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[Mr Swordfish]

I'm in the process of moving MC to a new PC.  I copied all the music files from the C drive to my external E drive, installed MC v34 on the new PC, plugged the external drive into the new PC, used the Library Tools to point MC at the new location of the music files, and so far so good.

In order to sync my library with my android player, I had created a device/drive on the old PC that pointed to a folder on the external drive and was syncing to that with a third party tool to sync to the android.  However, once I unplugged the external drive that device/drive disappeared from the list in Drives & Devices, and moving the external drive back did not restore it.  So, it looks like all the settings/options are now gone.

Should I expect this behavior every time I unplug the external drive?  I don't plan to unplug it very often, but it seems like MC should remember the device and it's settings/options. 

I've created a new "device" on the new PC, pointing to the same folder on the external drive as before, and although there's nothing to sync MC says it will take 17 hours to complete.  I hope I don't have to do this every time I unplug the external drive.

[Mr Swordfish]

Bump.

To restate: I have an external drive where I sync to handheld.  When I unplugged it and replugged it, the "device" disappeared along with all the settings.

Is this normal?  Seems like a bug.

I'm moving to a new PC and want to re-create the same process there, but it did not come over via the backup/restore and I can't review the old settings since they are gone.  Having a real hard time getting it to work on the new PC: every file that is part of a "stack" errors out, the thing is I've never used the stack functionality so I don't know why all these tracks are stacked.



The sync to a windows directory worked great for about 18 months (unlike the sync to android which never did) but I can't get it to work on the new PC.

[Mr Swordfish]

I've tried attaching a logfile, but that doesn't seem to work. This form just reloads without any text.

[BryanC]

To be honest I'm not quite following your setup, I think there is some terminology that is being mixed up.

I think you are running into conflicts between the JRiver Conversion Cache and your external "handheld" (directory) sync rules. Disable and remove the existing conversion cache and stick to managing your target "sync" directories with the handheld tool.

It's not normal for handhelds to disappear if the target directory is still present on the filesystem. There are ways to manually explore hidden handhelds but it's not worth going the advanced route until your setup is simplified and well-understood.

[Mr Swordfish]

I've been looking into the conversion cache, since it appears to be causing problems. How do I disable it?  The Tools -> options -> File Location - Conversion Cache allows me to set it to "none" but the old PC running MC32 had it set to a directory on the C drive (the default) and didn't cause a problem so I'm skeptical that this will resolve the issue.

[Mr Swordfish]

test upload of text file

[Mr Swordfish]

So, I can upload a .txt file but it won't take a zipped logfile.

[Mr Swordfish]

The setup is pretty simple - a folder on an external drive that is specified as a handheld device.  All the music files are either m4a or flac, I choose a bunch of playlists to sync, and specify only convert if necessary (and it should never be necessary).

It's the same folder on the same external drive as before, so there should be nothing to sync, assuming I've specified the same playlists as before.  I might have missed one or two or included one or two others, but that shouldn't matter.

When I start the sync it pauses to think for about ten minutes, and then starts processing the files.  Every one comes back with a a status "Error", but without an error message.  After a couple of dozen of these I cancel the sync. 

[Mr Swordfish]

Trying a smaller logfile

[BryanC]

Disable and remove the conversion cache. It's only going to cause you headaches for your situation unless you absolutely need it.

Make sure that your library is in good shape without broken links to files.

Is your external drive assigned the same drive letter each time it's mounted? Are you able to modify files on the drive (not read-only) outside of MC?

[Mr Swordfish]

Yes, it gets assigned the same letter. On both the new and old PC.  (It's the E drive on the old PC and the D drive on the new, but that shouldn't matter)

Yesterday, I was able to move the external drive from one PC to the other and back, and MC remembered the handheld folder.  Today, it has forgotten it again.  (UPDATE: it's there again.  Maybe I just need to wait a bit longer...)

I can read and modify files on the external drive. 

