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[trhunnicutt]

Well, it looks like MC STILL changes the Amazon MP3 Downloader Folder without asking, or without telling you that it will happen.

As posted a month or so ago, this nifty little "Feature' ended up causing me to accidentally delete several purchased Amazon MP3 albums.

In that post, one of the developers said that it would be "fixed".  That does not appear to be the case.

To wit. 

- Install Amazon MP3 Downloader.  Change "Download Folder" to be "Amazon MP3", inside of "Purchased folder" inside of "My Music".

- Download free and purchased files from Amazon via Firefox.

- Reinstall MC 14.69.

- Import files.  Listen.  Tag. Play around.

- Two days later... download free and purchased files from Amazon again via Firefox, expecting them to be stored in the location I identified from within the Amazon MP3 Downloader application... "My Music/Purchased/Amazon MP3".

Lo and behold... it looks as if MC (upon re-install) RESET the preferred Download Folder from within a separate program to be "My Music/Amazon".

This is really bad form, and breaks all kinds of software Human Interface Guidelines.

After that, I did a test.

It looks as if MC also resets the Amazon MP3 application's download folder preference when you change the Default Folder location for Music Files from within Media Center's Options window.

Can you folks please stop this behavior from occurring? 

Love the program, but this is driving me nuts.

Thanks,

Tom

[glynor]

Wow... I've had mine reset to that folder too, and assumed it was the Amazon downloader being dumb (I want mine to go somewhere completely different).  It is MC that is resetting it??

Fix this please.

[glynor]

So... Is this fixed?  Is it MC?  Any response?

I'm still seeing this behavior on my system at home, but I'm not entirely convinced that it is MC's fault...

[JohnT]

This was fixed in build 14.0.73
It now asks if you want the Amazon downloader configured by us and won't touch it if you say 'No'.

[glynor]

I've seen that dialog, and I answered "No" and checked "Don't ask again".  I'm seeing it switch back automatically on 4 different systems now, including:

* 2 Windows 7 64-bit machines (one Pro and one Home Premium)
* 1 Windows 7 RC 32-bit machine (Ultimate)
* 1 Windows Vista 32-bit machine (Enterprise)

I no longer have easy access to an XP box to test it.  However, I don't know that this has anything to do with MC.  I've been able to reproduce the "change back" without having MC open at the time.

Is anyone else seeing this?

[glynor]

I figured it out, and this is still broken in MC 14.0.76.  It does appear to be MC changing the setting back to the default, but I figured out how to make it stop.

MC asks you if it is okay to configure it to download to your "Media Center download location" when you navigate to Services & Plug-ins -> Amazon in the tree.  Once you go there, and click "No" (and optionally, the "don't bother me anymore" checkbox) then MC will leave the Amazon MP3 Downloader folder setting alone (finally).

However, until you manually open this node in the tree, you never get the prompt and MC continues to reset the folder location back to the default.  So, someone who has never used the Amazon MP3 store through MC, and never even expanded the Services & Plug-ins item in the tree, would still have their setting in the Amazon MP3 Downloader reset, simply by installing and opening MC up one time.

Instead, MC should NEVER mess with the external program's setting.  PERIOD!  If you insist upon doing this for some weird reason, then please make absolutely sure that it prompts you BEFORE it ever makes the change, without forcing you to dig into the tree and find the dialog box yourself.

On another note...

Why is it setting this back to the default anyway?  And where the HECK is the "Media Center download directory" set?  It appears that this is hard-coded to the %Userprofile%\Music\Amazon MP3 folder or something.  I see nothing under Options --> File Locations.  The folder it keeps switching it to has been long-deleted on my system (it also appears to recreate the folder) and is NOT in my Auto-Import folder list.

Why is it doing this?  What good does it do?  And, if you are going to have a "Media Center download directory" shouldn't this be user-configurable, or at least good for something (other than messing up my Amazon MP3 Downloader location)?

[glynor]

How I tested this:

1. I installed the current (beta) build of MC which includes this "fix", opened it once, and closed it again.
2. I installed the Amazon MP3 Downloader (had never been previously installed on this machine).
3. I opened the Amazon MP3 Downloader and set the Folder option to C:\test\
4. I opened MC, but didn't do anything with the interface, and then closed MC again.
5. After a few minutes, I checked the setting in the Amazon MP3 Downloader.  It had changed back to C:\Users\<USERNAME>\Music\Amazon MP3.

