Author Topic: Library is a mess now after coming over from iTunes. Please help!!  (Read 28662 times)

djscottallen

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I'm very frustrated with Musicbee's version of iTunes's "keep library organized" function.
My music is scattered all over my computer and external drive.  It's also been duplicated at least once.
I don't know what to do. All I wanted is for Musicbee to find my music, and then keep it organized.
Instead, it gave me errors telling me that the tags weren't attached to a bunch of tracks and so on.
And then it copied over the tracks to the new locations and left the original tracks exactly where they were and still linked to the player!!!
WTF?? My perfectly manicured library has been raped. If there's something I'm not doing, it's a mystery to me.
This should have been a simple and smooth transition.

Other than the fact that Musicbee totally screwed my library, I love musicbee and all it's options.
But THE most IMPORTANT feature of any music player is to organize your music and keep it organized.
Musicbee seriously needs to revamp this function to be more user friendly and work correctly.
Very disappointed right now....

I don't even know what question to ask!?!?! Help!!

psychoadept

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Welcome to the forum.  A number of us, including me, have been able to keep their libraries organized with MusicBee, so I'm sure we can help you sort this out.

To start with, can you post a screenshot of your auto-organize settings?  This is the screen that comes up when you go to Library Preferences and click "organization".  A screenshot of your library preferences would also be helpful.

Here are some wiki pages that might be helpful:

http://musicbee.wikia.com/wiki/Posting_Screenshots_on_the_MusicBee_Forum
http://musicbee.wikia.com/wiki/Library_Preferences
http://musicbee.wikia.com/wiki/Naming_template
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djscottallen

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That's great I appreciate your help :)

Here's my train of thought. I just read this:
"Note that any files in your library located on a different drive to your organised library are excluded from auto-organisation."

When I started with musicbee I put my library on my main hard drive. I am now trying to move my library to my external hard drive.
I'm thinking that might be the problem. But it did move some files over there, so maybe not? thnx

psychoadept

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One thing that should help is to uncheck "copy source files into the library."   That's why all your files were duplicated.  You'll still have to clean up the ones that were already made, but it shouldn't happen again once you uncheck it.  (If the duplicates are in a particular location, you can add Path to the main panel and sort by it in order to group tracks by location for quick deleting.  Alternately, you can use the Duplicates Manager under Tools.)

Yes, you'll need to move files manually from D: to H:.  However, you don't then need to delete all the broken links from your library by hand.  Instead of rescanning to add the new location, if you go to File > Advanced >  Remap Music Folders, you can change D: to H: and MusicBee will correct the file links accordingly.

If you still want MusicBee to find files on D: and copy them to H:, once everything is in the correct place on H:, you could try turning "copy source files" back on, but keep an eye on it for a while to see that it's behaving correctly.  You MUST remove H: from your monitored folders if you do it that way, because MusicBee will think it needs to make copies of all your existing files.  They will still be auto-organized, MusicBee just won't monitor those folders for NEW tracks.

The less headache-prone option is to leave "copy files" unchecked and remove D: from the monitored folders.  You'll need to add new tracks to H: yourself that way, though.
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Anti

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> But THE most IMPORTANT feature of any music player is to organize your music and keep it organized.
> Musicbee totally screwed my library

Sorry for being curt, but MB just did exactly what you told it to do.

I used MB for days before being confident enough to use the manual 'organisation' tool. Only several weeks after that, once I was sure what I wanted my workflow to be (which entailed knowing what musicbee could do), I felt confident enough to test the 'auto-organisation' on a portion of my library, and then finally apply it to my whole library.

It should be obvious that a tool which renames/re-tags and moves your data in bulk is dangerous territory. Musicbee didn't screw your library - you did, by rushing into things, not reading, not asking, and assuming that you could organise thousands of files in unfamiliar software without any thought or preparation.

> it gave me errors telling me that the tags weren't attached to a bunch of tracks

I don't know the answer to this because I've not experienced that type of error, but I think it is safe to assume that iTunes was doing something funky with the tagging, so that in iTunes your music looks all organised and tagged, but if you look at your files with proper tagging software, you'll see that iTunes created a big proprietary mess.

tedebear690

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While you can probably keep your library organized with MusicBee, at least initially, this is what I'd do:

(I am assuming that you are using a Windows OS, but it should work for Mac or Linux too.)

1) Set up a new sub-directory (I use My Music and it is in the root directory e.g. C:\ or in my case, where I have multiple hard drives, G:\). Then under that directory, each "album" is a sub-directory of My Music. If you have multiple albums by one artist or band, you might want to first have a sub-directory for that artist, e.g. U2 or Rolling Stones, and then place all of their albums as sub-directories under that artist. For individual song that aren't part of a larger group of songs belonging to an album, you can always either leave those in the root directory of My Music, or a directory called Misc or Miscellaneous Songs, or group them by genre, eg rock; or grunge or whatever.

2) Then search all of your drives for your music, and it's accompanying art files. If they are already in sub-directories by album, just cut and paste them from their old location to your new My Music directory. If they aren't at least temporarily, cut and paste the undirectoried songs and art to a directory called "Need to Organise" so that you can later sort them into a useable fashion.

