Topic: lost files in library (Read 3691 times)

Rainer Germany · « **on:** April 24, 2002, 02:44:13 pm »

After using MJ without any problem for a longer time the following problem came up suddenly. The library does not show the correct number of files anymore. Importing newly my files into MJ7 plus the library counts a total of e.g. 80000 files. After the next start of MJ many files disapeared in the library (not on the hard disc). The total count is now about 60000 files. After doing a new import all files are showing up again in the library with the correct number of files. Restarting MJ the same thing happens again and files are lost. Back up the library before closing MJ and restore it after restart does not help. The same thing happens if e.g. 25000 files are imported into an empty library. After restart mj comes up with only about 15000 files. Problem is the same. Who knows what the problem is? Thanks in advance for replies.

KingSparta · « **Reply #1 on:** April 24, 2002, 02:54:17 pm »

>> Who knows what the problem is?
Try this

"File"
"Library"
"Update Library"
"[X] Remove Files That Do Not Exist"
"Update"

Matt · « **Reply #2 on:** April 24, 2002, 06:17:26 pm »

This was a rare bug in MJ 7 that was never resolved.

To the best of our knowledge, MJ 8 fixes the problem.

Thanks.

-Matt

Rainer Germany · « **Reply #3 on:** April 27, 2002, 03:41:13 am »

Thanks for the replies. Problem seems to be a software issue. Up date library did not help. I tryed also latest MJ8 Beta version, the same problem appears. After importing files the correct numbers of files have been reported. After exit and restart the programm number of files shown up in the library are much less as just previously imported and reported. After reinstalling MJ7 I have now the effect that MJ7 takes terribly long to come up with the library anyway (up to 30 minutes if having 28.000 files imported in library). For me it is strange why this happens because in the past MJ7 worked with the same hardware and SW and more than 70.000 files absolutely fine. Now it's horroable. Any idea for further problem solving?

KingSparta · « **Reply #4 on:** April 27, 2002, 03:56:00 am »

this problem i found was i think do to a lib file problem, delete the lib file manualy and rebuild it.

the mj8 lib file seems more stable.

UdoS · « **Reply #5 on:** April 27, 2002, 04:05:55 am »

Hi Rainer,

did you ever try to hide (move some file to a location, where MJ can't find them during import) files. I don't know what kind of database it used, but if there is a bug, it is a good way to find out. Cut down your amount of files to 70.000 or so. If those show up correctly after restart, maybe you try a different OS (if possible). At least, it should be a challence to RJ.

Udo

udo.siegmund@foni.net

Rainer Germany · « **Reply #6 on:** April 27, 2002, 05:51:02 am »

Hi everybody, thanks for your reponse. Yes, I tried to delete and rebuild the lib, but without any success. I also cut down to the amount of files without sucees. OS is Windows 98 SE on a PC Dell Dimension XPST 700 Mhz Pentium III, 384 MB RAM. The last known number of files wher MJ7 worked correctly was about 74.000. With this high number of files it was already working fine for a certain time until problem came up suddenly. From that time on, if I start from scratch (unsinstall, delete old library, new install, import of new files), I do even not get correct library date when amount of files is far below 20.000. I also tryed with different drive locations for the mp3 tracks stored (I have 4 hard discs). It doesn't matter on which drive the files are physically stored. The import process ends up always with the correct amount of files and after restart they are not completely shown anymore in the library. It is also the same if i back up library after importing before exit and restart. After restart restored library shows the same problem with missing data. By the way, the size of the data base files as well as of the back up files indicate to me, that the amount of files could be probably (I'm not quite sure) in the right order. I also tryed to restore library data from a second back up which was made made earlier before the problem appears. But whatever I try, the data are not fully recovered as they have been imported before MJ restart.
Thanks,
Rainer

UdoS · « **Reply #7 on:** April 27, 2002, 06:26:43 am »

I know about some bugs within W98 handling large cap disks (e.g: the graphic will show an empty disk 'til the free space dropped below 2 gig). You mentioned, the bug occured on the sudden. Did you install or remove any programs etc. Did you ever try to use a differnt OS like NT4 or W2K. I personaly don't trust W95 and W98, specially in handling large amounts of data. The problem is, you won't find too many people having so many file in their database.

