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[apgood]

Up until recently i was running seperate libraries on my two htpcs. One htpc just just had music in its library and the other videos.
Since then i've decided i want to run music and videos on both.
First i tried to find a way to merge the two libraries but could't find a way that would not overwrite overwrite one or the other (if someone has a solution let me know).
What i decided to do instead was just add the music folder to the library that was just videos. This started importing the music but i've noticed the it has only imported a fraction of the music and i can't work out why the music that imported fine into the old library isn't importing now. I've checked the tags in the drivers and folders section of the tree view and the music files appear to be correctly tagged as audio but they just won't appear in any of the audio views (e.g. Albums) even in the unassigned sections of those views. I've tried doing a forced import of individual albums and songs to see if that would work to but no luck, so stuck for what else i can try.
Does anyone have a solution?

[Alex B]

As a test, you could drag & drop some of the problem files to MC's Playing Now list. (For example, if a complete album is missing from audio views, arrange the Windows Explorer and MC windows side by side, select the album files in Windows Explorer and drag them to MC's empty Playing Now list.

If MC can list the files in Playing Now you can check the import status and try playback.

MC has a neat trick that can show if the files in a Playing Now list and the "Drives & Directories > Explorer..." section in MC's selection tree are already imported to the library (i.e. to MC's internal database). You can add the "Image (small icon)" column to a list view and see the import status. The icon's color will show this. More info:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=59513.msg402349#msg402349
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=59513.msg402379#msg402379
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=59513.msg427787#msg427787

If the files show up as imported and playback works, I wonder if the problem could still be caused by missing or incorrect file tags. You can recheck the tags in Playing Now.

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Personally, I would do this the other way round, because I would like to preserve my audio playlists. I would start with the audio library and import the video files.

If you just import the video files as new library entries, the video tags can be preserved if MC has stored them to sidecar files, but there is an alternative method that can preserve also all statistical data and the possible existing non-standard cover art links. You can select the video files in the video library and expert an MPL playlist that contains all file metadata (File > Export Playlist... select the MPL playlist format.) Then load your audio library and import the MPL playlist (File > Import Playlist...).

You can even preserve the original "Date Imported" values if you import the same MPL playlist once again. The first MPL import will import the video files as new library entries and thus also the Date Imported values will be new. The second MPL import will only update metadata, including the Date Imported values, because the files are already present in the database.

EDIT

Effectively this MPL export/import method is very close to "merging libraries", although with some limitations. It cannot merge playlists and for some reason it cannot correctly import the CD/DVD database section that stores metadata for physical optical discs.

[Alex B]

EDIT 2

I was assuming that you already had experimented with having two separate libraries on one MC instance and that you were able to successfully load and use the libraries one at a time.

If this is not the case, it would be good to first add a new library to one of the MC/PC instances and import a library backup file from the other MC/PC instance to this additional library. If this additional library has any file access issues, they must be resolved first.

[apgood]

Thanks Alex b that did the trick. Just strange that they didn't auto import like they are supposed. I also noticed that if right clicked on a folder in drives and devices and then selected import into library it ran through checking for files playlists etc but the didn't actually import anything (i.e. Icon still gold). This is on mc 17.129 but noticed same behaviour on 125

[lise]

there is an alternative method that can preserve also all statistical data and the possible existing non-standard cover art links. You can select the video files in the video library and expert an MPL playlist that contains all file metadata (File > Export Playlist... select the MPL playlist format.) Then load your audio library and import the MPL playlist (File > Import Playlist...).

I have a question about this. I've been using this method for a while now for audio files and only just noticed a couple of weeks ago that the library into which the mpl is imported is not displaying cover art for the files imported using this method, nor is the "image file" populated with "inside file" (cover art is saved in the file).  Is it the case that when importing an mpl one must then select all the files and do an "update tags from file"?