INTERACT FORUM

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: [1]   Go Down

Author Topic: Migrating playlists to portable hard drive  (Read 1299 times)

jrobbins

  • Junior Woodchuck
  • **
  • Posts: 81
Migrating playlists to portable hard drive
« on: February 12, 2014, 11:49:42 am »

Hello, crew.  Likely a simple one here, but I can't seem to find the answer with a search in the forum.  I have MC19 configured at home through my NAS and playlists point to my music files at either:

\N7700\Media\Music

or

\N7700\Media\L:\Videos.

I have transferred the music folders from the NAS under these two pointers into a single folder on a portable hard drive for travel purposes.  So, for example, an album on the NAS that is located at \N7700\Media\Music\Album1 is now at J:\Music\Album1 on the portable drive, and similarly, an album on the NAS that is located at \N7700\Media\L:\Videos\Album2 is now at J:\Music\Album2 on the portable drive.

I have imported the NAS playlist library into MC19 on my traveling laptop and, of course, the playlists now point to the wrong place.  I'd like to be able to batch correct this, presumably in two steps -- changing all \N7700\Media\Music references to J:\Music and changing all \N700\Media\L:\Videos references also to J:\Music.

How do I effectuate this batch processing within MC19?  Thanks in advance for the help.  Cheers.  JCR
Logged

MrC

  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 10462
  • Your life is short. Give me your money.
Re: Migrating playlists to portable hard drive
« Reply #1 on: February 12, 2014, 12:01:06 pm »

How many do you have?

The correct procedure would have been not to re-import the files, but just correct the pathnames in MC.  By re-importing, you've essentially disassociated the new files and old files and the playlist's that reference them.

For the future, have a read of:

   Moving Files
Logged
The opinions I express represent my own folly.

jrobbins

  • Junior Woodchuck
  • **
  • Posts: 81
Re: Migrating playlists to portable hard drive
« Reply #2 on: February 12, 2014, 01:52:41 pm »

2 TB worth of music, so a lot of files/folders here.

To be clear, I did not "import" the files to my portable drive.  Rather, I simply went to my NAS and copied the actual music folders (each to an album) over to the portable drive.  The only true "import" is of the playlist library -- i.e., I restored the library from a library backup on my NAS.  I agree that the playlist library for the portable drive is disassociated with the music files on the portable drive, but that would be solely because the pathnames have changed, right?  But, I don't want to go album-by-album to change the pathnames, as there are thousands of albums to do that for.

In this light, what should I be doing, MrC?  :)  JCR
Logged

MrC

  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 10462
  • Your life is short. Give me your money.
Re: Migrating playlists to portable hard drive
« Reply #3 on: February 12, 2014, 02:07:48 pm »

I'm having a hard time following some of your terminology (import ... to my portable drive; import ... of the playlist library).  You import file references into MC (not a drive); I don't know what a "playlist library" is.  MC maintains a Library which consists of file references, their metadata, and playlists referencing those files.

When you moved the files from one disk to another, the MC library now no longer has any connection to those files.  So you have to use the technique mentioned in the Moving Files wiki entry to reconnect them.  If you've restored your library from a backup library, then you should be able to just modify the Filename field in the database using the Update database mode of the Rename, Move & Copy tool.  Then you're done.

If on the other had, you imported the media files themselves into MC, and ditched the old MC references, then your playlists inside of MC will now be useless, since MC will remove invalid entries from the playlists (which would be all files you've moved, and re-imported).
Logged
The opinions I express represent my own folly.
Pages: [1]   Go Up