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[mark_h]

This problem has been bugging me for ever and finally frustration has me here on the forum searching for a solution.

Here's the problem.  I rip my CDs to drive C.  I then import them to MC and do some tagging.  And then I attempt to use the move/rename/copy tool to move the files onto my NAS.  EVERY time I do this MC locks for quite some time and playback stops with "Buffering..." and no interaction with MC is possible.   Outside of the move/rename/copy there are ZERO issues with the NAS and MC works perfectly.

The quick solution to the lock is for me to open an explorer window and navigate to the NAS - initially the NAS has locked up too but Windows forces open the connection and immediately MC swings back into action and completes the move process and resumes playing.

The longer solution is to just wait and eventually the copy completes (the lock resolves) BUT playback does not resume and sticks at "Buffering..." and the only resolution is to start the track over.

No other software has such issues, just MC.  No resident virus scanners or other such junk.  Windows 7 and NAS (QNAP TS-509) on mapped drive.

Help?

Cheers,

Mark

[InflatableMouse]

This sounds a little bit like you've mapped a network drive and are using the drive letter in MC. Is this correct?

When this happens, is the network drive showing up with a red cross in "My Computer" (ie, the drive overview in Explorer)? This red cross would dissapear when you browse the network drive with Explorer and MC suddenly continues. Correct?

Several things spring to mind that you could try to help pinpoint the issue:
- Browse the drive/folder before you attempt to move/rename;
- Use a UNC path in MC instead of the drive letter. A UNC path example is \\qnap-hostname-or-ip\share\musicfolder;
- You mention playback stops and starts buffering; are you moving the files you are playing? Try it without playing something;

A random thought:
Does this happen immediately after you woke your PC from sleep? Where is your NAS located? Try and listen to it when this happens and see if you hear disks spinning up from sleep in your NAS.

[mark_h]

This sounds a little bit like you've mapped a network drive and are using the drive letter in MC. Is this correct?

Correct.

When this happens, is the network drive showing up with a red cross in "My Computer" (ie, the drive overview in Explorer)? This red cross would dissapear when you browse the network drive with Explorer and MC suddenly continues. Correct?

No.  There is no X - the drive is connected but MC hangs.

Several things spring to mind that you could try to help pinpoint the issue:
- Browse the drive/folder before you attempt to move/rename;

Tried that, still hangs.

- Use a UNC path in MC instead of the drive letter. A UNC path example is \\qnap-hostname-or-ip\share\musicfolder;

That has occurred to me to, but I wonder whether MC will attempt to move the entire collection of tracks when I change the filepath?  And this has put me off attempting this approach...

- You mention playback stops and starts buffering; are you moving the files you are playing? Try it without playing something;

Sometimes yes, but most times no.  I have noticed that when I am not playing tracks it does sometimes work ok, but sometimes it still hangs.

A random thought:
Does this happen immediately after you woke your PC from sleep? Where is your NAS located? Try and listen to it when this happens and see if you hear disks spinning up from sleep in your NAS.

Maybe, as in my PC is rarely rebooted and so comes out of sleep for use, but if I'm playing music then the NAS is awake and serving the files...

NAS is in same room connected via ethernet.

[InflatableMouse]

That has occurred to me to, but I wonder whether MC will attempt to move the entire collection of tracks when I change the filepath?  And this has put me off attempting this approach...

If you enter the UNC path in the move/copy/rename window, MC will only apply the change to the files selected. MC will record the new path in its database, there should not be an issue.

I just tested what you're doing, moved an album to the NAS and back to my PC. Tried drive letter and UNC path. It finishes in a matter of seconds. I did it while playing that same album, all files move in seconds and the status bar says 1 tag remaining. When playback skips to the next song the remaining file moves. It works flawless over here.

Sometimes yes, but most times no.  I have noticed that when I am not playing tracks it does sometimes work ok, but sometimes it still hangs.

Interesting. Makes me wonder if there aren't 2 separate issues acting up at the same time.

Couple of questions. Do you access on IP address or hostname? If hostname, how is DNS/name resolving setup?

Is your pc wired as well or do you use wireless on it?

The stuff that is wired up, is the wire speed set to 'auto' or did you specify a speed specifically (like 100mbit, 1000mbit, full or half duplex?).

[mark_h]

If you enter the UNC path in the move/copy/rename window, MC will only apply the change to the files selected. MC will record the new path in its database, there should not be an issue.

OK, so I just imported a new album and use UNC path during the move/rename/copy and it worked!

I'll use the UNC path moving forward, I guess and monitor the situation.  I can do an UPDATE mode on the entire library to move over the UNC paths.

Couple of questions. Do you access on IP address or hostname? If hostname, how is DNS/name resolving setup?

NAS uses DCHP assigned addresses so I use HOSTNAME for access.  I guess Windows is resolving the DNS from its local network cache.

Is your pc wired as well or do you use wireless on it?

Wired.

The stuff that is wired up, is the wire speed set to 'auto' or did you specify a speed specifically (like 100mbit, 1000mbit, full or half duplex?).

I've made no changes to whatever Windows defaults to.

Perhaps it really is just an UNC vs mapped drive issue...

[InflatableMouse]

Yeh I prefer using UNC paths towards the NAS myself, mapped network drives do give some issues sometimes. And there's the issue that Windows does not automatically reconnects disconnected drives waking up from sleep, really annoying!

Well, glad you found a working solution. Did you try rename/move while playing that same album? That works for me too just like I described in my earlier post.

[mark_h]

Thanks for the help.  All *seems* ok right now.

I've always shied away from UNC in Windows because it's so verbose...

\\dump\root\My Music

as opposed to

z:\My Music

And the mapped drive has always hidden the underlying hardware too, allowing me to switch boxes simply by remapping the drive to the new hardware.