Udo

Rainer Germany · « **Reply #8 on:** April 27, 2002, 08:17:32 am »

Thanks again for replying. Here some additional infos: My files are located in many different directories spread over 4 drives. To change import sequence of drives (not directories) makes later on no difference of the missmatch between number of tracks imported and archived files. The count of tracks from each drive are affected by the problem. Small amount of tracks result in smaller amount of missing imports and high number of tracks causes higher missmatch. Looks a little bit like proportinal relationship. The answer to the question of SW installed/uninstalled is yes. I unstalled "Realjukebox plus" around that time when problem arose. Currently I am just reinstalling Real Jukebox to bring back the old SW environment to the PC as it has been before when MJ works prpoerly. After RJ set up and its file imports will be done I will find out how MJ will behave and come back to tell what has happend. OS cannot be changed since I do not have any other and I need W98 anyway for other apllications.
TRhanks, Rainer.

Rainer Germany · « **Reply #9 on:** April 27, 2002, 10:34:49 am »

Now I tested again with MJ7 after Real Jukebox was installed on the PC, too. The problem is still there. I imported step by step in portions and checked after exit and restart MJ of each step. First step was import of 13599 tracks which was fine after restart. Next import with adding another 5.916 tracks worked well with 19.515 tracks after restart. Third import adding another 8.510 tracks up to a total of 28.025 tracks showed differences after restart. Library came up with only 25.805 tracks. Reimporting all previously imported files showed that they were missed from all different directories imported before except the last one. After again a total of all 28.025 tracks was completed after reimporting MJ7 came up with only 2.147 files in the library. Before that problem appeared I was convinced that Media Jukebox was best of all. Now it starts to look like I bought my license for nothing, because in MJ8 the same thing happens and thus I cannot use it alternatively. Or is there any other advice?
Thanks, Rainer

UdoS · « **Reply #10 on:** April 27, 2002, 11:01:25 am »

One simple question (only to verify).

The files, you're missing, are they always the same ones or is it ramdom.
If you're having this problem always with the same files, it might be something wrong there. (I was a RealJB user before, and RJ is much more forgiven in running files with partly corrupted headers. I used the build in function of RJ to rebuild all headers. This fixed my problem)

Next thing would be reinstall your windows. Since this thing seems to be random, it might be still a problem with your OS. To me, it look's like you have plenty of diskspace. Try to install a second copy of your W98 in a different directory. So, you will keep your settings. Install MJ an run it.

Udo

Rainer Germany · « **Reply #11 on:** April 27, 2002, 11:26:01 am »

Udo, Danke. Good idea. It's true, i have 340 GB |PLS| 160GB mirrowed disc space. I try it tomorrow. Is there any precaution required or is it just installing W98 on an other drive. Will there be no impact to the existing OS and its applications? Rainer.

Rainer Germany · « **Reply #12 on:** April 27, 2002, 11:32:15 am »

Udo, sorry I forgot to answer the question. The amount of loss is always the same as long as I run the same installation (instance). If I uninstall MJ and install again it seems to be random from instance to instance. Within the instance it looks stable. In other words, once the loss happened it always ends up with the same quantity of missing files. I did not check yet wether always the same files are affected.
Rainer

UdoS · « **Reply #13 on:** April 28, 2002, 03:41:13 am »

Rainer,

I'm not a W98 freak, but it should be possible without harming the existing installation, to install another copy of win98 into a differnt directory or another drive. With NT, on booting, a bootmanager shows up and gives you a choice to select the desired OS. On W98, I'm not sure, but a least, there should be a file like 'boot.ini' to point to drive and dir, where the OS resides. Modifing this, lets you select between the systems.