Then...

1. I opened MC and navigated to Services & Plugins -> Amazon.  MC popped up the dialog, and I chose "No" and the "don't bother me" checkbox.  I left MC running.
2. I opened and reset the setting in the Amazon MP3 Downloader back to C:\test\
3. I left both the Amazon MP3 Downloader and MC running for a long time (more than an hour), just sitting there.
4. I came back, and checked the setting in the downloader, and (hurray) it was still set to C:\test\
5. I closed the Amazon MP3 Downloader and opened it again.  No change.
6. I closed MC and re-opened it (with the downloader still running).  No change.
7. I closed the downloader and opened and closed MC.  No change.
8. I left the Downloader running a LONG time again (more than an hour, MC not open) and checked it.  No change.

Then...

I went into the Windows Registry and modified these keys:

Code: [Select]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\JRiver\Media Center 14\Properties\Confirm]
"Ask About Amazon Downloader Configuration"=dword:00000001
"Ask About Amazon Downloader Configuration (Last Value)"="No"

And changed them to:

Code: [Select]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\JRiver\Media Center 14\Properties\Confirm]
"Ask About Amazon Downloader Configuration"=dword:00000000
"Ask About Amazon Downloader Configuration (Last Value)"="Yes"

Then, I...

1. Opened the Amazon MP3 Downloader, and immediately checked the setting.  Still fine at C:\test\
2. Reopened MC.  Left it sitting at the "Start" Page.
3. Checked the Amazon MP3 Downloader setting.  It was back to C:\Users\<USERNAME>\Music\Amazon MP3.

So, as you can see, with the option set to "Yes" (which is the default immediately after MC is installed), you do not have to navigate to the tree item, where you will see the pop-up, in order to have the action applied.

In other words, it still changes the setting without asking.  The only difference is that you can force it to ask if you know where to go, and then you can make it stop in the future (but by the time you get there, the setting will have already changed).

[glynor]

Hmmm... I checked this thoroughly at work on my machine there, and it worked just as I described above.  However, I'm now at home on the machine that was having all the trouble last night, and it seems to be working "correctly".  Kinda....

Interestingly, when I first came home I did not see the registry keys listed above at all.  What I'm seeing here (build 14.0.76) is:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\JRiver\Media Center 14\Properties\Confirm] does NOT contain the items listed above at all.

Code: [Select]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\JRiver\Media Center 14\Properties]
"AmazonConfigured"=dword:00000001
"AmazonBasePath"="O:\\Users\\Shared\\media\\music\\Amazon\\"
MC is NOT "asking me" when I navigate to the Amazon item in the tree.  I went into the registry and switched "AmazonConfigured" to 0 manually (I had never mucked with this, or any Amazon-related setting in the registry, before today).  Then, next time I opened the Amazon item in the tree, it DID ask me.

I answered No, and checked the "Don't show again" box, and now I do get the registry entries above in the Confirm key in the Registry.  Incidentally, both times I've done this procedure (when I first did it above, and now while I type this trying to recreate it at home), MC crashed as soon as I hit the "No" button.

Something is certainly weird here.  Might it perhaps have something to do with having run one of the "bad" builds of MC, which does silently change the folder, and then installing a new build but not rebooting?  About the only thing that has changed on this computer overnight is that it has rebooted.  I've subsequently updated to the latest build, but this stuff all happened before that (and still works this way now).

[glynor]

Also, I looked pretty well while at work, and the AmazonConfigured and AmazonBasePath registry entries were missing completely on that system.  Again, I didn't do anything funky to that system's registry.  Just installed builds overtop each other for a long while.

[glynor]

I was also getting some Flash ActionScript related errors that would pop up on this machine while navigating to the Amazon item in MC's tree.

I had never installed Flash in IE on this system.  I don't use IE, so why should I bother?  I had Flash installed for Firefox.  Anyway, I installed Flash AX (for IE) and the errors went away.

[trhunnicutt]

This was fixed in build 14.0.73
It now asks if you want the Amazon downloader configured by us and won't touch it if you say 'No'.

Haven't seen v.73, but the MC DEFAULT should be to leave the download location as what was already set from the outside application, in this case Amazon MP3 Downloader.

That's consistent with accepted HIG software behavior.