I cannot add a file to the library - what am I doing wrong?

[LateJunction]

For some reason MB refuses to add some of the audio files in my Windows  music folder, while it has no problem with logically identical, sonically different, files in that folder.

Although there is much in the terminology of MB that is alien to me (e.g. 'node') and I cannot seem to find whether or not I have an inbox, I am requesting to import files directly to the library and I have no filters established (afaik) and no other restrictions that I am aware of.

I can find no directly applicable posts in the forum or articles in the FAQ. What should I be checking ?

[sveakul]

For some reason MB refuses to add some of the audio files in my Windows  music folder, while it has no problem with logically identical, sonically different, files in that folder.

Although there is much in the terminology of MB that is alien to me (e.g. 'node') and I cannot seem to find whether or not I have an inbox, I am requesting to import files directly to the library and I have no filters established (afaik) and no other restrictions that I am aware of.

I can find no directly applicable posts in the forum or articles in the FAQ. What should I be checking ?

First,  drop the menu File-->Add Files to Library.  What happens exactly (messages, etc) when you choose to add one of these problem files?  Do they have anything in common (file type, source, etc)?

Yes, you have an inbox.  Go to Preferences/Layout (1)/left sidebar and be sure "Inbox" is checked.  If so, it will appear in your left sidebar in the upper left corner.  To see your left sidebar, hit your "Configure Layout" button (the blue square next to the Search box) and choose Left Sidebar-->Show panel, or, Hide(auto-open), which will extend it when you hover your mouse over the left edge of the MusicBee window.  Check the wiki psychoadept linked you to for discussion on what the Inbox is for and if you care to use it (I don't, for example, as I prep files outside of MusicBee).

If you need to show us an image please try using the instructions I gave in reply to your "latest other" post to the Questions thread.

[LateJunction]

Thank you for the guidance; please bear with me as I am really starting to struggle with the language style and content of the windows in MB (but I recognise that I am achieving considrably more that I have been able to using iTunes).. I know I am old (my first introduction to symbolic programming languages was in 1959, when things were rather primitive) but I don't think I'm significantly intellectually impaired or lacking in commitment.

I seem to have stumbled for a while trying to parse your instruction 'drop the menu File' - I could not find a menu File (File of menus ?) or a file called 'menu' on my system (which contains about 3 million files) until I finally ealised that I was misunderstanding the verb 'drop' and that what you were instructing me to do was to invoke the action to add a file or files to my library through use of the top level menu named 'File'. That is what I had been doing.

On the particular audio file with which I am having a problem, this action results in a message in what I assume is a status information area at the bottom of the window. The message reads 'No files added' - which I am painfully aware of. What I should like to know is 'why ?'. So far I have found just the one audio file that behaves in this way, but I see there are a number of other files in my windows structure which I have not yet attenpted to add into the library, so at this point it is not possible to say if there any common factors in these 'not added' files. But I can say that the one problem file I have identified appears to be no different to many other files which MB has added to the library.

I am unable to " Go to Preferences/Layout (1)/left sidebar" as there is no menu or sub-menu labeled 'Preferences' in my installation/configuration of MB, which I have not changed in any conscious way from the default created by the installation process.

But I do see that I now have an icon  towards the top right of the MB window that looks like a letter or printed object; hovering over this icon with my mouse pointer tells me this is my inbox (of which more later)

I do have a black rectangle (but not a blue square) which, on mouse hover, appears to be  the 'Configure Layout' button. I have been able to show the left side bar panel. Doing this causes the Inbox icon to disappear. It is not clear to me what the purpose of the side bar panel is in terms of the problem I am having, aside from proving to myself that the problem file does exist within my Windows file organisation.

I am unable to sensibly parse your advice " Check the wiki psychoadept linked you to for discussion on what the Inbox is for and if you care to use it". The sentence appears to be telling me that some 'agent' named 'wiki  pyschoadept' or 'psychoadept' has linked me to some object, but I have no undersanding of what or where this agent is or how it has linked me to some information. I don't believe  MB has asked me for  an email address. As a matter of basic computer security I deny all requests to link to my computer systems, both at the firewall and at my router.

The contents of the inbox - when I could see it - has totally mystified me. This has to be the subject of another forum post , as it is off topic here. Suffice it to say that the inbox has identified a number of duplicate files which it has therefore hidden but the inbox window  utterly fails to tell me what they are duplicates of, i.e. what characteristics in the file properties are duplicated - time & date? File size ? File Name ? File content ? Encoding method ? Artist ? Album Artist? Year of composition? Composer? - and so on. So I am unable to determine what would have to be changed to eliminate the duplication. Te duplicate files listed are othrorgonal to the file which I cannot persuade MB to add to the library.

[Coogan]

LateJuntcion, you can find the preference setting by clicking on the MusicBee drop-down located in the top left.
Then go to Edit/Edit Preferences.

Hope this helps a little.

Coogan

[hiccup]

I am unable to sensibly parse your advice " Check the wiki psychoadept linked you to for discussion on what the Inbox is for and if you care to use it".

I've not followed the discussion before this, but psychoadept is a forum member, 'wiki' is a reference to a website that he created and maintains with lots of good info on MusicBee.
Presumably psychoadept has posted a link for you to a relevant page on that wiki:
Probably one like this: https://musicbee.fandom.com/wiki/Navigator

[redwing]

If some files won't get added to the library, they could already be in your library. Right click the file> send to> and see if "music library" option is disabled, if so it's already in the library.
For configuring duplicates, go to Tools> Manage duplicate and you can adjust "Selected Tags" on the top of the dialog.

