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[nwboater]

I am changing the location of all our Audio files from our WHS to our HTPC. For reasons I wont bore the Forum with I can't just do a move. So my plan is to unpoint Import from the WHS and delete all audio files from the library. Will then point import to the new HTPC location and I should get a whole new audio portion of the library.

The big problem is we have a lot of Playlists in the old Audio portion of the library. We have made printouts of them, but making all the new playlists from scratch will be quite a job.

Is there some way I can save the old Playlists, move them to the new file location on the HTPC, and then just alter the 'File Location' for each playlist item to the new location? Would sure make this project a lot easier!

Thanks for any ideas.

Rod

[MrC]

Is there a consistent or definable pattern from the current file path to the new file path?

[nwboater]

Is there a consistent or definable pattern from the current file path to the new file path?

Thanks for the response. There is only a partially consistent pattern.

Guess I should explain why I am doing this. The library was originally all on the WHS. We then had some hard drive problems and lost some files, and developed others that are corrupted. The audio portion there has a lot of good files, but also some unusable ones.. I then started putting some of our new music on a couple of different drives on the HTPC. So the audio files were (are) scattered between a few different drives.

So I have wanted to get all audio onto one new drive in the HTPC and have been working for a while at this. I now have all the good files from the WHS and the other drives on the HTPC onto a separate drive in the HTPC. It's the one that will be used for all audio from now on.

Sorry for the long winded explanation, but hopefully it will help to answer you question.

Thanks again.

Rod

[MrC]

Here's where my thinking was coming from, primarily to save you time and effort.

If you can change the [Filename (path)] portion of your audio entries in MC to point to their new location, then MC will be fine with the files that exist.  For files that don't exist, you can remove those from the database easily enough.  This makes automatically updates your playlists (essentially).  Playlists are lists of references to the media files in MC; update the media files and the playlists are fine.

So, even though the old location may have varied in the Base path, if the sub-tree (e.g. Artist\Album, or similar) is the same in the new location, updating the base path is easy.

If you need to export playlists, you can do this, and modify the paths inside the playlist to refer to the new location.

[nwboater]

Here's where my thinking was coming from, primarily to save you time and effort.

If you can change the [Filename (path)] portion of your audio entries in MC to point to their new location, then MC will be fine with the files that exist.  For files that don't exist, you can remove those from the database easily enough.  This makes automatically updates your playlists (essentially).  Playlists are lists of references to the media files in MC; update the media files and the playlists are fine.

So, even though the old location may have varied in the Base path, if the sub-tree (e.g. Artist\Album, or similar) is the same in the new location, updating the base path is easy.

If you need to export playlists, you can do this, and modify the paths inside the playlist to refer to the new location.

Thanks for the very helpful response.

Looks you are suggesting I use one of of two ways to do this:
1. Update the existing library with the new base path.
2. Modify playlist paths.

It would seem that doing #2 would be much easier since I have about 6,600 files to deal with and probably only about 30-40 playlists averaging 20 files each.

I just did a test Playlist export and import and that process looks very straightforward. So if I am doing #2 it looks like this would be my workflow:

1. Export all old Playlists.
2. Delete all Audio from my Library (not HDD's yet).
3. Change Import Configuration to point new Audio Files location in the HTPC.
4. Import all the Playlists.
5. Change the base path in all the Playlists.

Looks like I can use 'Rename, Copy, Move Files/Copy & Update Database to Point To New Location' and put in the new Base Path location. Need to do some more testing to determine if I can only put in the primary base path ie, J:\Music, and it will find the files in the sub folders. That would be real easy.

Any other thoughts would be very appreciated.

Thanks again.

Rod

[nwboater]

Looks like I can use 'Rename, Copy, Move Files/Copy & Update Database to Point To New Location' and put in the new Base Path location. Need to do some more testing to determine if I can only put in the primary base path ie, J:\Music, and it will find the files in the sub folders. That would be real easy.

Well that is not the way - I really messed up. Thank goodness for MC's automatic Backup. I was thinking that it would only repoint the files that I had selected in the play list, but it seemed to do a lot more than that.

Looks like I need to study a bit about how the 'Rename, Copy, Move Files/Copy' Function works. I sure misunderstood it.

So a little back to the drawing board on this, but still think approach # 2 is the way to go. Or might there be a good reason to go with #1?

Rod

[MrC]

I'd do #1, focusing on the files.  Playlists will be secondary.

It sounds like your taking files that are in:

   \some\place\artist\album\tracks

and going to:

   \another\location\artist\album\tracks

This is easy to do - you can use the rename tool just changing the beginning component of the filename (path) in database update mode.  This re-"points" MC's database concept of the files to the physical file location on disk.  If your original files are from multiple base locations, just sort the entire file list based on those locations, and replace the base paths in groups if necessary.

