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[asio kid]

All my audio files seem to have lost their tags. Here's what I've done:

1. Reformatted my O/S drive (C:), installed Win 7 (upgraded from XP), downloaded and installed latest version of MC (now 18.0.206).
2. No change to MC data. It had all been stored on my data drive (D), including all the audio files, and many library backups.
3. Used Explorer (a mistake) to move all the audio files (but not the library backups) to a new drive E: and different top-level folder on E:
4. Restored the latest MC library backup within the new version of MC. This includes 2 carefully customized presets for audio files with the field labels I wanted, including some new ones I made up. All restored fine.

But when I display an album, by any means, using one of the customized presets for the field labels, the fields are almost all blank, and the few that are filled in are done by MC by default, not the values I laboriously entered.

How do I get back all the data I entered for all my audio albums?

[Matt]

Try restoring a library backup.  MC makes the automatically.

You'll use Library Tools > Rename, Move, & Copy files with the Find & Replace tool to update the library for the moved files.

[asio kid]

I do not at all understand your suggestions.

You say to try restoring a library backup. In my question, item #4, I state that I already did that.

Rename, Move, & Copy files does not seem to update tags at all, with or without the Find/Replace tool. It is a tool for renaming files, not changing tags. My filenames are all exactly as they were, except for having been moved to a different drive. I do not want or need to change my filenames.

More relevant seems to be to try to use the tool called "Update Tags from Library," but when I try, I get an error message saying, "You have disabled the option to allow MC to update tags." I cannot find anything in Options with a name like this, so I don't know how to follow the instructions to ""Change this option and try again."

Once more, my question is how do I get my data back into the tags? Data that I entered track by track for each album previously. Please at least tell me how to undisable the option to allow MC to update tags.

I note that in the option to Manage Library fields, nearly all the fields I use have the box checked to "save in file tags when possible."

[MrC]

Probably what's happening is you restore the backup, but auto-import then runs on the old path and notices that the files are no longer there.  And I'm guessing that auto or manual import now (newly) imports the files from their new location.  And maybe since you don't have Tag Writing enabled (Edit > Update Tags When File Info Changes), the files don't have tags and your Library was the only place where properties were set.  I'm speculating.

So you'd want to remove the old auto-import path (if it exists) and use the Rename tool as Matt says, but change it to Update mode (in this mode, it changes the Filename "tag" or property).  Use it to repair your broken paths (replace the old portion with the valid new portion).  See the Moving Files wiki article.

[Matt]

You can turn off tagging using:
Options > General > Update tags when file info changes

I would not recommend this.  Tags are good and MC is a good tagger.

For your library restore, you said it was missing information.  So it would be reasonable to try a few other backups and see if they're all missing information or just the one you tried.

[Arindelle]

More relevant seems to be to try to use the tool called "Update Tags from Library," but when I try, I get an error message saying, "You have disabled the option to allow MC to update tags." I cannot find anything in Options with a name like this, so I don't know how to follow the instructions to ""Change this option and try again."

CAREFUL ....Just my two cents ... however, if you have reset the path like Matt and Mr C were referring to (see wiki^^), might have gotten lucky that you did'nt "try again". If fields in the library are empty or corrupted, using the command "Update Tags from Library" could replace (erase) valid tagging in the file.  You might want to verify that you (still) have the meta data written to the files first (on your custom fields you would have had to check the box of course which looks like you did).

If the metadata (tags) written to the files are intact, you can use Update Library (from Tags) this will write back the tags to the database library (some exceptions like "last played "skipped etc. won't be, but you weren't tagging those anyways). I did use Update Tags from library when I had inadvertantly erased data on both Files AND my backups.

Please at least tell me how to undisable the option to allow MC to update tags.

http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Sync_the_database_and_tags )