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[foodog]

I previously added 10,000 pictures which I later deleted from my drive and from the MC library; however, when I import media, those 10,000 records still get analyzed. Is there a way to completely clear the records from the library?

[Alex B]

deleted from my drive and from the MC library

Where do you think MC gets them from? Do you mean that the dead image file links reappear in the library after every import? Do you have some kind of image playlists in your import folders?

[foodog]

It's not the images that are getting analyzed. It's the records in the MC library.

When you select Import Media and then click on the Start Search button, in the Importing Media window, you will see:

analyzing library
file: x of y

I only have about 1000 media files in MC but MC loops through over 10,000 records.

I'm assuming that MC keeps these records in the library because there is an "exclude files previously removed from library" option.

[Alex B]

I guess MC has to do that if you have enabled the option. Actually, I cannot see other ways of checking if the files have been in the library earlier. MC has to have a list of the deleted files and it must somehow compare every new file with the list. I suppose this does not usually slow things down too much because often people import a lot more than delete.

You could simply not to use that "exclude..." option if you have already deleted the files from the disk or you could make a new library and delete the previous one.

I don't know if it is possible to reset the deleted files list. It should be, because otherwise the deleted files will hang around forever. My current "main" library is basically the same library I started 3 years ago with MJ8. I must have deleted thousands of files during the years. I would not like to keep the deleted files lurking in the library in the future. Perhaps someone from JRiver could explain how this works.

[foodog]

You could simply not to use that "exclude..." option if you have already deleted the files from the disk or you could make a new library and delete the previous one.

I'm not using the "exclude" option.

There are a couple of problems with starting over with a new library:
1. If you are aren't saving tags in the files themselves then you will lose this information with the new library (e.g. ratings).
2. You will lose all of your playlists. Cloning the library won't work because it seems to make an exact copy, including the "dead" records. I also tried exporting and importing playlists but there appears to be a bug somewhere with this: no data was imported. In addition, when you export a smartlist it creates a list of the media files and not of the smarlist criteria.

[SwellGuy]

foodog,

What version of MC are you running?

[Alex B]

foodog,

What version of MC are you running?

Foodog posted in the 11.0.290 bug thread. I guess his/her version is at least that.

I don't know if it is possible to reset the deleted files list. It should be, because otherwise the deleted files will hang around forever. My current "main" library is basically the same library I started 3 years ago with MJ8. I must have deleted thousands of files during the years. I would not like to keep the deleted files lurking in the library in the future. Perhaps someone from JRiver could explain how this works.

Any comments on this?

[Matt]

If the file no longer exists on the hard drive, MC erases any reference to it during import if you have fix broken links and include network drives enabled.

You can see everything in the database with the search: ~d=a

[dcwebman]

You can see everything in the database with the search: ~d=a

This was interesting. I found a number of files that had <varies> in either the Artist, Genre, or Filename field. Pointing on them got "file not found" but I'm not sure if they're references to playlists or something else. Some of them have weird numbers in the Image File field. Is it safe to delete all these?
Jeff

[dcwebman]

Bump. Not sure if it's safe to delete the entries I identified or not.

[SwellGuy]

dcwebman,

Backup your library and delete away. We are curious about the DB entries you described so if you're willing, email your backup to Matt or I and we'll take a look at it. Thanks.

[Alex B]

FYI, I removed over 3000 normally hidden database files, which were previously deleted from the main library, without any problems.

I guess the deleted files will never get removed from the database automatically if the cleaning functions in the import dialog are not used.

I made some smartlists for making the manual cleaning easier in the future:

- a playlist group named DBs and into it:

- a smartlist named DB Main, uses  ~d=m

- a smartlist named DB CD, uses  ~d=c

- a smartlist named DB Playing Now, uses  ~d=t

- a smartlist named DB Explorer, uses  ~d=e

- a smartlist named DB Delete, uses  ~d=a  and an exclusion of the other DB smartlists: "Not Playlist: DB Main, DB CD, DB Playing Now, DB Explorer".

The playlist group DBs shows all files in the library including the normally hidden files and the DB Delete smartlist shows the files that can be safely deleted.


One question though, what is the purpose of the Explorer database? It seems to be empty all the time.

EDIT

I think I got it. The Explorer database keeps information about the files that have been browsed with Drives & Devices during the current MC session. This db gets cleared on exit/restart (except the browsed files that are in the Playing Now).

EDIT 2  (3/2007)

My current "DB delete" rule looks like this:
DB: All   Not Playlist: DB Main, DB CD, DB Playing Now, DB Explorer   Not Genre: Podcast
The actual "edit by typing" code is this:
~d=a -playlistid==1000064206,=675452638,=830687242,=883564058,=596886313 -[Genre]=[Podcast]
I addded the "podcast exclusion" because I want MC to keep track of the deleted podcasts. The numbers are references that MC uses internally.

[dcwebman]

dcwebman,

Backup your library and delete away. We are curious about the DB entries you described so if you're willing, email your backup to Matt or I and we'll take a look at it. Thanks.

I can email the zip. I just need an email address to send it to.
Jeff

[dcwebman]

This is getting too weird. I just installed 298 before I got ready to send the backup, looked at the smartlist of ~d=a and none of the <varies> problems I saw before are there. I didn't do anything to clean up the library so I don't know what's going on. I got Rick's email address so if I see it happen again, I'll send the backup.
Jeff

[JONCAT]

I always have the cleaning functions enabled and a lot of the entries I found were from cd's or dvd's that I had played with MC or even ripped.

JC