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[jacobacci]

Hi all
This is a bit of a complicated question, so please bear with me.

I have several PCs running JRiver and I would like keep their libraries synchronized without using a master / client setup, as I do not want to have one PC turned on all the time.

I have the following setup, which works, but is causing some issues:

All the PCs are set up exactly the same way:
- JRiver on SSD drive c:
- library in standard location C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\J River\Media Center 23\Library
- Music Files in mapped drive W:\
- Video Files in mapped drive X:\
On the main PC, W and X map to folder on a hard disk array for tagging and other file manipulation (huge library).
For the other PCs, W and X map to a NAS folder.
I do all file editing on the main PC.

From the main PC I use ViceVersa to sync the music files, the library folder and the library backups to the respective folders on the NAS.

On the other PCs I launch JRiver with a batch file that does the following:
- copy the library folder from the NAS to C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\J River\Media Center 23\Library
- copy the library backups from the NAS
- launch JRiver

This works (almost) perfectly, propagating library changes from the main PCs to the other PCs without much user intervention.

However recently JRiver on on of the other PCs has started to act up. The user interface does not open up any more, only the little Media Server icon in the system tray becomes visible. JRiver will happily play music (through JRemote). When playing a Video (through JRemote) it will only play the sound and not open to the screen to play the video.

Questions:
- Is this method of propagating the content of a library from one PC to the other reliable?
- Is it sufficient to only copy the content of the library folder, or do I need to sync across other folders as well?

Thanks a lot for any help.

[~OHM~]

It just sounds like that PC is set to open MC on (boot or wake). possibly opening media server minimized. check this to see if it is the cause. It would seem odd to be running Media Server on that PC as you mention nothing about recording TV. It would need to open MC only and not the server.

[robt]

This doesnt seem to make a lot of sense and makes for massive complications.

I see you said you didnt want a server / client set up because you dont want an "always on" pc. I have such a setup, my server Pc is set to sleep after four hours and if asleep and a client is started, a magic packet wakes it.

If you use a small and efficient server pc then it really is very cheap to keep running. I have an Intel NUC that uses just a couple of watts at idle and not a lot more when its working. They really are very power efficient these days and it can happily serve HD video.

Just having one library is so much easier to maintain.

Just my two pennerth, feel free to ignore entirely 

[~OHM~]

Just having one library is so much easier to maintain.

I do hope you have some sort of a backup plan!

[robt]

Everything except tv recordings are on a NAS with raid 5 and a weekly backup to a usb attached drive for all except video....

I do need an offsite too for music and pics

[jacobacci]

thanks for your inputs guys.
JRiver is configured to open nothing at startup. I control the JRiver launch strictly through the batch file.

In the meantime i have tracked down the issue: the issue occurs when I access the PC through remote desktop. Once I have accessed it through Remote Desktop, JRiver will not open anymore, but stay confined to the system tray. No idea what Remote Desktop does to Windows / JRiver to cause this. Maybe it's logging into the PC alternatively through Remote Desktop and locally.
Anyway, I have chosen not to use Remote Desktop anymore for the time being and everything works fine since.

P.S. I would also be very concerned to have only one library for all PCs. Too much of a single point of failure for my taste.

[robt]

Try TightVNC rather than remote desktop. I use it all the time and it works brilliantly!

[jacobacci]

Thanks robt, I will take a look at that