Now, the contents of the playlists should be already pointing to the new locations.  For those files that were in the Old location but no longer in New location, MC will show items as missing.  You can delete these database entries in one shot.

I'm headed out for a monster concert, but will check back later tonight or tomorrow.

[nwboater]

MrC,

Unfortunately I've put the cart way in front of the horse on this project since I started it. Without thinking at all about our Playlists I spent a lot of time copying all of our music files onto the single drive in our HTPC. There were a lot of missing files on the WHS that I found on various backups I had done over the last couple of years. At this point I can't even remember what or where most of them were. I have hundreds more files on the new hard disk than in the old library.

If I understand your suggestion of using approach #1 it would be to basically do what I have already done. But using your method would maintain the existing library. And also of course the Playlists. I am really wishing that I had done that at the beginning, but .........

Unless I misunderstood your approach it would seem easier to do #2 than to try to again find what was missing and where it is backed up. A good deal of time was spent on that.

I sure appreciate your efforts in trying to find a workable solution for me. If only I had thought about Playlists originally and posted the question here then.

Hope you enjoyed the concert. It truly is a "Monster Concert". What a cast! And a good cause.

Thanks,
Rod

[MrC]

Ok, so let's go your route.

You can export all your playlists in one shot (Playlists > right click > Export All Playlists).  MC will indicate where these are located, and they are a collection of .m3u files.  Each file contains (a playlist full of) file paths.

If you don't have a quick means to run a scripting tool over all these files to correct the paths in one shot, I'm happy to do it for you (it'll just take a minute or two), if you send me a zipped collection of the playlists, the new base path to the audio files, and the old paths to be cut out.  I'll send you back the zipped collection.

Once the playlist files are corrected, you should be able to import them all (probably skipping the smartlists).

[nwboater]

Ok, so let's go your route.

You can export all your playlists in one shot (Playlists > right click > Export All Playlists).  MC will indicate where these are located, and they are a collection of .m3u files.  Each file contains (a playlist full of) file paths.

If you don't have a quick means to run a scripting tool over all these files to correct the paths in one shot, I'm happy to do it for you (it'll just take a minute or two), if you send me a zipped collection of the playlists, the new base path to the audio files, and the old paths to be cut out.  I'll send you back the zipped collection.

Once the playlist files are corrected, you should be able to import them all (probably skipping the smartlists).

MrC,

What an incredibly nice & helpful offer. I don't have a way of scripting so will take you up on it.

I'll send you a PM so we can work out how best to get you the zip file. I assume I can just Zip the Exported Playlists Folder, not all the individual Playlists.

Thanks very much.

Rod

[MrC]

Ok, good deal.

<offtopic>
The concert last night was pretty good.  The line-up was:

• Neil Young
• Gary Clark, Jr.
• kd lang and the siss boom bang
• Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers
• Lucinda Williams
• Foster the People
• Sarah McLachlan
• Ray Lamontagne
• The Flaming Lips
• Jack White
• Eddie Vedder
• Guns N Roses
• Neil Young & Crazy Horse

Neil as usual was excellent, and continues to wow the crowd.  His tireless energy and 26 years of performing at the Bridge School is nothing short of amazing.  Gary Clark, Jr. put on a great performance.  It was good to see kd lang, and her set-closing rendition of Hallelujah was well done.  The venue probably isn't ideal for her music and energy.  Steve Martin and the band were great, playing blue grass and keeping the audience out of their seats stomping away.  Lucinda Williams was fine, if not a bit nervous, and overly concerned about minor sound imperfections.  Foster the People was fun, but a little low energy.  Their musical style, and the all acoustic venue, made for a lower energy performance than might otherwise be expected.  Pumped Up Kicks was not played, to some people's disappointment.  They may be one-hit wonders, but I perceive some unique talent.  I was looking forward to seeing Sarah McLachlan; yet her performance of her hits did not stray from tracking the originals and could have used some variation.  Like kd lang, this may not have been the right crowd or venue.  Ray Lamontagne started out nicely with Beg, Borrow or Steal, but then everything sounded the same, and some songs to me were a but dull.  Folks were heated for The Flaming Lips; but they seemed a bit lost, insecure, and pushed a bit hard on the political speech and some babel about an electronic device that helps any non-skilled entity play Taps on the bugle.  Maybe their time has past.  Jack White - WOW, this man's command of the stage and arena is breathtaking.  I loved the all female band, with their haunting make-up and death gowns.  I think the drummer banged the skins so hard, John Bonham was applauding from the beyond.  Eddie Vedder, who performed last year at the event, was a surprise guest.  He did two crowd-pleasings songs.  Guns N Roses - I was much anticipating this, not knowing anything about their recent history.  Ugh.  Axl needs to retire, and do likewise to the band.  He no longer has the vocal capacity from his youth; the primal, guttural, multi-octave vocal gymnastics are replaced with skipped lyrics, embarrassing falsetto, and occasional bursts into chord-tearing screams.  On a more positive note, the bands acoustic energy came together and hit a high note with Sweet Child O' Mine.  Finally, Neil Young & Crazy Horse finished strong, and many in the audience who waited out some duller portions of the concert were rewarded for their patience.
</offtopic>