There are some broken links to files - at one point MC imported a bunch of .wav files from the H drive (a backup only external drive that is normally not connected).  But none of these are in any of the playlists being synced, so I doubt that's the problem.

I'm not sure how to "Disable and remove" the conversion cache, other than deleting the folder and using tools -> options -> File Location -> Conversion Cache -> Audio -> None.  Is there something else to do to disable and remove the conversion cache?

[Mr Swordfish]

I've tried making a test sync folder and syncing to that.  It works fine if I only select a few playlists, but fails if I select too many (not sure how many is too many for it). Is there some resource that it runs out of when trying to sync too many files?

Earlier, it was trying to convert everything for some reason and filled up the conversion cache directory and also put up an error box about the stacks space being too small, but it's not trying to cache anything anymore.  Might it have something to do with the stacks? About half of the files have a stacks icon associated with them. This seems to be an artifact of the caching.

UPDATE: the behavior seems to be consistent: if I add playlists 3 or 4 at a time and sync, it works. If I add 10 at once, everything errors out.  It appears that something breaks that is size/resource related.

[BryanC]

Earlier, it was trying to convert everything for some reason and filled up the conversion cache directory and also put up an error box about the stacks space being too small, but it's not trying to cache anything anymore.  Might it have something to do with the stacks? About half of the files have a stacks icon associated with them. This seems to be an artifact of the caching.

You need to solve your stacks issue first. If you have stacked files even after removing the cache, this is almost certainly the cause of your issues. Remove the conversion cache, run an auto-import, fix broken links, etc, etc. Once your library is in good shape, only then move on to handheld sync.

[Mr Swordfish]

I've tried removing the JRiver Conversion Cache folder using Windows Explorer, but when I try to delete it, Windows says it could not find the item.  I'm looking in C:\users\myname\Music.  Is there somewhere else to look and delete?  Or some other thing I need to do to disable the conversion cache? The folder only contains one subfolder. 

I've removed all the broken links to the H drive. I've run auto-import.  About half the files still show a stacks icon. Should I select them all and unstack? Or is there another way to fix the stacks issue?

[BryanC]

Yes you can unstack them to look at the individual filenames to figure out where the duplicates are located. You need to set the conversion cache setting for Audio to "None" and delete the existing cache directories. If Explorer isn't letting you do it then try powershell or restarting. If there is a permission or filesystem issue then it's probably your root problem.

[Mr Swordfish]

I unstacked all the stacks.  Windows still won't delete the JRiver Conversion Cache folder, but I renamed it and it doesn't have anything new in it, so should be dormant.

The sync ran to completion, but it made multiple copies of many files in odd places.  For instance 25 gigs of the (Multiple Artists) folder appears again in the AphexTwin folder.  A number of other folders are duplicated under Abdulah Ibrham, Agnes Bernelle, Aimee Mann, etc.  ie some particular artist folders appear both at the root and under some other random artist.  Weird.

No idea how that happened.  I'm going to try deleting all the files in the sync folder and re-syncing. 

Sometimes I think I missed my calling in life - I should have been a QA engineer since I have a knack for stumbling across software anomalies.

[Mr Swordfish]

I deleted all the files in the "handheld" folder and re-synced.  Took a coupe of hours to copy the ~350G of data, but seems to be working now. Thanks for the assistance.

Now, on to deploying syncthing and getting Media Server working on the new PC.

[Mr Swordfish]

Now, on to deploying syncthing and getting Media Server working on the new PC.

Media Server woke up happy once I configured the firewall to dispatch to the new PC.

Syncthing is a bit of a poser - I need to specify which folder on the android to sync to, but the only UI is a text box and I don't know the file path to the Music folder on the SD card.  Anybody know?  Seems to vary with the android manufacturer.  I'm contacting Sony support, but not sure they will know.

[JimH]

Please start a thread on the Third Party board for Syncthing discussion.  Or use their support.

Closing this now.