablostafforini 7.9M 2018-12-25 12:45 05 Juan D'Arienzo - El viento me cuenta cosas.flac
  -rw------- 1 pablostafforini 8.1M 2018-12-25 12:45 06 Juan D'Arienzo - Este Carnaval.flac
  -rw------- 1 pablostafforini 8.8M 2018-12-25 12:45 07 Juan D'Arienzo - Con Todo Mi Corazon.flac
  -rw------- 1 pablostafforini 7.8M 2018-12-25 12:45 08 Juan D'Arienzo - Olvidame.flac
  -rw------- 1 pablostafforini 9.5M 2018-12-25 12:45 09 Juan D'Arienzo - En Tu Corazon.flac
  -rw------- 1 pablostafforini 7.5M 2018-12-25 12:45 10 Juan D'Arienzo - Calandria Pampa.flac
  -rw------- 1 pablostafforini 9.7M 2018-12-25 12:45 11 Juan D'Arienzo - Yuyo Brujo.flac
  -rw------- 1 pablostafforini  11M 2018-12-25 12:45 12 Juan D'Arienzo - Viejo Smoking.flac
  -rw------- 1 pablostafforini 9.6M 2018-12-25 12:45 13 Juan D'Arienzo - Dios Te Salve, M'Hijo.flac
  -rw------- 1 pablostafforini  13M 2019-09-03 05:26 14 Juan D'Arienzo - Desde Aquella Noche.flac
  -rw------- 1 pablostafforini 9.9M 2018-12-25 12:45 15 Juan D'Arienzo - Tu Boca Mintio (No Me Mires).flac
  -rw------- 1 pablostafforini  12M 2018-12-25 12:45 16 Juan D'Arienzo - Si Supiera Que La Extraño.flac
  -rw------- 1 pablostafforini  11M 2018-12-25 12:45 17 Juan D'Arienzo - Santa Madrecita.flac
  -rw------- 1 pablostafforini  13M 2019-11-18 13:47 18 Juan D'Arienzo - Canzoneta.flac
  -rw------- 1 pablostafforini  11M 2018-12-25 12:45 19 Juan D'Arienzo - Lenguas de Fuego.flac
  -rw------- 1 pablostafforini 9.3M 2018-12-25 12:45 20 Juan D'Arienzo - Milonga que peina canas.flac

In this case, the files not imported at tracks #5 and #10. As you can see, they do not differ from the other files in any obvious way.

[zybex]

Try enabling General > Support Extra Long Filenames. The limit is for the full path, not the just the filename.

It's also possible that the files are actually imported but just not tagged to the correct album. Try searching for them by filename in the (all) Files view.

To rule out disk failure, try making a copy of one of the affected files to check if it's readable.

[blgentry]

I hope the long(er) filename support works, but I do not expect it to.

Have you tried to import a single problematic folder to see if it ignores the exact same files?

Have you looked in the Data section of MC?  This sounds weird and it is.  Occasionally MC, during auto import on my systems, misidentifies some files and marks them as "data".  So they are imported, but with the wrong Media Type.

Go over the tree on the left and click on data, then see if you see any files in the Data views there.  if so, you can just change them all to Audio and be (mostly done with it. 

This is all I can personally think of.  I suspect that if you enable logging, do an import, and then capture that log it might have information that the developers can use to help identify the problem.  Here's how logging works on MC:

https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Logging

Best of luck.

Brian.

[Tango-DJ]

Thanks for all the suggestions.

Try enabling General > Support Extra Long Filenames. The limit is for the full path, not just the filename.

I tried this, but it didn't work, unfortunately.

It's also possible that the files are actually imported but just not tagged to the correct album. Try searching for them by filename in the (all) Files view.

I confirm that the files are not imported: they do not appear in the 'Files' view when I search for them.

Have you tried to import a single problematic folder to see if it ignores the exact same files?

Yes, I had done this and it doesn't import the files.

Another thing I tried was to manually open one of the files not imported by playing it with MC (in Finder, right-click on the file > Open with > Media Center 30). Then in MC, I go to 'Playing now', right-click on the file, and select 'Import Into Library'. This does import the file.

Also, if I duplicate the file (in Finder, File > Duplicate), MC can find this duplicate. So it seems the issue is unrelated to the file name (the file duplicate has the same name as the original, followed by 'copy', i.e. 'foo.flac' becomes 'foo copy.flac').

Go over the tree on the left and click on data, then see if you see any files in the Data views there.  if so, you can just change them all to Audio and be (mostly done with it.

I wasn't able to follow these instructions: I don't see any "data views". Could you please elaborate, or link to the relevant documentation? A Google search didn't help. Thanks.

I suspect that if you enable logging, do an import, and then capture that log it might have information that the developers can use to help identify the problem.

Thanks. A log is attached.

[Matt]

You log contains a lot of these entries:
Ignored (already in database, etc.)

So MC thinks the files you're pulling are already imported.

Here's the first:
0002345: 6170570752: Import: ImportNewFiles: Adding: /Users/pablostafforini/Google Drive/Music/Tango/Orquesta Típica Victor - 1933-1936 [TDJ-0003]/Orquesta Típica Victor - Adiós.flac
0002345: 6170570752: Import: ImportNewFiles:     Ignored (already in database, etc.)

