reading of HFS volumes & folders, not just single files (Boot Camp user...)

[LibraryEye]

I've been using MusicBee for years, because it's such a wonderful program. Not only is it great for music playback and library management, but the control it provides in the syncing of an MTP Android device is really remarkable. Actually, MusicBee is the main reason I installed Windows on my iMac. Apple's Boot Camp grants read access to HFS volumes under Windows and I have had no difficulty accessing these volumes under Windows Explorer or through any application (graphic programs, media players, web browsers have all worked). About half of my music is on an NTFS drive, which MusicBee sees just fine. The other half of my music library is on an external HFS volume, but when I try adding that volume, a folder from that volume, or any folder from any other HFS volume via MusicBee Library preference, nothing happens. (Can add HFS volumes, but nothing happens; can't even see sub-directories / folders on such volumes.) When I view the drives through the "Computer" drop-down in MusicBee, I see an error indicating "Unable to retrieve files (Illegal characters in path.)" However, I can add music files from these HFS volumes, one at a time, through "File> Open File or URL" dialogue and can even then add those files to MusicBee library by using "Send To> Music Library" from "Now Playing."  (Since there is partial functionality I'm not sure if this should go under "Wishlist" or elsewhere...)  Is there any workaround for this? Would love to be able to access my music library in MusicBee without having to reformat that drive and restore from backup.
Thanks.

[Steven]

can you post a screenshot of windows explorer with one of the files or folders on the volume selected so i can see the full path

[LibraryEye]

Hi Steven,

Thanks for reply! And many thanks for making MusicBee.

I'm on an iMac, running Snow Leopard on the OSX side and up-to-date Vista on Windows side. I have latest MusicBee.

I have screen-grabbed a jpg showing one such file path on an HFS drive, but I don't see option here to add attachment. Am I missing that? Maybe it's right in front of me and I don't see it. Here's the path to folder, if that'll do:
   F:\iMight\McCoy Tyner\The Real McCoy
which contains five FLAC files, one JPG, and one text document. Naming of each is limited to letters, spaces, numerals, and dashes, such as:
   03 - Four By Five.flac
The above path comes from right-clicking a song to get Properties and copying Location. In Windows Explorer, path is preceded by drive name ("Muzq") so it looks like this:
Computer  >  Muzq (F:)  >  iMight  >  McCoy Tyner  >  The Real McCoy
(where the ">" are actually black triangles in the GUI)

One difference I noticed, HFS vs NTFS, within Properties, is the listing of drive name under Target and Type showing as Mounted Volume rather than Folder. For this folder on HFS drive, here are the Properties details:

The Real McCoy
Type:   Mounted Volume
Location:   F:\iMight\McCoy Tyner
Target:   Muziq

An album folder on an NTFS drive shows no "Target" and lists type as Folder (and also shows size and content information). Here are Properties for an Eric Dolphy album on an NTFS drive:

The Illinois Concert
Type:   Folder
Location:   H:\iMite\Eric Dolphy
Size:   290 MB (304,434,021 bytes)
Size on disk:   290 MB (304,459,776 bytes)
Contains:   10 Files, 0 Folders

If I get Properties on a file rather than a directory, results look the same regardless of drive format, ie:

Location:   F:\iMight\McCoy Tyner\The Real McCoy
or
Location:   H:\iMite\Eric Dolphy\The Illinois Concert

Also - this may be totally normal but thought I'd mention it - the paths to the NTFS volumes/folders/files that I can access with MusicBee (whether on external drives or internal Windows system drive, and even for the files I can open one at a time from HFS drives) when viewed within MusicBee are populated with what appear to be Yen symbols where I might expect I dunno a backslash or something. For instance, the user "Music" folder path under MusicBee's "monitored folders" looks like this:
   C:¥Users¥username¥Music¥
Except the yen symbol isn't pasting correctly here; it should have two lines through it to match how it appears in MusicBee.

(By the way, I have also installed MusicBee on a Macbook Pro running Windows 8.1 Enterprise free 90 day evaluation with Mavericks up-to-date on OSX side and issues are the same)

[LibraryEye]

Just noticed - even though I just installed MusicBee on the Vista iMac a couple days ago, and would swear I downloaded latest version from MusicBee site, and I have it set to check for updates at startup, version was 2.3.5188. I must have grabbed an older version somehow (probably had an older installer sitting around and used that inadvertently). Version on Windows 8.1 Macbook is 2.4.5349. I downloaded 2.4.5349 and installed on Vista so both my installs are up to date. Issues are same on both systems, except on Macbook under Windows 8.1 paths in MusicBee Library monitored folders show backslashes instead of Yen symbols.