[LateJunction]

LateJuntcion, you can find the preference setting by clicking on the MusicBee drop-down located in the top left.
Then go to Edit/Edit Preferences.

Hope this helps a little.

Coogan

Thanks for this  - understanding arrives! I should have been able to figure this out .....

[LateJunction]

I am unable to sensibly parse your advice " Check the wiki psychoadept linked you to for discussion on what the Inbox is for and if you care to use it".

I've not followed the discussion before this, but psychoadept is a forum member, 'wiki' is a reference to a website that he created and maintains with lots of good info on MusicBee.
Presumably psychoadept has posted a link for you to a relevant page on that wiki:
Probably one like this: https://musicbee.fandom.com/wiki/Navigator

Aha! Now all this makes sense - thank you very much. I can get on with this now

[LateJunction]

If some files won't get added to the library, they could already be in your library. Right click the file> send to> and see if "music library" option is disabled, if so it's already in the library.
For configuring duplicates, go to Tools> Manage duplicate and you can adjust "Selected Tags" on the top of the dialog.

That's very interesting: I had previously looked at this function "Manage duplicates" and it showed only files which were classified as duplicates, without giving me ANY indication of what/where the duplicates are. This time the top part of the window is organised in two columns with a 'keep' file on the left and all its duplicates on the right.

Great! Except that the listing of these files as 'duplicates' is wildly wrong: Not a single one of the duplicates listed is any way a duplicate of the associated keep file: not duplicate in file location, file name, file size, file content, file 'tags' (artist, album, date, and so on). On a quick review I did not find a single point of duplication in the hundreds of potential comparison criteria.

What is going on ?

{update}
I am not correct here: I now better understand what logic is being used to determine a duplicate - there are valid repeated instances of Artist Name for example. It is the combination of key tags that have to be carefully chosen to find what I consider a true duplicate. I have to do this work later. But in the mean time I am still left with a list of files in the lower part of this window which are described as duplicates, but with no indication of what the duplicate files are. I still do not yet understand how to address this form of duplication.

[redwing]

you can adjust "Selected Tags" on the top of the dialog.

[LateJunction]

you can adjust "Selected Tags" on the top of the dialog.

Thanks; yes, I have now 'discovered' this function, not having previously realised that 'Selected Tags' is a drop-down menu item.

I am assuming that the selected tags then act as 'AND' logic in determing which files are to be identified as duplicates. Having used this feature to specify no less than 10 tags in my files, this 'manage duplicates'  feature then finds 16 duplicates for one file which it has chosen (and for one only). The criteria used by MB for selecting this one 'keep' file (as I call it) are not revealed. More importantly none of these 16 identified duplicate files match the keep file in all 10 of  the selected tags. In fact they match in only one tag: playing time, which MB measures to be 0.00 in all these files. This begs the question of where MB is finding the data, after 0.00 seconds have elapsed, when asked to play any one of these files? MB is the only player I have which measures the files to be this long (short ?) but will still play them.

Again, I am forced to ask 'what is going on ?'

[redwing]

This one and another post of yours indicate some of your files have corrupt file header (though their audio stream is fine) that's why all these problems arise. You need to fix them. One way is using ffmpeg: https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=23193.0

[LateJunction]

This one and another post of yours indicate some of your files have corrupt file header (though their audio stream is fine) that's why all these problems arise. You need to fix them. One way is using ffmpeg: https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=23193.0

Thank you for this instruction. Based on the link you have shown me, I have created a "demux m4a" external application and am able to see the results of the action on the files in my music folders, by using the preview option in the template editor window which I have invoked my clicking on the '...' box at the right hand end of the 'parameters' data entry field, when defining the external application.

I used your modified version of the command string, without outer double quotes around that string. is that correct?

The preview option ouput showed the text 'OK' plus a column of filenames headed "Result" and a column of file names headed 'URL'. It seems that almost every audio file in my windows file organisation is listed here (more than 2000), but the execution of this sendto 'action' took about 100 milliseconds, so I was sure that nothing was actually done. An examination of the 'date modified' attribute of these audio files shows this to be true - and the files which MB had previously declined to add to the libary are still not being added.

Any idea why?

By the way, I used the version of ffmpeg.exe that I found in my MusicBee folder in the ProgramFiles (x86) directory. Is this suitable?

[LateJunction]

I have also tried running the procedure specified here

https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=23193.msg135406#msg135406

but sadly this fails with the error message :

At line:1 char:4
+ FOR %F IN (*.aac) DO C:\ffmpeg-20181212-32601fb-win64-static\bin\ffmp ...
+    ~
Missing opening '(' after keyword 'for'.
    + CategoryInfo          : ParserError: ( [], ParentContainsErrorRecordException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : MissingOpenParenthesisAfterKeyword

and this means very little to me - specifically I don't know how to correct the error. And I am not permiited to post on that part of the forum.

[redwing]

I think you'd better start with this:

If audio stream is fine, then you could try remuxing it using ffmpeg.

Code

ffmpeg.exe -i original.m4a -c copy new.m4a

It won't degrade audio quality as it simply copies the audio stream.

You should replace "original.m4a" with your actual filename for either m4a or aac files. For other file types, you will need to change output file extension too.

And try the new file with MB to see if that makes any differences.