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[DmitryB]

Hey all!

Question that may be simple, but I wanted to confirm before I did this myself. If I place my library files on a cloud drive - let's say Dropbox - will everything work out if I then use MC from different computers? Sometimes I'm using MC from home, sometimes on a different computer while traveling. If MC on both computers are set to read the same library from a cloud drive... any reason this won't work? This way any changes I make on one computer will be recognize when I open MC on the other computer. (I wouldn't be using them at the same time.)

Does this make sense?

Thanks!

[zybex]

It should work... most of the time.

MC updates a bunch of database files on exit. If you happen to shutdown the computer (PC1) while MC is running you may have unexpected results because the updated files won't be uploaded to cloud until windows restarts. If you meanwhile happen to run MC on another machine (PC2) and that one then uploads some changes, then PC1 will no longer be able to upload its own changes. You now have a conflict that must be resolved manually.

[DmitryB]

Thank you!

So is the solution to make certain MC is shut down when PC1 is turned off, otherwise PC2 will not get updated info when it is powered on?

The two PCs are in different locations, so it's pretty much guaranteed both will never be running at the same time. But just being careful that MC is shut down so the library can update in the cloud before a PC is powered down.

[DmitryB]

Ok working on moving the library over. Just to make sure: I am moving the J River folder from my Application Support folder to Dropbox? That's where the full library folder is?

I did that - and my settings disappeared. I had to enter my registration for JRiver again, and the appearance has defaulted to the JRiver appearance instead of what I'd customized. Is there a way to get those settings back??

[zybex]

Right. Sounds good in theory, but in practice I think it will fail sooner or later.
The way to go is to have an MC running as a server at one location and accessing it from the other location via an Access Key (generated by MC).

[zybex]

Ok working on moving the library over. Just to make sure: I am moving the J River folder from my Application Support folder to Dropbox? That's where the full library folder is?

Uh, no, I don't think you can do that. I'm not a Mac user though.
Try just adding MC's folder to Dropbox settings so that it also gets synchronized.
You can also:
- do a Library backup in MC
- create a new MC Library in the Dropbox folder
- restore the backup to the new library

[DmitryB]

Hmmm yeah, I think you're right, this won't really work as I envision... Maybe the middle-ground solution is to create backups on Dropbox and then just import the most recent backup as the main library as I move from PC1 to PC2.

BTW in the J River folder in Application Support, there are folders going back to MC 27 through 33. Do I need those old folders or can they be deleted?

[zybex]

They can be deleted, but make a Library backup first in MC33.

[DmitryB]

Thank you!!

[HaWi]

I run MC on a Mac Studio, MacBook Pro (headless, always on), a Synology NAS and on an rPi5. The only stable way I found to keep the experience as "identical" as possible between the four is with library backup/restore. I use the Studio for library maintenance and the other three only for playing. The backup/restore works fast and efficiently and I have no issues. Takes me less than 15 min to update the three "players". It helps to keep a copy of the backup on a shared folder that can be accessed by all four machines. In my case that folder is on the rPi5, shared via SMB. I use VNC to access the other three machines from the Studio.
Each machine uses different ports for MC so I can play from anywhere on any machine using Remote or MO 4Media.

[DmitryB]

Thanks HaWi! That's basically what I'm going to try to do going forward. The back-up is now going to Dropbox, so I can access the latest version on both computes - and restore.

But it was mentioned earlier than shutting down MC writes certain files, which I assume it writes to Application Support JRiver file. Whatever that information is... is it transferred to the back-up in some way? Or will the backup file I run just before shutting down MC "incomplete?"

[zybex]

The backup is always a snapshot of the current state and is complete at that time. If you click on something else after the backup (like for instance just changing the current view, or playing a track), then that is a minor update that will be written out to disk on exit - it doesn't matter that it's not on the backup, but it does matter for folder synchronization as a file is changed.

[DmitryB]

Ahh perfect. As long as I backup and then immediately quit, it should be all normal. Thank you!