Author Topic: Music files / meta data  (Read 2348 times)

petesrdic

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Really hoping your experience can save the day here.
I had to restore my actual music files (wav & mp3) from a backup. This was successful however in MB almost half of the 18,000 tracks have lost meta data. They show as track title only. No artist album, year etc.
Note that the same tracks in iTunes still DO have their full metadata. So why do they have it in iTunes but not in MB.
Screen shot shows a couple of direct same track examples, MB and iTunes.

I have tried importing the library numerous times and still get the same, missing meta data in MB. Also tried via creating new libraries.
I've also exported the iTunes XML library file and imported in to MB but this does not resolve it. Odd, as again, iTunes still shows the files with full data.

So to me it seems the data is still there but I just can't get MB to show it all again (I did have it before the deletion of the files I had to restore). Have you experience with this please ?

As an option would deleting MB and all related files and start fresh work ? IF I do that is there a way I can export my playlists but ALSO keep my file hierarchy within those playlists ?

https://imgur.com/0lCSQB7

https://imgur.com/RgbIfZp

Desperate for some advice here please. Many thanks.

petesrdic

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An update - I did a fresh install on another PC and it does import all meta data.

Therefore maybe I am better off with a clean re-install of MB, but as I asked can I export my Playlists file structure?


Or, is the there a folder I should delete and then either reimport, rescan, etc ?

boroda

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it's easy to move playlists (with all hierarchy), just copy folder '<old library folder>\playlists' to '<new library folder>\', but...

playlists store absolute paths to tracks, so you must locate music files on new pc on the same drive letter and with same paths.

petesrdic

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Great that's encouraging, thanks.
Just to be clear - where do I doing this from exactly please as not immediately obvious when I search for it ? 
folder '<old library folder>\playlists' to '<new library folder>\']

boroda

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run mb on old pc, file> library>open library, you'll see the path to the library. open that path in win explorer. you'll see folder 'playlists' (along with other folders) inside library folder. copy 'playlists' to flash drive, then copy it to library folder on new pc (you can find out library path on new pc by running mb on new pc and clicking file> library...).

petesrdic

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Thanks @boroda, perfect with the playlists.

I've uninstalled the program and deleted the MC folder, and reinstalled, and still have the issue with missing meta data. I've re-scanned, also imported the Library again, and no improvement. I just can't understand why on another PC, ALL the meta data loaded cleanly. This is really weird.


boroda

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try tools> advanced> rescan all files. but maybe your music files are corrupted.

petesrdic

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Thanks @boroda, very helpful.
Looks like we are now okay. Phew!

Appreciate your advice.