Viel Glück

Udo

Rainer Germany · « **Reply #14 on:** April 28, 2002, 05:27:07 am »

Thnks Udo, I found a file bootlog.txt and bootlog.dat, but the don't seem to allow switching paths. Is anybody out there having experience with a second installation of W98 without impacting the first one and it's settings?
Thanks,
Rainer

Rainer Germany · « **Reply #15 on:** April 28, 2002, 05:27:14 am »

Thanks Udo, I found a file bootlog.txt and bootlog.dat, but the don't seem to allow switching paths. Is anybody out there having experience with a second installation of W98 without impacting the first one and it's settings?
Thanks,
Rainer

UdoS · « **Reply #16 on:** April 28, 2002, 06:09:50 am »

A save one is to disconnect your bootdrive, since you have more than one disks in your pc. Your PC should try to boot from the second one in row. After inserting the first disk back, you have your old system back. If you're running a SCSI system, you can (on Adaptek) select your boot disk via menu.

p.s. mabe in an hour I can give you more precise infos.

Udo

UdoS · « **Reply #17 on:** April 28, 2002, 08:14:28 am »

Question to mercury:

If it's a bug in the database system, why was it working before?

To my understanding right now, it is important to chase the bug into someones room. By adding a second OS -installation, Rainer can proove: is it JRiver or was it some bad coincedance in his system. If it's still there, he can blame it onto JRiver.
At least, it's worth a try to do so.
Also I see your points, and totally agree. Perhaps, this will turn out to be like a hot potato, someone throws. Nobody actually wants to catch it.

To Rainer: the file I mentioned before is named 'MSDOS.SYS'. It has hidden attribs. So you won't see it normally. Just make a copy of it and you can go back to your original installation by replacing the new one.

Udo

UdoS · « **Reply #18 on:** April 28, 2002, 09:05:42 am »

To mercury: Rainer wrote in his post from 04-27-2002 06:41:13 A.M., it was working fine up to 70.000 files. And in his post from 04-27-2002 11:17:32 A.M.he mentioned something about RJukeB.
But however: right now, he has problems in an area far below what he was running before. I think, you're looking for some integer not big enough to take larger numbers. Before anything can be told, JR should publish some infos about the used database. If it's a known brand, I don't believe the database bug, because 70.000 or less would be just an idle load.

Udo

JimH · « **Reply #19 on:** April 28, 2002, 09:29:29 am »

The database is ours. No documentation is available. We appreciate your help on the problem, but we cannot provide technical details or source concerning the database. We may document it later.

The problem is definitely not a magic number limit. KingSparta had over 120,000 files last time I knew. He was hoping he could break the database at 128K. Next Page

I suspect the problem is OS based. If I understand it correctly, it sounds as if the last update of the database doesn't get written to disk.

Is one of the drives a firewire drive? The reason I ask is that I have one and the drive seems to come and go.

UdoS · « **Reply #20 on:** April 28, 2002, 09:53:09 am »

Hello Rainer,

maybe someone out there can help out a little. If W98 has some kind of systemlogs (like NT or W2K or standart on Unix) it would make some sene to check those entries for disk I/O errors. I had some spooky bugs on my W2K system, because one of my SCSI-drives died a slow death. It went off line, just to go back online the next moment. Specially during have disk operations, it came up with really strange errors. Since it was not the system drive, every error was precisely documented in the Systemlog.
Importing files is a heavy disk operation. So if there is a way to review events in w98, it would be also a point to start. An other idea is, if you can check your drive (where the JR database resides) for grown defects.

Udo

Rainer Germany · « **Reply #21 on:** April 28, 2002, 11:31:36 am »

To JimH: All drives are IDE drives, no firewire. To Mercury and Udo: I could reproduce exactly the same result. After the third batch the discrepancy was 28.025 to 25.805. Clearing the library again and importing only 3rd batch of 8510 was resulting in 4.347 tracks after restart. I continue testing now by importing all my other batches excluding batch 3 and I try also dividing batch 3 as proposed by Mercury. I'll come back with the results later on.
Rainer

JimH · « **Reply #22 on:** April 28, 2002, 12:02:01 pm »

Rainer,
Too many times in past builds we have had trouble with "special" characters in file names. Non-U.S. or punctuation ( / : ; etcetera ). It is certainly possible we have introduced an old bug. Can you see if you can find a small group of files (100 or so) to test this theory on?

