Sorry for the delay. I've been trying to find files windows was nice enough to delete while "fixing" the wrong hard drive.
Anyway, I think I figured out the problem. I was pointing to/using a library on the server's external drive that also contained the music. That drive used to be connected to this machine, and for one reason or another (library server issues I think) I ended up putting it with the music so I could access it from another machine and actually update the tags from the other machine.
I have created a new library on my local machine and just backed up the remote library to this new library and things go MUCH faster.
Now, how do I manage libraries on my laptop, my wife's laptop and the server without corruption and allowing me to actually update tags from any machine without corruption issues? The new library server is supposed to handle this I think but I've just not had the time to search for the "best" method to do all this.
Ideally I want all music, photos, videos, etc stored on the server, with local converted versions (as a handheld) on the laptops and changes that get made to the local versions pushed back up to the server main/unconverted files and available to the other machine eventually. For example, putting the 4 & 5 star files on my laptop as smaller converted versions to take on the road, then I do some tagging on those files and when I get back having those changes propagate back to the server and those changes being noticed by the other laptop and updating those in turn. Is that possible? How?
Or is there a better way to manage all that?
How about for photos? Where the wife might do some file renaming or keyword tagging or people/places tagging, then having those changes making their way to all the versions of the files. Will stacks handle this now?
I'm going to have to re-organize all my files and libraries and work flows and having a good foundation to build from would be a relief.
I appreciate any help in getting this all laid out and organized, thanks.