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[MusicHawk]

I've encountered a file copying problem that mysteriously fails. It is MC or me?

Scenario: I have my library on a MC server on my LAN. I'm accessing it from an MC client on a laptop on the LAN.

I can play the remote songs, no problem.

I want to copy a couple of dozen songs from the library to the laptop so I can play them when NOT connected to MC server (trying to learn them to play in a band).

Of course I can do this simply at the file level by copying PC to PC across the LAN. But thought I'd try doing it directly in MC. Perhaps not so simple...

The only tool I can find in MC to copy files to another location is Rename/Move/Copy. But when I use it, choosing files on the remote server and specifying the destination directory on the local PC, MC says "Cannot read from the source file or disk".

I suspect Rename/Move/Copy is being tripped up by how I'm configuring it. This is a powerful tool that by default wants to not just copy/move, but to also to rename folders and files. (In fact, MC on my main library PC I use this tool with complex path and filename expressions.)

Because my library's files and folders are already named exactly right, I just want to copy the files as-is, not change anything. I want to avoid having to set up Rename/Move/Copy with a somewhat complex expression just so it "renames" to match the originals. (Unfortunately, in the Rules presets list there's no "don't rename" option, which would be a help.) Also, I don't want the new files copied into subfolders, which MC wants to do by default.

So, after selecting several files in MC, I tried this in Rename/Move/Copy:
1. Select Copy in the action pull-down
2. Activate the Directory section but nothing else
3. For Directory Base Path, specify the new local folder
4. For Directory Rule, blank out the default expression so the field is empty. The hope is to avoid having MC create subfolders.

This looks good in the Rename/Move/Copy preview list. It shows exactly what I want to get: file copies in the new location with the original file names.

But, when I try to execute this, MC says "Cannot read from the source file or disk". Yet it CAN read them -- I can view and play the files. Why can't MC read them to copy?

Is it possible this operation is not allowed, even though MC accepts and lets me preview it? Therefore, possibly the error message is stating a wrong problem?

Is there another direct way in MC to copy files from the remote library to a local drive without wrestling with Rename/Move/Copy, which seems like "too much tool" for the simple task?


There are no access issues -- it's a local LAN, and at the file level I can do everything/anything. It's just that Rename/Move/Copy doesn't want to Copy the remote files.

Note, I'm using great caution because this is my live library, everything is just right, so I don't want to mangle it by experimenting in ways that would alter the original files.

[morrison]

This is a feature request