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[csimon]

I ran an import before my NAS had fully woken up (all my files are on the NAS) and the import deleted all files from the library, leaving me with 0 entries. I have the Fix Broken Links options set to Yes with protect files on missing drives. I had to restore from a backup, but had to wait for 8000+ tumbnails to be rebuilt!

[glynor]

Fix Broken Links annoys me.

But, yes, that's probably expected if you manually kicked off a Run Auto Import Now.  Remember, otherwise it only runs on particular files when it receives a filesystem notification event.  Running it manually (a full scan) tells it to, essentially, check all the files.  So, it did, and the drive was probably 1/2-way mounted (so, it existed, but the files "didn't").

There's only so much logic they have to decide if the drive exists or not.  Another thing that will insta-delete your whole library is if you mount another drive with the same drive letter as your Library Drive accidentally (or intentionally).

So, if you're running that manually (or scripting it) and your network drive is unreliable or not always mounted, you need to be careful or disable that (would be my recommendation).

I've ranted about that feature many times before, so you don't have to convince me it is "broken" and quasi-dangerous.

[OverTheAir]

Yup, that was me the other day.  Added some new content, it didn't show up immediately in Theater View so I clicked on Auto Import, forgetting my main media server wasn't online and lost library contents.  I guess JR would pick up new additions immediately if shutdown and re-started but that may not be convenient if its currently recording TV at the time (perhaps another reason to have TV record as a totally independent service )  Maybe a solution would be to provide a "Just add new content" ... and don't delete anything even if it seems invalid ... option?  The other existing option to import a single folder is a bit unwieldy which is why I don't use that.

[csimon]

I suppose there's a period of time when a server waking up exists on the network but doesn't yet return a content directory, so it may be hard to detect that. But Windows generally hangs/blocks until a directory is returned, rather than displaying an empty window.

I guess the next question is...do I really need the Fix Broken Links facility??  What does it do - attempt to find files that have been moved and genuinely deleted? I probably don't need this as I do things from the library and don't fiddle about with physical files to move or delete them.  So if I turn this off, will my library then be safe when my NAS hasn't yet spun up?

[Arindelle]

I guess the next question is...do I really need the Fix Broken Links facility??  What does it do - attempt to find files that have been moved and genuinely deleted? I probably don't need this as I do things from the library and don't fiddle about with physical files to move or delete them.  So if I turn this off, will my library then be safe when my NAS hasn't yet spun up?

For my config/workflow this is essential for tagging from clients, especially when you have autosync on or when you are moving directories around outside MC.

I can't answer this question with authority,  if totally off base someone correct me. So what does it do?  It seems to me that this reindexes both individual records and albums  (or maybe folders paths? not sure)  In the action window I see the number of files being scanned and then a verification of the number of "folders".  Anyway, a "manual" autoimport is the ONLY way I import my media.  Now I guess I was lucky when I still had a NAS ... it must have been loaded all the time as I had never lost data. Now I'm using an i5 PC as a server and have never had an issue (if it is not loaded I can neither import or retag of course). Be nice to have a confirmation on this though.

Automatic import or autosync, IMHO, are plagued with delay issues. They could make it faster but at the expensive of everything else being bombarded with network calls and using up resources. I'd just as soon it wasn't even an option. I never understood why people want to autoimport anyways -- unless they are constantly on some usernet downloading terabytes of stuff of questionable legality 

[csimon]

This wouldn't be a problem with a client/server database instead of a peer-to-peer sync service!   

I never understood why people want to autoimport anyways

I was running into trouble with this when it kicked in before I wanted it too, e.g. while copying a large video file to the file storage it would import half the file and conclude it was corrupt, or import half of newly-ripped CDs before I'd tagged them and placed them as I want.

[dean70]

Fix broken links has its uses. A number of times I have made a typo in the folder name or placed files in the wrong location. Just moved them (or renamed) in Windows Explorer and re-run Auto Import with Fix Broken links checked to re-point the entries that were changed. It is a valuable feature - maybe it could be disabled by default?

[csimon]

It might well be disabled by default actually but I turned it on thinking it was a useful protection against accidentally changing something, unfortunately it has unforeseen consequences! I think anyone who does not have their media files stored locally should think twice about enabling this.

[glynor]

One possible alternative, if you want more control:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=81514.msg555259#msg555259

I use this instead.  I have one location on disk where files may be moved or deleted from outside MC.  In my case, it is my M:\Recordings\ directory, and it is used by SageTV to store my new, incoming TV recordings.  For some shows where I don't care to archive old episodes (news programs, kids shows, stuff like that), I have SageTV set to auto-delete after 14-20 recordings and rotate.

The problem was, with Fix Broken Links disabled, this littered my MC Library with broken links in that folder.

Problem solved.  This runs on my system twice a day, and removes missing files using the Smartlist I made (which simply looks for missing files in that directory, and nowhere else).  I coded that utility to be very conservative, but pretty flexible.