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Questions / Locate missing files checkboxes unavailable
« on: October 02, 2018, 05:38:09 PM »
Hello,
Firstly, thank you so much to the creator/s of MusicBee. I'll probably seem like I'll do a lot of griping from this point, but really I'm thankful something like this exists for such an anal playlist (not like that) man like myself. I came to MusicBee from a lot of frustration with previous players screwing over what I always considered a very basic requirement for a shuffle feature that works properly (and not just playing what it thinks I want to hear). There is still a little of that frustration here but I have more control than I ever did previously. I'm not as technical person in this respect as probably most of you and there's a lot I don't know, so it's been a real learning curve, but it's important to me to get this right!
Anywayyy here's my biggest issue. Over the last several years I built a Halloween playlist up to about 20 hours of music (getting this specific playlist to work right on shuffle has been the reason I've gone through so many music players). I won't go into my more general difficulties of fine-tuning right now (I think it's features of shuffle I require that don't yet exist in MusicBee), because the one taking over my attention is very simple.
Every track in my playlist could suddenly no longer be located. Source files missing.
I've read a number of the threads on similar things on this forum, but had to finally register because none of the remedies were quite working. I realised WHY it happened, eventually (and by eventually, I mean weeks later). My Windows Username had been changed, and with it all the playlist links were broken, as they all pointed to the previous Username (I didn't even change the name myself - I think it happened with the Windows update).
The 'locate missing files' feature doesn't work for me. It shows me all the broken paths, but I can't select a single one of the checkboxes. And clicking auto-locate without checking anything naturally doesn't do a thing.
Now it's the start of October again, I tried again to look through solutions on your forum. I saw the recommendation to remap music folders. I did that for the usernames. So now, they all direct to the right username. However, all my artists are arranged in my Windows Explorer into general genres (for ease of spontaneous shuffled playlists-on-the-fly that aren't just a big hodgepodge of conflicting music styles, and can fit my mood and desire at the time), including genres/folders within genres/folders.
Because of this, the remap music only remapped it to /Music - which none of the music is found in, but in subfolders of genre (and subgenre). All the songs are now trying to find themselves directly in /Music but NOT looking in any of the subfolders that they are now placed in. Unfortunately remapping seems to remap ALL the music, rather than just portions of it, which might have worked in chunks. There is no catch-all solution to my music because of the way I've organised it (which might seem ridiculous, but it's worked well for me and I intend to keep it).
To find each file separately seems to be my only go-to, but it would take ages. It feels like starting from scratch with this epic playlist. And I wouldn't put it past having to do the same thing all over again when some other directory name changes or I move music about again.
Right now I'm rescanning the whole library, but I'm not sure that'll work. MusicBee still can't find most of the files in any playlist, and locate missing files doesn't do a thing for me. I think if I could find a solution for this last thing, and if locate missing files does the job it says it should, then this major issue would be fixed and I won't spend too much of October (during which I have the Halloween playlist on every day) trying to work through this file by file!
TL;DR Can't select anything on locate missing files function. I move my music around quite a bit and this option is much needed for me.
Sorry for my lack of succinctness, and thanks!
Set
Firstly, thank you so much to the creator/s of MusicBee. I'll probably seem like I'll do a lot of griping from this point, but really I'm thankful something like this exists for such an anal playlist (not like that) man like myself. I came to MusicBee from a lot of frustration with previous players screwing over what I always considered a very basic requirement for a shuffle feature that works properly (and not just playing what it thinks I want to hear). There is still a little of that frustration here but I have more control than I ever did previously. I'm not as technical person in this respect as probably most of you and there's a lot I don't know, so it's been a real learning curve, but it's important to me to get this right!
Anywayyy here's my biggest issue. Over the last several years I built a Halloween playlist up to about 20 hours of music (getting this specific playlist to work right on shuffle has been the reason I've gone through so many music players). I won't go into my more general difficulties of fine-tuning right now (I think it's features of shuffle I require that don't yet exist in MusicBee), because the one taking over my attention is very simple.
Every track in my playlist could suddenly no longer be located. Source files missing.
I've read a number of the threads on similar things on this forum, but had to finally register because none of the remedies were quite working. I realised WHY it happened, eventually (and by eventually, I mean weeks later). My Windows Username had been changed, and with it all the playlist links were broken, as they all pointed to the previous Username (I didn't even change the name myself - I think it happened with the Windows update).
The 'locate missing files' feature doesn't work for me. It shows me all the broken paths, but I can't select a single one of the checkboxes. And clicking auto-locate without checking anything naturally doesn't do a thing.
Now it's the start of October again, I tried again to look through solutions on your forum. I saw the recommendation to remap music folders. I did that for the usernames. So now, they all direct to the right username. However, all my artists are arranged in my Windows Explorer into general genres (for ease of spontaneous shuffled playlists-on-the-fly that aren't just a big hodgepodge of conflicting music styles, and can fit my mood and desire at the time), including genres/folders within genres/folders.
Because of this, the remap music only remapped it to /Music - which none of the music is found in, but in subfolders of genre (and subgenre). All the songs are now trying to find themselves directly in /Music but NOT looking in any of the subfolders that they are now placed in. Unfortunately remapping seems to remap ALL the music, rather than just portions of it, which might have worked in chunks. There is no catch-all solution to my music because of the way I've organised it (which might seem ridiculous, but it's worked well for me and I intend to keep it).
To find each file separately seems to be my only go-to, but it would take ages. It feels like starting from scratch with this epic playlist. And I wouldn't put it past having to do the same thing all over again when some other directory name changes or I move music about again.
Right now I'm rescanning the whole library, but I'm not sure that'll work. MusicBee still can't find most of the files in any playlist, and locate missing files doesn't do a thing for me. I think if I could find a solution for this last thing, and if locate missing files does the job it says it should, then this major issue would be fixed and I won't spend too much of October (during which I have the Halloween playlist on every day) trying to work through this file by file!
TL;DR Can't select anything on locate missing files function. I move my music around quite a bit and this option is much needed for me.
Sorry for my lack of succinctness, and thanks!
Set