DON'T FORGET TO RESCAN YOUR COMPUTER, AFTER MOVING ALL OF THESE FILES, AND CHANGE THE SEARCH CRITERIA TO JUST MY MUSIC,
AND CLICK YES TO DELETE FROM LIBRARY THOSE FILES NOT FOUND AT EXPECTED LOCATION AT THE END OF THE SCAN.

3) You said that many of your files were duplicated, triplicated etc. I've been using a neat little FREE utility Heatsoft Clone Cleaner Lite
http://download.cnet.com/Clone-Cleaner-Lite/3000-2248_4-10398069.html (From C-Net.com)

After installing it, point it to your My Music directory, in just a few seconds it will tell you which files are 0 length files,  which files are exactly identical (full clones), which files have the same content (though not the same name); which files have the same names and sizes (not the same as identical content); which files have the same size, and lastly which files have the same name. You may even want to run this, before rescanning into MusicBee.

After this, MusicBee should be able to keep it organized, as long as the new songs that you add you tell them where in My Music to download them to, instead of allowing your browser to decide where to download them to, which could be anywhere.

djscottallen

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One thing that should help is to uncheck "copy source files into the library."   That's why all your files were duplicated.  You'll still have to clean up the ones that were already made, but it shouldn't happen again once you uncheck it.  (If the duplicates are in a particular location, you can add Path to the main panel and sort by it in order to group tracks by location for quick deleting.  Alternately, you can use the Duplicates Manager under Tools.)

Yes, you'll need to move files manually from D: to H:.  However, you don't then need to delete all the broken links from your library by hand.  Instead of rescanning to add the new location, if you go to File > Advanced >  Remap Music Folders, you can change D: to H: and MusicBee will correct the file links accordingly.

If you still want MusicBee to find files on D: and copy them to H:, once everything is in the correct place on H:, you could try turning "copy source files" back on, but keep an eye on it for a while to see that it's behaving correctly.  You MUST remove H: from your monitored folders if you do it that way, because MusicBee will think it needs to make copies of all your existing files.  They will still be auto-organized, MusicBee just won't monitor those folders for NEW tracks.

The less headache-prone option is to leave "copy files" unchecked and remove D: from the monitored folders.  You'll need to add new tracks to H: yourself that way, though.

@scampbll - This may take a little while. I'll try this as soon as I can and keep you posted!
@tedebear690 - Also good info, will keep that in mind. thnx
@Anti - I may have jumped the gun a bit, but I really took my time and read forums before proceeding. You do have to admit that there are a few little check marks that aren't as clearly marked as they should be. Still, I do take credit for messing up my own library and not running tests first. :P

greenday1987

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I'm too OCD to allow software to organise my music. I want it all in one place and named/foldered/tagged etc how I want it- done entirely manually.
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Steven

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When "copy sources files into the library" is enabled there is a bug where it doesnt do that if the file is located on another drive - I doubt this is related to the issue you having though.
Also if the music files are on the same drive as the library, it effectively will recopy the file into the library - that was intentional at the time it was done a few years ago, but I can no longer think of any valid reason why it makes sense to be still done this way and only leads to problems with duplication.
So i have corrected both the above and will post a link later.

redwing

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Also if the music files are on the same drive as the library, it effectively will recopy the file into the library - that was intentional at the time it was done a few years ago, but I can no longer think of any valid reason why it makes sense to be still done this way and only leads to problems with duplication.
So i have corrected both the above and will post a link later.

So how did you correct it? Now it does not copy files on the same drive even with the option enabled?

Steven

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the current v2.2 behavior is it should copy the file into the library if the file is detected via the file monitor. If the source file remains in the monitored folder it will get duplicated on the next startup if the specified target is the Library (wont duplicate if the target is the Inbox).
If running the manual file scan/import then if the target is the Library then the file wont get added or duplicated.
Both those issues are addressed in the next v2.3 update. For v2.2 i am displaying a warning message recommending people dont use the feature and to use v2.3 instead.


redwing

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What if the user runs File organizer with copy option enabled? Then it will copy whatever files selected to the library folder regardless of auto-organize setting, right?

<added>
Hmm, it seems the copy option is given for File organizer only when auto-organize is enabled. Then that's fine.
I'm writing up my main point. Just a second.
Last Edit: November 16, 2013, 04:53:25 PM by redwing

Steven

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What if the user runs File organizer with copy option enabled? Then it will copy whatever files selected to the library folder regardless of auto-organize setting, right?
the "copy source files into the library" only applies to files that are being added to the Library that is auto-organised
if you mean "right click/ Send To/ Folder (Copy)/ Copy to Organised Folder" then that setting doesnt affect the command as the file will already be copied by the nature of the command you have chosen.
otherwise i dont know what you mean

redwing

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Then, which files are linked to library files? Source files or copies in the library folder?

Steven

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its probably best you wait until the next v2.3 version is available because at the moment i am not really sure what you mean