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[Noteworthy]

Having played around with the program without ever creating a library, I decided to finally create one.

Setup:
MC32 on win11 laptop.
External hdd connected to router
iFi Zen streamer RJ45 network cable to router
iFi Zen streamer to DAC to amplifier.

All good and all working.
I copied a little over 1000 albums from my cloud folder to the hdd.
MC created a library and analysed the audio. Took several hours but without any problem.

Imagine my surprise, therefore, to find the next morning, two instances of every track in the library.
I checked the flac files on the hdd and they had been correctly downloaded. I must add that each album folder contains a .cue file created at the time of ripping the CDs. I also looked at tags randomly to see if they had been successfully imported.

I just can't understand the reason for two instances of every track in the library.
I don't know if anyone has experience this before!

I could, of course, delete the library and start all over a second time but do not wish to find myself beset again with the above problem.

Finally, MC32 freezes sometimes on quitting (after I have played a few random test tracks) necessitating an End Task action. Perhaps because of the volume of files?

Any help would be gratefully received.

[marko]

I must add that each album folder contains a .cue file created at the time of ripping the CDs.

That's it, right there.

MC has .cue support. It has imported the files, as well as the cue file that references them.

Pick a duplicate and check what MC has in the filename field for each. You should be able to see from there which is the actual file reference, and which is the .cue entry. It's been a while, but IIRC, the .cue entries have a comma, or maybe semi-colon followed by a number, at the end of the filename.

Your library is brand new, so, you could clear it and start again without much loss other than time
Before you do that though, you probably want to turn off .cue file imports...

Go to "Options > Library and Folders > Configure auto import"
From the list of folders you see there, select the one that contains your music, and click the "Edit" button to the right of it.
Expand the audio section and uncheck cue files.

OK your way back out.

This action will only prevent future imports, it will not remove existing cue imports from your library.
Auto import settings are library specific, so, if you simply clear the existing library, you'll be good to go from there, however, if you create a new library, remember to disable cue files in auto import settings before importing anything.

RE: "Freezing"... MC has been known to handle well over a million files, so it won't be that. My guess would be, as your library is new, it's likely busy building thumbnails, but without more info (probably best in a new thread) that really is, just a guess.

-marko

[Noteworthy]

Many thanks for the advice, marko.
Will do as you suggested.

[Frobozz]

You can have MC search for all of the CUE files in your library. Then right-click and delete (remove from your library) them.

Another option would be to consider do you actually need the CUE files in your directory tree of files? They're not actually needed for proper gapless playback any longer.
One option would be to do a bulk search and rename of all of the CUE files in your music folder tree. Rename them to something like "album.cue.txt". That changes all of the CUE files into TXT files. The next time you do an import scan of your library MC will see the CUE files are gone and will remove them (and the duplicate files) from your library.

I do occasionally keep the CUE files in my music folders with the rips. But only when the CUE file contains some special TOC structure for the tracks. Like a hidden HTOA track, or a bunch of short silent tracks to hide a track at the end of the CD. In that case I'll keep the CUE just to document the TOC structure of the CD, much how I'd keep a log file of the rip. But I'll rename the CUE file to a format of "album.cue.txt" so the CUE files don't get imported into Media Center or any other media player and cause problems.

So yeah. That's what I'd do. Rename all of the CUE files to "*.cue.txt" and then configure MC to not import CUE files for future file imports.

A tool like PowerRename in the Microsoft PowerToys ultilities could be helpful in such a bulk rename. Or similar bulk rename utilities.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/powerrename

[Noteworthy]

Thank you Frobozz for your valuable input.

In the interim however, I cleared the old library, then created a temporary external folder to remove all unnecessary stuff retaining only the audio files for a fresh import. That was relatively quickly done using appropriate utilities.
Currently importing the "clean" folders. Should be done by tomorrow.

Thanks once again.