Given other software seems fine with mapped drives I do still wonder whether MC is doing something to cause the hang...

[Urbanito]

I don't know if it is against the rules to ask a question related with the same issue.
I am going to try, anyway.
Since I don't know how to use MC to transfer files to my NAS, I always use The drag and drop approach, from "my music" to NAS.
It is a quite difficult and time consuming process, mainly when I don't know if a file I want to transfer is already there. And I loose lots of artworks.
I was very happy to see the post of mark_h and the answer of Inflatable-Mouse.
I know that is the answer to all my needs, but I didn't understand how to proceed, do to a lack of knowledge.
Then, and my question is to Inflatable-Mouse:
Can you explain on a simple and spew bi step basis how can I transfer my music files from MC, where they are all organized and tagged, to my NAS?
I can either connect by cable or wireless to the NAS, via router. Both work very well.
Now, and with fear of loosing my files, I have my library on the NAS and on my computer disk. where I am lacking space.
Thanks in advance and sorry if I did something wrong, asking support on this post.
Kind regards
Joao

[Urbanito]

No support? I really need it.

[mark_h]

Have you seen

Tools->Library Tools->Rename, Move & Copy files

?

Make sure that you choose the option

Rename (moves files if directory changes)

And then you can build the path you want using the form and it will move the files from you local collection onto the NAS and update the library to point to the new location.

[Urbanito]

Thank you very much, Mark_.
Y think I did things right.
During the process I received a message saying that I had 432 folders empty, asking it I wanted to delete them. I said NO, because ai wanted to know why I had them.
Now I know and want to delete them, BUT I CAN'T Find THEM.
Could you let me know where they are?
Best regards

[InflatableMouse]

They are in your "Music" folder, you mentioned above you drag and drop them from "MY MUSIC" to your "NAS".

MC basically did the same thing for you, and the empty folders are where your music originally resided.

[mark_h]

Did an import today using UNC paths and got the hang problem again 

PC running merrily along until MC tries to copy from my C drive to my NAS, then it locks up for a few minutes until the "lock" is resolved.

[InflatableMouse]

Did you import or rename/move as discussed above?

[mark_h]

As above.

Imported, tagged, then tried to use move/rename/copy tool using UNC paths.  LOCK.

Something very strange going on.

And only affects MC, which has my finger pointing directly at it as the problem...

[Urbanito]

Thank you very much. I had already noticed that all my folders on "my music" were empty after used MC to transfer the files to the NAS. I deleted them all afterwords, to not create confusion.
To access NAS, I had to create a new Library, named NAS and now everything is working. I lost a bunch of album covers, but I am solving the problem.
Kind regards.

[InflatableMouse]

As above.

Imported, tagged, then tried to use move/rename/copy tool using UNC paths.  LOCK.

Something very strange going on.

And only affects MC, which has my finger pointing directly at it as the problem...

Oke so it's not always the case. Can you reproduce the problem moving existing files in your library, not ones you just imported?

When you go to Tools/Options, Library & Folders, Configure Auto Import. What is selected at the bottom? If that's got things like Analyze Audio and Build Thumbnails enabled, could that be slowing it down? Those options can take some time to finish on an import and if you try to move the files immediately after an import ... you get the idea.

Also I have to come back to some of the stuff I mentioned before, DNS, the network card settings and wire speed. You had left it all default which is often fine but as you're having weird issues you may want to set it to a fixed speed and full duplex. Half duplex is bad. Also, try using IP address instead of hostname (I had an issue connecting to a remote MC library using hostname while DNS was working fine. It took ages but eventually would connect. IP connected instantly).

Other than those I'm running out of ideas.

I mean if you know how it works you could start process explorer and permon. With PE you can check open files and file locks, it shows some neat other counters too that can help troubleshooting if you know what it means. With Perfmon you could monitor network traffic, that might give some insight into what's actually happening during the move.

[mark_h]

Oke so it's not always the case. Can you reproduce the problem moving existing files in your library, not ones you just imported?

Something for me to try.

When you go to Tools/Options, Library & Folders, Configure Auto Import. What is selected at the bottom? If that's got things like Analyze Audio and Build Thumbnails enabled, could that be slowing it down? Those options can take some time to finish on an import and if you try to move the files immediately after an import ... you get the idea.

I don't use auto import.  I use windows explorer then right click->import to Media Center method.

Also I have to come back to some of the stuff I mentioned before, DNS, the network card settings and wire speed. You had left it all default which is often fine but as you're having weird issues you may want to set it to a fixed speed and full duplex. Half duplex is bad. Also, try using IP address instead of hostname (I had an issue connecting to a remote MC library using hostname while DNS was working fine. It took ages but eventually would connect. IP connected instantly).

Thanks, will give these things a try, but not sure why other software isn't tripping up when moving files to and from the NAS?

[qoute]
Other than those I'm running out of ideas.
[/quote]

Me too, but I appreciate the ideas.

I mean if you know how it works you could start process explorer and permon. With PE you can check open files and file locks, it shows some neat other counters too that can help troubleshooting if you know what it means. With Perfmon you could monitor network traffic, that might give some insight into what's actually happening during the move.

I'm familiar with perfmon so will take a look and see what I see!

Thanks again.

[mark_h]

OK, so this is interesting.  I changed my local rip drive from my C: drive (Samsung SSD 830) to a generic hard drive.  No issues at all with the move to the NAS...

So, looks like the NAS/UNC etc is a red herring and that this is an SSD or perhaps an MC/SSD issue.

Running some diagnostics on the SSD...

[mark_h]

Dammit.  Just had the lock using non-SSD drive to NAS 

Really, really frustrating.