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[tutenchamun]

MC Mac 22 shows a bug while importing/updating library changes.

Changing a single character from upper to lower case of a folder/file outside of MC22 (i.e. finder, etc.)
makes MC22 find a "new file" (apparently removing the reference to the old file within its database).
MC22 even says so after finishing the import.

Problems now:
- MC22 does not remove the reference to the old file (tree view still shows the "old" file) but it is now unplayable (of course)
- MC22 does not replace the old for the new file at all
- MC22 now re-imports the "new file" whenever an "import is intiated" but fails every time with the same as just described

Solution:
Delete the old File manually


can anyone look into this ?

[tutenchamun]

bump

[blgentry]

This is not a bug.  It's intended behavior.  It's probably not what you want to happen, but it's the way MC is designed.

The solution is simple:  Use the Rename, Move, and Copy files tool to rename your external folders.  Then MC will know about the rename of the folder and it will keep everything else as-is.

RM&C is kind of a big tool, but for this purpose it should be pretty simple.  Use the "rename" mode and the directories template and you should be all set.

https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Rename,_Move,_and_Copy_Files

Brian.

[tutenchamun]

Brian sorry, I have not explained that very well.

I know that I could rename files within MC directly, but the fles within this one folder are managed by iTunes. I can not use MC exclusively for that one folder management.
... so these folders files occasionally change (by maintaining my iTunes-Library).
Sure thing MC would not recognise any changes just like that.

That's why I use the "import" function from time to time - MC than finds all (almost all) modifications.
The import function does even *find* the change described here and log's it would update its internal file references/database.
The problem is, that it is not *effectively* acknowledge it and change its internal DB references; it would only report this external change on every import run, not really doing anything.

.. this is where the bug is.
I assume that there is a case sensitivity issue somewhere along the path from the import engine towards the persistence layer.

[ferday]

AFAIK HSF+ is case sensitive (or can be more commonly than NTFS) and APFS is only case sensitive

therefore this is very likely NOT an MC bug. 

i can verify that when i change case in my Windows install and directly re-import, it does not find any "new" files.  this is the normal windows behaviour.

i wish all filesystems were case sensitive, but they aren't consistently

[tutenchamun]

I do not think that you are right either.
As described above, MC *does acknowledge the case changes" so the file handling part seems to works ...
It ist just then not changed effectively, because the next time that I make an updating "import" - it "finds" the changed case again (and again, and again).
I still think the problem is not with the file handling as such, but with MC's inner mechanics with the persistency.


(On top of that I still have the odd feeling, that MC does not sit on top of the OS file handling, but rather uses its own file access mechanism (some abstraction at least).
Since I as well have some odd issues with Unicode where sometimes MC's "import" would find "changes" but the filenames look "optically" the same. It all works with OSX finder and even Win.Explorer (other machine) - but not always with MC)

(My setup is OSX/AFP -> Linux/NAS , and I have tried SMB as well with the same result)

[ferday]

i'm not saying i'm right, but if i understand you correctly...

MC recognises a case change (which AFAIK in MAC is important)
MC makes a reference to the "new" file that you can play normally
the "old" file is still in MC but won't play

are these correct?  is there something else happening?
BTW the file changes aren't "optical", they are based on the file system "date modified" tag (or whatever MAC calls theirs).  so if your computer thinks the file changed, so does MC.  if not, MC doesn't either.

[tutenchamun]

Here is exactly whats happening (reproduceable)

1 - iTunes changes case of (parts of) the file. (or I could just change it intentionally)
2 - within MC I start Tools->import->Auto Import
3 - MC "finds" a change to a file that it "knows" already and states/logs that this change is now incorporated
- there is *NO* new file ! - just the old one - with the old case
- If I try to play this file - it cannot be played (error)
- since there is no new file either, I cannot play it as well, obviously

4 - Any further Tools->import->Auto Import always has the same result
- MC always finds a change, but seems to fail to internally update its references (but not further evidence for this can be found in logs, etc.)
- the only evidence of its failure is, that repeatedly behaviour (thus, MC cannot handle this -> BUG)


thx for your time an consideration

[blgentry]

Thanks for the extra info.  This is something I wasn't aware of.  OSX is a little unusual in that the HFS+ file system can be "regular" or "case sensitive".  I don't actually understand the full distinction.  But even with "regular" you can make uppercase and lowercase file names and of course mix upper and lowercase letters in the same file name.

I did a quick experiment by changing the case of ONE LETTER in a file name from upper to lower, then ran auto import.  MC did not find any new files and did not seem to change anything.  That song still plays, which is REALLY WEIRD, because I changed the file name!

I'm guessing this is related to how the "regular" HFS+ file system handles mixed case files.  But I'm just guessing.  I only use "regular".  I do not use HFS+ "case sensitive" file systems.  In fact, I believe Apple recommends against using them unless you have a specific need.

I can't say what's going on with your system, or with the behavior I've seen.  But I can say that it's 100% not what I expected.  <shrug>

Maybe one of the developers will have something more to say on this.

Brian.

[tutenchamun]

great that you are at it ...
if you need anything, logs, help on testing,  etc. pls. let me know

rgds

[tutenchamun]

important to say, that my files reside on an AFP connected NAS that is for sure case sensitive.
So the HFS+ implication is finaly not fully relevant (for my issues anyways) ...

[blgentry]

I can't do any further testing for you because I don't have an AFP based NAS.

You might consider changing your workflow.  If you can do your renames in MC, then you shouldn't have these issues.  It's fine to do tagging in other programs like itunes; MC should pick up those changes on existing files.  But renames really should be done in MC.  Unless you're mainly using itunes and MC is an "extra" program?  The main media management program should do most of the tagging and renaming.  Which, BTW, MC is a fantastic tagging program.  If you haven't tried that part yet, you should!

Good luck.

Brian.

[tutenchamun]

Its not about the filesystem.
U could take SMB - its all totally the same.

There is an issue with this within MC - oh I wish I would have access to the code ...

[tutenchamun]

Brian,
thx for the suggestion to use MC exclusivly or mainly, I just can't since iTunes is mandatory for me on iPhone.

I do have MC for all my lossless files exclusivly, but still want to be in sync with my iTunes Library.

Maybe you could still try to fix the bug.

[blgentry]

Hi Tutenchamun,

I am not an employee of JRiver, nor am I associated with the development and maintenance of JRiver Media Center.  I'm just a customer of JRiver MC.  I like the product a lot and use it pretty much every day.  I come here to try to help other people so they can use and understand MC better.

The president of the company reads pretty much all of these discussions and the developers read a lot, if not all, of them too.

Maybe another alternative for you is to continue to do exactly what you are doing *except* stop doing capitalization changes ON DISK.  You can certainly change metadata (Album, Artist, Song name, etc) without actually changing the file names on disk.  Just a thought.

Good luck to you.

Brian.

[tutenchamun]

ok sorry, I didn't know.

By maintaining my iTunes Library within iTunes, cases change, since I constantly work on quality of tags.
I can't help it.

[blgentry]

Your arguments don't make any sense.  I can't help you if you simply say that you need to do everything the exact same way as you always have.

Good luck.

Brian.