[Steven]

i expect what is happening is one of the folders in the root folder might have invalid characters (for windows) in the name
Unfortunately the .NET directory scan function doesnt provide a way for ignoring this case in the root folder
If you are able to set the file monitor or scan in MB to be a specific sub-folder then i expect it will work

[LibraryEye]

I took a different external hard drive - one with MBR partitioning scheme instead of GUID since I know MBR is the Windows-friendly standby. I reformatted a small 6GB partition to "HFS" (not journaled) and made a main directory containing a McCoy Tyner folder with two albums in it. I made sure all folder and file names were limited to letters, numerals, dashes, spaces, and the extensions. The problems persist; unable to add volume or folder, but able to open a single file at a time. So I would guess it's not a file or directory naming issue? A "FAT32" partition on same external drive works just fine, I added hundreds of folders/subfolders with thousands of songs from there.
I appreciate the time you took to look into this. I can still use MusicBee for the half of my music that's on NTFS and another application for the stuff on HFS. I'll check updates to see if this resolves, since I'd love to be able to use MusicBee for the music on my HFS drives and to recommend it to other Boot Camp users.

[LibraryEye]

Hello again Steven,

This is my lucky day for making a good guess.

I haven't been using MusicBee, due to this HFS issue. For some reason this evening I decided to revisit this and I quickly came upon a solution I should have thought to try the first time around. Well, not a solution as much as a workaround.

Nothing has changed within the UI - all previously described conditions remain - and I couldn't find any new approach within the UI. Instead, using Window's built-in program "Notepad," I opened:
"MusicBeeLibrarySettings" file

I mimicked the folder structure shown within that library document for a successfully scanned NTFS directory and substituted the relevant info from my HFS drive.

So, where I had a NTFS drive designated as "I" containing a scanned music folder called "NTFSMusic" I duplicated and then rewrote path to correspond to a music folder named "HFSMusic" on HFS drive designated as "F"

Resulting "MusicBeeLibrarySettings" file now includes the following lines

<OrganisationMonitoredFolders>
 <string>F:\HFSMusic\</string>
 <string>I:\NTFSMusic\</string>
</OrganisationMonitoredFolders>

Now I am able to have all desired music directories - regardless of drive format - accessible to my MusicBee library. Within MusicBee interface, in Preferences > Library, these show as
 F:¥HFSMusic¥
 I:¥NTFSMusic¥


{Can't figure out way to grant access to entire HFS drive if desired. A simple "<string>F:\</string>" (which is also exactly what you get when trying to add a HFS volume from within MusicBee UI) which would work for FAT or NTFS drive does not work for HFS. I'm still guessing that this has something to do with Windows seeing folder on HFS drives as "Mounted Volume" (with drive name listed under "Target") instead of "Folder" as on NTFS drive and that that is cause of all this trouble, but I'm not a programmer, I'm just guessing.}

ANY change or addition of drives or folders listed through MusicBee interface immediately REMOVES the entry in the MusicBee UI:
 F:¥HFSMusic¥
& removes the corresponding entry within library document when viewed in Notepad:
 <string>F:\HFSMusic\</string>
So I have to add/remove any scanned folders in Notepad, or add/remove through MusicBee and add back HFS directory in Notepad.

I've tested this on my old iMac running Snow Leopard, which dual boots Vista. I haven't yet tried this on my old Macbook running Yosemite, which dual boots Windows 8.1. But since all the problems behave identically on both systems I'm hopeful (confident) this workardound works on both.

So it's a bit of work to open up Notepad and add such a line, but should at least allow anyone running Windows via Boot Camp to run MusicBee and access their music from HFS drives. Please note, if you're using a drive that has nothing on it but subfolders of music you're going to want to put ALL those subfolders into a single main directory (or a few separate directories) first, so you don't have to add a line within "MusicBeeLibrarySettings" for every single subfolder- since adding whole drive to library doesn't seem possible. Instead of a drive containing folders for James Brown, Meredith Monk, The Velvet Underground, etc, etc - you'll want that drive to have main music folder(s) containing all those subfolders, to minimize your effort.