[nwboater]

Email sent with zipped Playlists and old/new paths. Thank you so very much for doing this. It is saving me a LOT of tedious work!

Wow, what a concert! What a lineup!!!  Thanks a lot for the review - sounds like you and a lot of people had a tremendous time. And even those who didn't do well deserve lots of credit for volunteering for such a good cause.

Thanks again.

Rod

[MrC]

Sorry for the delay - we were out house-hunting, and had an early dinner.

I sent you the playlist updates.  The command I used to quickly process all of them in one shot was:

  find . -name '*.m3u' -print0 |
     xargs -0 perl -i -pe 's/\\\\MELLSERVER\\Music\\Music Latest Mar 21 2012\\/J:\\Music For MC Library Organized Oct 6 2012\\/g'

It was a fun concert, and even more so enjoyable due to the nice folks that joined us.  My wife's firm reserves two VIP boxes, for a few partners and invited firm clients; it is a great socializing event, and we've been fortunate to be able to attend.

[nwboater]

MrC

Looks like your new Playlists are going to work. I've deleted all the old files from the Library and imported all from the new location. Did an import of one Playlist and it's perfect!

It would be a lot easier if I could find where the Playlists are stored to just copy in all your new Playlist folders, than copying everything in individually. Have been searching the Forum & the WIKI for MC17 File Locations on a Win7 and no joy. Seems like some time back I saw a post about it, but can't find it.

Anyway I'll keep looking but want to thank you profusely for what you have done for us. Was so kind!

Best Regards,
Rod

[MrC]

You're welcome.

I'm pretty sure playlists are stored internally in a binary format in a single indexed file.  So you have to import them.  But that's OK, try the command line command:

   mc17.exe /import drive:\path\to\Rod's\Playlists

in a command shell, and then look under Playlists > Imported Playlists

[MrC]

Yes, exactly, open a command window (enter cmd in the Start > Run menu in Windows).

Then, enter the command, replacing the drive:\path portion I gave with a full path the top of your new and updated playlist folder.

[nwboater]

Okay all done & we have all our Playlists functioning fine with our new Audio files location.

For some reason the CMD approach would not work. May be related to the fact that when doing a MC17 Playlist Import that you cannot point to a folder, only individual files. So I made new top level folders, Sandra, Demo, etc. in MC17 Playlists. I was then able to use Import to bring in all the files in a particular Folder. Only took a few minutes with that approach and everything is now wonderful!

Thank you so much again, MrC. This would have been a tremendously tedious job without your help. Of course the whole problem started because I made a new Audio hard disk folder for all of our music without thinking of the Playlists implication. Not again!

<Off topic>

Lots of luck with the house hunting. I hope it's an enjoyable venture for you and that you find just what you are looking for.

BTW I'm a Bay Area native. Grew up in Alameda and spent most of my adult life there. Worked down your way for a couple of years at Lockheed. Just figured out that was 50 years ago. (Ugh!) Am now married to a wonderful Canadian lady and we are living on the beautiful British Columbia Coast in Powell River.

< End Off Topic>

Cheers,
Rod

[nwboater]

MrC.
Just wanted to add my thanks to my husband's for the fine job you've done in unraveling his problem with amalgamating playlists into one resource. Poor Rod was about to tear out what remaining hair he has on his head in frustration. And both of you are basically doing this on my behalf as almost all of the playlists are mine, and I use them all the time. We sure appreciated all your thorough, thoughtful help.
Just as an aside, it amazes me the time and effort people put in to help others on this and other forums -- for free. What a wonderful phenomenon.
Sandra

[MrC]

Rod & Sandra,

How very kind of you both.  I'm glad we got the problem sorted, and you're both able to return to enjoying the music, rather than futzing with the mechanics.

Rod - in my Import test yesterday, I was able to specify the top folder, and all playlists were imported.  I'm suspecting that there are one or more spaces in your path components, and in that case, the path to the folder required using double quotes.  Maybe this trivia will be useful someday, but hopefully never.

Best regards.
MrC