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[dtc]

OK, I think I am going crazy.

I have my library on my laptop but the media files are on a remote drive connected to another system. (Laptop is XP, server is Windows 7 with a 1 TB WD drive connected by USB. MC is 15.0.142)

The filenames for the media files include a mapped drive (z). When I try to play the files, it says the files are not available. When I click on a track  MC says "file Not Found". However, the file is there and I believed  is mapped correctly.

If I copy the entry in the filename tag (e.g. z:\Joni Mitchel\Blue\All I Want) and paste it into Windows Explorer, Explorer finds the file and MC starts playing it. So, Explorer finds the path and file fine and even has MC play the track, but MC does not find the file on its own.

I have also tried replacing the mapped drive (z:) with the network path (\\system\drivename\directory) in the filename (path) tag and get the same result - MC cannot find the file. If I copy the full name to Explorer, Explorer finds the file.

So, for some reason Explorer finds the files and MC does not. I have tried this mulitple time and do not think it is some obviously typing error. 

To make it even more bizarre, the Cover Art tag points to the same remote drive and directory that contains the files (using the full network name, not a mapped drive) and the cover art shows correctly.

This behavior only seems to happen on a specific remote drive (the 1 TB WD drive). I also have the same files on another remote drive (250 MB Iomega connect by USB to the same server) and everything seems to work fine.

This makes no sense to me. Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.

[Matt]

Sometimes you can get in trouble with mapped drives and UAC.  A drive can become visible for administrators (with UAC elevation) but not users.

What happens if you do File > Open File... in Media Center and browse to a file that won't play?  If it works, does it cause other files to start working as well?

[dtc]

Using File > Open File ... MC finds the files and plays them correctly. However, it does not fix the problem when playing files normally.

[dtc]

I tried using a shared drive to  another Windows 7 PC using its local drive.  I get the same problem as with WD drive. MC does not see the files, but Explorer does. Note that the laptop I am doing this on is running XP. Not sure why it works on one drive, but not on the other 2.  Still confused.

[glynor]

Is the Windows 7 Homegroup feature turned on on the Windows 7 box?

That does some FUNKY things with file shares.

[dtc]

I turned off Homegroup on the Windows 7 box - no difference. I also rutned off UAC - again no difference.

What baffles me is why the result is different for 2 USB drives, both connected to the same server.

[dtc]

Matt - would installing a new version of MC possible help? I could re-install my current version or update to the newest version.

[Matt]

Using File > Open File ... MC finds the files and plays them correctly.

With that file playing, add the corresponding file that won't play from the library to Playing Now.  Compare the two entries carefully, especially the 'Filename', 'File Type', and 'Media Type' values (use columns or Tag Action Window).

It doesn't make sense that it would play one way but not the other.  There must be some database difference / issue.

Thanks.

[dtc]

I found the problem. On one of my drives (originally created under XP), all off the filenames have a leading blank. So, the file name is

_01 All I Want   (where _ is a blank - and 01 is the track number)

Whereas on the other drive the name is

01 All I Want

I was focusing on the mapped drive, not on the filename differences - especially not on a leading space.

I simply copied the files from the first (older drive) to the new drive. Apparently in doing so, the copy removed the leading spaces. Since the MC tags have a space in front of the file name, it does not recognize the new file names without the space.

Unfortunately, Windows 7 will not let my rename the files with the extra space, since it does not see any difference between _1 and 1.

My solution is to use find and replace to replace all the _0 and _1 filename entries with just 0 and 1. Fortunately, all the filenames have a leading track number, so it is easy to do the find and replace, with minimal side effects.  Then, going forrwad I need to made sure no extra spaces creep in. I can just copy the new files back to the orginal disk and it will drop the extra spaces. Very doable, just a pain.

These files were ripped with  iTUnes or EAC or dBpoweramp at various times and many were converted to flac using dBpoweamp, so I am not sure where the extra spaces came from.

Matt - given this issue, would it make sense to have an option to strip any leading spaces from the filename (name) when creating the full filename?

Thanks for the help.

[dtc]

I finished the find and replaces and all is well. Only a little collateral damage which was easy to fix. Most of the day spend looking for leading spaces, but at least it is done and should not be a problem going forward.

[rick.ca]

would it make sense to have an option to strip any leading spaces from the filename (name) when creating the full filename?

I wondered why you didn't use Clean file properties to do this in the first place. So I added a leading space to a filename (in MC) and then tried to use Clean file properties to remove it. It seems it did, but then could not save the changes (reporting a "tagging error"). The same error occurs on attempt to remove the leading space by editing the filename directly. So I don't think it's Windows that can't handle a filename with a leading blank—it's MC.

[dtc]

 I never looked in Clean File Properties.  I thought I remembered there was a Remove Leading Spaces option but could not find it. Don't think I ever used it before. Given your experience, I think you may need to have the path pointing to the files without the space before you delete the spaces in the filename. Then when you change the filename (name) , the tagging can work since the full filename is now legal.  That's what I did before doing the find and replace and it worked fine, except for a very few places that had a _1 in the filename. At least I know know about Clean Files.

[rick.ca]

Whether I use Find & Replace, Clean file properties (with [Filename] or [Filename (name)] selected), or Rename, I get the same tagging error when I try to remove a leading space from a filename. The only way I can change it is by using Explorer and then re-importing the file. Or use Copy and update database to point to new location, which I think illustrates the same thing.

I think you may need to have the path pointing to the files without the space before you delete the spaces in the filename.

I suspect what you've done is quite different from what I'm pointing out. You had library records with pathnames with leading spaces representing files without leading spaces. In that case, I suppose MC is able to accept the change and no tagging error occurs because no change to the file is required.

Although I don't think filenames with leading spaces are desirable, my point stands. They seem to be "legal" in Windows, yet MC has trouble with them. In fairness, I came across something that said Vista can't copy them without stripping the space, so who knows...

[Alex B]

Find and Replace,
Find what: \_   (_ is the space character)
Replace: \

- works fine for fixing the Filename field in the library (assuming the name of the disk file does not contain the space character anymore).


It is also possible create a smartlist or search that lists only the files with the \_ string in the filename:
[Filename]="\ "

They seem to be "legal" in Windows

Apparently they work, but I wasn't able to create them with Windows Explorer (on XP). For testing the above I renamed a couple of test files with XnView.

[dtc]

It was my belief that filename was a concatenation of filename (path) and filename (name). So, to find and replace \_ in filename would mean that changing filename would also change filename (name). One brief check on a single file tag seems to confirm that changing filename does indeed change filename (name). This is more than I ever wanted to know about how to remove a leading space in a filename But thanks for the interesting discussion. As a former database and systems programmer it is interesting to think about how all of this was put together.

[rick.ca]

- works fine for fixing the Filename field in the library (assuming the name of the disk file does not contain the space character anymore).

I know. But I am talking about the case where the name in the file system has been changed (inside or outside MC). All of the renaming methods work. The problem is MC is unable to actually change the filename. Or in MC parlance, it has a "tagging error" and fails to "update the tags." On Windows 7, at least.