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[gpvillamil]

I am often faced with the situation where I have to move large blocks of MP3s around on the physical disk drive, or from disk to disk.

These moves have to happen outside of Media Center, as they're related to network drives coming on and off-line, and backups.

What is the best way to tell Media Center about these changes and update the library? There are several possible scenarios:

1) Update the MC library, telling it to delete non-existent files. Re-import the files at their new location. Downside: loses any info stored in the library.

2) Do a search and replace on the filename path field in the library. Downside: my files are stored on different drives so I have to perform the operation several times.

Basically what I'm looking for is a to tell MC "these files have moved" and have it search for them, while keeping its existing library data.

[sraymond]

1) Update the MC library, telling it to delete non-existent files. Re-import the files at their new location. Downside: loses any info stored in the library.

Not if you store the tags inside the MP3 files.

Scott-

[KingSparta]

3. next time use MC9 to move\rename the files

[sraymond]

3. next time use MC9 to move\rename the files

It sounds like it's a probelm with drive letters.

as they're related to network drives coming on and off-line, and backups

Scott-

[KingSparta]

It sounds like it's a probelm with drive letters.


Scott-

yes

[gpvillamil]

Sooo... what's the best way to handle this?

I notice that when I'm viewing folders in the tree in MC, either in the My Computer view, or in the Advanced/Hard Disk location view, there is no option to move/copy files.

If I drag and drop the folders in the My Computer view, will this update the library?

Or, can I go to the Advanced/Hard Disk view, select all files, then apply the Library Tools > Move/Copy Files option? This doesn't appear to let me keep folder info - the command seems to move all the selected files into the same destination folder.

[Of course, there is an issue with changing drive letters. Unfortunately, there is nothing I can do about it. They'll change. I need to figure out a quick & easy way to tell MC that files will move, occasionally.]

[jconklin]

I have the same basic problem.  In my case I want to move a bunch of albums to another location on my disk.  This seems to be very difficult.  Given the quality of the rest of the MC9 interface the logical way would be to higlight an album and let the library move it for me.  It won't do this since it won't recreate the artist/album directory structure.  From my point of view, having needed to do this twice in 3 months, this is major UI design flaw that mars an otherewise excellent design.

If anyone has a clean way to do this type of "directory move" please let me know.

Thanks
Jim

[KingSparta]

It won't do this since it won't recreate the artist/album directory structure.

yes it will but you need to use the Rename function

this has an option where you can use not only a rule on the file name but also on the path.

[ashawley]

Yes, this is very simple.  Just select the file or files to move, right-click select Library Tools>Rename Files From Properties.

Then, set the new base directory path, the directory rule (e.g. [Artist]\[Album]) and the file naming convention.  New Artist\Album directories will be made an everything.

MC9 will move the files and even offer to the delete the old empty folders for you.

I've helped a lot of folks do this over at the iPodlounge (shameless plug) when they got new external hard drives etc..

Works like a charm.

Adam

[gpvillamil]

That's helpful, but not quite there...

My directory tree includes info that is *not* in the file properties - I just want to move an entire folder hierarchy from one place to another, and then tell MC where the files are now.

What does work, perfectly, is to do the move and then use search & replace on the file path field. However, it requires a bit of cutting and pasting to get the paths right.

What would be absolutely ideal is a combination of the Find/Replace dialogue with the File Move/Copy dialogue.

I would right click on a folder, or on some files, and pick an option labelled "Find Files in New Location", and get a dialogue that shows me the folder hierarchy on disk. MC would then verify that the files are there, and possibly do a library update. ("Found files in new location - do you want to update tags?").

[Nethog]

Sooo... what's the best way to handle this?

If I drag and drop the folders in the My Computer view, will this update the library?

I've used the My Computer view to move and rename directories quite a few times.  MC seems to update the library fine as far as I can tell.  It can still find the files and the only tag info I've seen updated is the file path.

[gpvillamil]

I've used the My Computer view to move and rename directories quite a few times.  MC seems to update the library fine as far as I can tell.  It can still find the files and the only tag info I've seen updated is the file path.

Thanks, I'll try this. I did not realize MC tracks changes in the My Computer view and updates the library.

[Nethog]

Hold off before you start doing anything yet!!

After further review it appears that MC will track the moves IF the folder you are moving is the folder that actually has the files in it.  If you move a parent folder IT DOES NOT TRACK the move of the recursive directories!

I get a message box that says "updating database" but when rechecking the filename tags it has only got the path name loaded.

I'm going to have to go back in and reimport a bunch of stuff.  

[Nethog]

I think there's a bug in the My Computer view...

I'll try to explain and pardon if this gets long winded.

I store my files on a mapped network drive like so.

M:\Audio
----|--ARTIST A
----------|--Album A
----------|--Album B
----|--ARTIST B
----------|--Album A

I do my ripping/tagging on a local drive E:\ with programs other than MC.

E:\New Rips
----|--ARTIST A
----------|--Album C
----------|--Album D
----|--ARTIST C
----------|--Album A

Now here's the deal.  After I've ripped/tagged I then "import media" into the database with MC while it's still on the local drive[E:\].  Then using the My Computer view I drag and drop the Artist Folder from E:\ to M:\Audio.

This is where one of two things will happen.  IF the artist does not exist in the directory structure on M:\Audio everything goes as expected and the database is updated correctly and the file structure is as should be.

IF the artist ALREADY exists in the directory structure on M:\Audio, MC moves the Artist Directory into a sub-directory of the Artist, NOT the root where it was dropped!  Using my example from above it results in what looks like this...

M:\Audio               <-------Dropped here
----|--ARTIST A
----------|--Album A
----------|--Album B
----------|--ARTIST A     <-----Showed up here [incorrect] [database links broken]
---------------|--Album C
---------------|--Album D
----|--ARTIST B
----------|--Album A
----|--ARTIST C     <-----Showed up here [correct] [database links intact]
----------|--Album A

I hope I explained this clearly enough.

[jconklin]

Nethog:

 Thanks for the great explanation.  It saved me a lot of work.  It seems to me that there are several bugs related to moving files:

1: The bug you described so well which is almost certainly a code bug in the copy/move routine.  I would rate this as a priority 1 bug since it not only makes needed functionality dificult but may also corrupt the library or lose artist/album directory information in the file system.

2: A bug in the documentation.  I searched through the documentation several times and did not find a reference to moving a directory of files from one location to another.  As an engineer I would rate this as a priority 2 since I found the answer on this forum.  As a marketing person I would rate it as a priority 1 since it will frustrate users and should be simple to fix.

3: A User Interface bug (GUI) in that the expected drag and drop functionality does not work as expected.  The first problem is because of number 1: above.  The second problem is more dificult.  Basically for some operations you wan't the exporer interface so that you can mark several "directory" items and perform an operation, such as move, on all of them simultaneously.  I would rate this as a GUI design/architecture discussion topic for your internal experts.  IMHO this is one that is better not to impliment unless it is implimented really well.  Given that you have a really good UI I would rather move one directory at a time then see it messed up.

Thanks
Jim