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[walfredo]

I reorganized some of my files and imported my root music directory again.  Now, everything I moved is showing twice, one in the new place, and one in the old place, as missing.  How can I see/search for all missing files, such that I can delete them from the library?

[marko]

Morning walfredo,
Copy and paste the blue text into the search bar: [=ismissing([filename])]=1

That answers your question, but please read on...

Had you used media center to do your re-organising, your library would have remained intact, with fully connected files, along with their original library information which includes such stuff as date imported for all your files, number of plays for your files, date last played for all your files etc. etc.

One of Media Center's most powerful features is its file management tools. Right click on a file or file selection and look at the options presented to you under "Library tools". The "Rename, move & copy files" tool is incredibly powerful and allows you to move files around your drives in almost any manner you could think of, so long as your tags are right.

Have a look at the "My Computer" branch of the Media Center tree. It's not my preferred choice, but you can drag and drop stuff around in there, and MC will move the files on your discs, while at the same time, maintain all of your library links to the moved files.

Another option is to directly edit the "Filename" or "Filename (Path)" field from either the tag window within MC, or directly from the file list itself (slow-double-click-on-the-field-in-the-list).

Once you familiarise yourself with the choices open to you, trust me, you will never again use Explorer to organise your media files.

Do some searches both here and in the MC wiki for more help and ideas, or just start a new thread if you're having trouble finding the answers you need.
Your library will become quite important to you, and you'll be pleased to hear that MC makes automatic library backups for you. My library is getting on for eight years old now, and it gets backed up every night on a rolling seven day increment. Thankfully, I've never needed to fall back on a backup set, but you cannot be too careful!!

The only other thing I'm wondering, is why the auto-import did not remove the missing entries from your library... are your files living on a networked drive?

-marko.

[baba100]

Hi Marko,

Is there any expression I can put in the search bar to find all orphaned record, so I can delete all of them?

also, I understand if I delete media files, the record still there in the DB, can I run some expression to find those records and delete them?



Sincerely

[walfredo]

Morning walfredo,
Copy and paste the blue text into the search bar: [=ismissing([filename])]=1

That answers your question, but please read on...

Awesome!!  This worked fine.  Where can I learn about this query language?

Thanks a lot!

Had you used media center to do your re-organising, your library would have remained intact, with fully connected files, along with their original library information which includes such stuff as date imported for all your files, number of plays for your files, date last played for all your files etc. etc.

One of Media Center's most powerful features is its file management tools. Right click on a file or file selection and look at the options presented to you under "Library tools". The "Rename, move & copy files" tool is incredibly powerful and allows you to move files around your drives in almost any manner you could think of, so long as your tags are right.

The reason I did not use the Media Center was because I was changing the directory structure.  I found much easier to do it with two windows explorer, such the I could drap-n-drop from the one I was using as "source" to the one used as "destination".

Have a look at the "My Computer" branch of the Media Center tree. It's not my preferred choice, but you can drag and drop stuff around in there, and MC will move the files on your discs, while at the same time, maintain all of your library links to the moved files.

Where is that?  I only have Audio, Images, Video, ...  There is no My Computer.

Another option is to directly edit the "Filename" or "Filename (Path)" field from either the tag window within MC, or directly from the file list itself (slow-double-click-on-the-field-in-the-list).

Once you familiarise yourself with the choices open to you, trust me, you will never again use Explorer to organise your media files.

Do some searches both here and in the MC wiki for more help and ideas, or just start a new thread if you're having trouble finding the answers you need.
Your library will become quite important to you, and you'll be pleased to hear that MC makes automatic library backups for you. My library is getting on for eight years old now, and it gets backed up every night on a rolling seven day increment. Thankfully, I've never needed to fall back on a backup set, but you cannot be too careful!!

The only other thing I'm wondering, is why the auto-import did not remove the missing entries from your library... are your files living on a networked drive?

I had it off.  I don't want to include my daughter and wife's music automatically. :-)

Thanks again!

[]s
Walfredo

-marko.

[bspachman]

Where is that?  I only have Audio, Images, Video, ...  There is no My Computer.

I think the option is turned off on a default install: Options->General->Features & select 'My Computer'

brad

[marko]

Hi Marko,

Is there any expression I can put in the search bar to find all orphaned record, so I can delete all of them?

The blue text in my answer above should reveal these for you, or have I misunderstood your question?

also, I understand if I delete media files, the record still there in the DB, can I run some expression to find those records and delete them?

Sincerely

It's not quite as simple as that. Do you use auto import? If the answer is "Yes" then you do not need to concern yourself with this as auto import will look after all of it for you. I'll try and skim over the basics, and if you need some more info, perhaps start a new thread for it.

Media Center has a setting that goes along the lines of: When I remove a file from the library, do not re-import it.
MC keeps a hidden list of such files in order to satisfy the setting. If any of the files in that list are physically deleted from the drive, MC will catch that during auto import and clean up the hidden list by removing the dead entries. MC is very good at its own housekeeping!! There's an old post, from back in the day when this wasn't the case, that forces that list into the open. You can read that here. I think Alex has a better description somewhere, but I couldn't find it.

-marko

[baba100]

Hi Marko

This problem is bother very long time.

Yes, I'm using "auto import" but every time I delete/move/rename files (via windows explorer) I'm getting orphaned thumbnail.

 

[marko]

Awesome!!  This worked fine.  Where can I learn about this query language?

Read all about it

The reason I did not use the Media Center was because I was changing the directory structure.  I found much easier to do it with two windows explorer, such the I could drap-n-drop from the one I was using as "source" to the one used as "destination".

The "Rename, Move and Copy Files" tool was born to change directory structures!! Get some test files, import them, tag them, and mess about with it... feel its power!!

Recently, glynor used it to place all of his music into alphabetic folders. That would be julumpteen thousand files, all reorganised, in probably less than a minute and a few mouse clicks... [read]

Where is that?  I only have Audio, Images, Video, ...  There is no My Computer.

Look under drives and devices. If it's not there, see brad's reply above.

-marko

[marko]

Hi Marko

This problem is bother very long time.

Yes, I'm using "auto import" but every time I delete/move/rename files (via windows explorer) I'm getting orphaned thumbnail.

MC is a powerful media file manager. Learn how to use it to manage your files instead of explorer. Once you're there, it's so much quicker, and your choices are almost only limited by your imagination!!
If you must move files around using explorer, try to ensure that both the original location parent and the destination location parent are both in the auto-import list, with monitor sub folders checked. Media Center will then attempt to fix the file paths in the library for any files that you have moved externally.

-marko.