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[vrl]

After the update from 26-0.72 to 26.0.73 the library lost about 5000 entries, in one case there were 6 albums left where 26.0.72 had 93.
To avoid any compatibility problems, I have .73 redo the whole library, will cost me 1 day and let's see whether it finds all my albums.... (yep, I'm testing for you) - I'll report back

[JimH]

Are they on a local drive? 

[vrl]

NAS - with a  permanent connect to the Music directory, is shown in the Finder and behaves like a lokal drive.
(btw. no problems with previous updates .72, .70 ...)

[bob]

NAS - with a  permanent connect to the Music directory, is shown in the Finder and behaves like a lokal drive.
(btw. no problems with previous updates .72, .70 ...)

Make sure you have MC making backups of the library so you can simply restore one if you run into an issue.

I have around 10k music files in my library and .73 seems fine to me. Is there any particular pattern to the ones you are missing (particular media type)?

[vrl]

Thanks, Bob!

The question is
- did .72 generate a correct library (about 105.000 entries), and .73 has a problem of correctly reading the library (showed up about 100.000 entries), or
- did .72 generate a library file with flaws, i.e. records that were damaged in some way, that itself could read but .73 failed to do so.

To clarify that I had to generate a clean .73 version of the library. I imported manually (no auto-import) the 26 directories (A-Z) and .73 found 109.219 records.

My conclusion:
1. the .72 library files have some  incorrect (damaged) entries
2. the .72 version managed to lose some 4000 records (.72 - abt. 105.000, .73 takeover - abt. 100.000,  .73 clean, new: 109.219)
3. it is not clear the the .73 version does not have the same problem when manipulating library entries.

What did I to the .72 library (and the versions before): When entering or updating albums I did one of two things:
- when I simply added some albums to the directory of the artist, I had MC import either the album (specifying the album directory, 1  or 2 albums) or the artist directory (more that 2 albums).
- when I had multiple changes to the artist directory (deleting albums, modifying album names (directory), filenames, or exchanging mp3 for flac, I deleted the artist from the library and (re)-imported the artist directory.

(and not to forget I switched OS versions in several steps from 10.14.x to 10.15,  starting with 10.15.3 and now 10.15.4)

Somehow during the whole process the library file got corrupted...

Size of the backup files:   .73 - 4 MB. .72 - 4.1 MB (??). -- why is the .73 backup with more library entries smaller?
(I'd think that the format of some library entries changed...?)

So far my report.

What will I do differently now: I keep a close eye on the totals in the library when I modify something in my collection.

Maybe there is a tool to validate directory structure... I would apply it...
Is there?

 

[bob]

One thing that would change the library save size is there there are records of bad/removed files in the DB.
You can see them by creating a smart playlist and setting the files to be showed to bad & removed.
It's also just interesting to see which files MC considers as bad, they failed to import because they are corrupted or were unable to be parsed correctly.

[erviv]

Bob how do you select bad and removed files in a smartlist.  I thought this could be useful, as you say, to see what MC considers as bad files.  In the smartlist I only see choices for file types, size, name and path, and no option for bad and removed files.

[bob]

Bob how do you select bad and removed files in a smartlist.  I thought this could be useful, as you say, to see what MC considers as bad files.  In the smartlist I only see choices for file types, size, name and path, and no option for bad and removed files.

New Smartlist
Remove the default rule
Modify results
Select "Limit Database to"
Check bad and removed.

[vrl]

Great hint, Bob!

Didn't know it! Very helpful!

Tried it and got 2416 bad entries, but, don't worry: they are all .cue files that were not imported. Perfectly fine, I will probably never burn a CD....

Question: how can I exclude the .cue file from being reported?

Smartlists are a great feature, is there some documentation beside the wiki, e.g. for tips like yours above?

Thanks again for your support!

[bob]

Great hint, Bob!

Didn't know it! Very helpful!

Tried it and got 2416 bad entries, but, don't worry: they are all .cue files that were not imported. Perfectly fine, I will probably never burn a CD....

Question: how can I exclude the .cue file from being reported?

Smartlists are a great feature, is there some documentation beside the wiki, e.g. for tips like yours above?

Thanks again for your support!

When you do import either manually or Auto, instead of choosing all audio you can expand that selection and unselect cue files.

When you want to remove the bad/removed entries from your database you can just highlight them and delete (remove from library).
Then refresh and if they show back up do it again. It's often necessary to do it twice because the bad ones get changed to removed after the first delete.

[vrl]

Again, thanks a lot, Bob!

I just selected "Audio" and didn't pay attention to the sub-menu.
Deleting from a Smartlist is a very good idea.
From now on my library will be much cleaner.

Thanks again and take care!
Volker

[erviv]

Bob, thanks for the information.  This should prove helpful.