Jim

Rainer Germany · « **Reply #23 on:** April 28, 2002, 02:40:03 pm »

Gentlemen, the work took a long time, but now I have isolated the problem to one singel file which was in the above mentioned 3rd batch. After isolating the file I could import correctly all other files up to a count of 77.232 files. Importing additionally the suspect file the count broke after restart. MJ came up with 9.511 files. Looking at the isolated file properties the comment is terribly long and has special characters in it. Guess that could be the possible reason for the problem. Tomorrow I will delete the comment and see if problem happens again with the same file. If JRiver is interested to solve the problem I'll keep the original file and test with a copy of it. Thanks to all for your help.
Rainer

UdoS · « **Reply #24 on:** April 28, 2002, 10:51:57 pm »

Congratulations to mercury and rainer

Good work!

JRiver should focus on this. I believe, there are more bugs in the import and saving portions. Like on my old RealJB files, which couldn't be saved without crashing the software. I posted it more than once, but there was no response from RJ.
Here, we have an typical example, how importent such, on the first view, miner problems may turn out. JR tries to sell his software, to me still the best avaible right now, worldwide. So, they must deal with non US characters, whether they like it or not!!!. I'm pretty sure, Rainer is not the only one outside the ConUS, having problems like this, but there is only one Interact: in English!.
This raisis the next question: are there any attempts made jet to localize software and helpline (interact). Specially, if JR is going to bundle the MJ. This will help more poeple, to get access to this helpline, or is everybody at JRiver is able to read this line:

Die Suesse des niedrigen Preises ist schnell vergangen, der saure Geschmack einer schlechten Reparatur haelt lange an.
(Please note: I avoided non US characters like ü and ä)

If yes: leave it like it is; if no: you should deal with no-english speaking people, as we do with no-german speaking ones.

Here the translation: The sweetness of the low price is gone soon, but the sour taste from a bad repairjob lasts for long.

Udo Siegmund

JimH · « **Reply #25 on:** April 29, 2002, 05:26:37 am »

Udo,
Being aware of a problem doesn't make it disappear. We are painfully aware of it. In this case, it isn't clear that it was a character. It may have been a problem with the ID3V2 tag format.

Rainer,
Please send the file to jimh @ jriver.com.

mercury
Your derisive mockery is unwelcome. Take it elsewhere.

UdoS · « **Reply #26 on:** April 29, 2002, 06:42:17 am »

To JimH

--> It may have been a problem with the ID3V2 tag format.

It probably was, because like I mentioned before about some crashes after saving more than on file. The only way to get out of this trap was to use the tag update function in RealOne and update all headers. This corrected the problem with MJ. So, would it not be a good idea, to include something like this in tools. A function, which reads all marked headers and corrects for some erroneous contents? It might save you and your customers some headaches.

One word to non US characters: it's not proofed, it was such a character, but the tenor in many threads was going in this direction. But I know, not only MJ has this problem, MusicMatch etc have it too. But would it be something to be proud of, being the first, who's got rid of it?

Udo

Matt · « **Reply #27 on:** April 29, 2002, 06:48:47 am »

Please send any files that you know trip-up MJ 8 to matt @ jriver.com

We'll make sure we get the problem fixed.

Thanks for understanding.

-Matt

UdoS · « **Reply #28 on:** April 29, 2002, 06:58:40 am »

Hopefully, I've got some left. I' search my backups for some files.

Udo

Rainer Germany · « **Reply #29 on:** April 29, 2002, 11:12:45 am »

Hi everybody, after I have done some more testing it looks like the problem was more punctuation related instead of a German Umlaut or due to the lenght of comment since the language was english. The file was downloaded from the net. Somebody put an entire biography of an artist in there with about 400 to 500 words. Today I tried importing this file with and without this long comment. Without it was imported correctly, with the comment it broke the count again. I will send this file to JimH later on.
Thanks,
Rainer

Matt · « **Reply #30 on:** April 29, 2002, 12:15:18 pm »

Thanks everyone! This will be fixed in tonight's build.

From the history:
17. Fixed: Media Jukebox's database would become corrupted and "lose" files if a field exceeded 10k.

Thanks.

-Matt

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Author Topic: lost files in library (Read 3691 times)

Rainer Germany

Rainer Germany

UdoS

Rainer Germany

UdoS

Rainer Germany

Rainer Germany

Rainer Germany

Rainer Germany

Rainer Germany

Rainer Germany

UdoS

Rainer Germany

Rainer Germany

Rainer Germany