Maybe make a smartlist showing all files and sort by filename.

[Tango-DJ]

The log you see was the result of running File > Library > Import > Run auto-import Now. The import summary reports:

Library now has 60215 files. Search and update took 0:07.

Imported 0 new files.

I don't understand why a log was created for the particular files you mention: these files were already in my database, so they are no different from the ~60k other files that were also not imported.

I find this behavior very confusing and frustrating. Isn't there a simple way of starting afresh? I thought that manually deleting all the files and then running auto-import would accomplish that, but as reported, I did that earlier today and all these issues persist.

[zybex]

Looks like you're using Google Drive. I'm betting all the problematic files are in there.

0002345: 6170570752: Import: ImportNewFiles: Adding: /Users/pablostafforini/Google Drive/Music/Tango/Orquesta Típica Victor - 1933-1936 [TDJ-0003]/Orquesta Típica Victor - Adiós.flac
0002345: 6170570752: Import: ImportNewFiles:     Ignored (already in database, etc.)
(...)
0008121: 6178025472: Import: GetNewFiles: Searching: /Users/pablostafforini/Google Drive/Music/Tango/D'Arienzo - Tango bravo/
0008122: 6178025472: Import: GetNewFiles: Finish (4 ms)

The problem is that files in GoogleDrive folder may not be "materialized", that is, only the filename is actually in your PC's disk, and only when you play them will Drive fetch the file to have a local copy. You should be able to change this behavior in Drive options.
Another problem is with tagging - each time MC writes new/updated tags to the file, Drive will be triggered and will re-sync the file to the cloud. While this is happening the file may be innacessible for MC, and further tag writing may fail causing the Import to fail (or not - this would be random).

In short, you should exclude the Google Drive folder from MC import.

Edit: looks like you already got the same advice elsewhere:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,133267.0.html

[Tango-DJ]

As explained in that thread, Google Drive is unrelated to the issues I'm experiencing.

To summarize the problem reported here: there are a few random files in my music collection, scattered across thousands of folders, that MC refuses to import. These files are no different from other files in that collection in terms of size, extension, name length, date of last modification, or other prima facie relevant characteristics. The only way to get MC to import a file in this class is by changing its name or duplicating it, or by manually importing it from the 'Playing now' section. The problem is not resolved by importing an individual folder containing one of these files, nor by auto-importing the entire master folder where my music collection resides.

[blgentry]

Sometimes you need to take a step back and start without assumptions.  I suggest that you try a test without your google drive folder.  I'm sure you do not like this suggestion as you have already taken steps that should have eliminated this as a variable.  I've been in IT for about 30 years so this isn't my first time troubleshooting unusual things.  My approach to these kinds of problems is to completely eliminate variables.  In this case, that means manually copying some of your files to a different folder that has no "cloud" links at all.

With that said, here's more info that might be helpful.

* To "start anew" you need a fresh empty library.  You can easily make new libraries.  Libraries are MC's database.  You can have more than one, but only one can be open at a time.  Libraries are a good way of doing testing.  In this case it makes lots of sense to make a new fresh library.

File > Library > Library manager > add library
This will ask you for a location.  This is the location of the DATABASE.  Not the media files.  The database that MC will create.  Choose something like Documents/J River/mytestlibrary .  This should be a fresh new folder and will only hold a few MB of database files.

Once you have the new library then you can do some tests with a subset of your files.

After re-reading this and your other thread I'm wondering if I really understand your problem(s) or not.  In the other thread you talk about "freezes".  But then you cite another thread (from someone else) who is just talking about a (very) short delay before playback begins.  Are you experiencing short (less than 10 second) delays on starting playback?  Or are you getting random freezes in the middle of songs?

Either way, starting with a fresh library and some of your files in a new directory, would be very smart in my opinion.

Best of luck.

Brian.

[Tango-DJ]

Thanks for the reply.

I created a new library and ran auto-import. The files that MC refused to import to my old library were successfully imported to this new library.

Is my problem solved, then? Not really. The issue is that I spent a huge amount of time customizing MC over the past few years, and all these customizations are part of my old library. My understanding is that I can't export those customizations to a new library. All I can do is export the associated playlists. So it seems I'm faced with the choice of either keeping my old library, at the expense of having hundreds of files excluded from it, or switching to this new library, and re-invest countless hours into customizing MC to my satisfaction.

I am still somewhat puzzled that there isn't a way to "reset" an existing library in such a way that files can be re-imported just as I can do for a library created anew. For some reason deleting all the files in the library is not equivalent to such a "reset": as mentioned previously, when I do this and run auto-import, all the relevant files are still excluded.

[JimH]

Did you try restoring a backup? MC makes them automatically.

[Tango-DJ]

Okay, I solved the problem!

Instead of manually deleting all the files in my library, I tried "clearing" the files by selecting File > Library > Clear library. I then ran auto-import, and the excluded files were imported.

"Clearing" the library in this way deletes all the playlists, but I was able to import them by first running "Export all playlists" from a backup of my old library. I also preserved all my customized database fields by unticking "Reverse database fields back to defaults" before clearing the library.


Thanks everyone for the help.