Two devices - same MusicBee?

[martux]

Dear MusicBee lovers: I have a simple task: I have a tower PC, a small always-on headless device and a laptop. All running Windows 10. What I like to achieve is this: I would like to play my songs from the tower PC and the laptop. Best would be if they would use the exact same configuration library and playlist files. So if I rate a song, it would just appear on those two devices. Would it be best to just use the always-on as the file server? I have complete copies of my whole collection on both other devices, and sync them regularly with Total Commander.
What is your suggested mode of operation here?

[martux]

Hello? Is this such an unusual question? How can I make 2 MB instances show the same playlists, last played, everything? Is it simply enough to point both instances to the same MB subdirectory? That doesn't seem to work for me, hence my question. Basically I need to sync my rated tracks everywhere. How do I achieve that in the most easy way?

[psychoadept]

If your files are located on a shared drive, then you can just put MusicBee on both computers and use the same files. It's a bad idea to try to run the same MusicBee library from two devices because it could cause the library to become corrupted.

[frankz]

I run the same MusicBee library, located in a shared directory, from three devices and have done so for two and a half years now with no difficulty.  Just don't have more than one open at the same time.

Here's how.

[martux]

thank you, will try that!

[Casual Tea]

I run the same MusicBee library, located in a shared directory, from three devices and have done so for two and a half years now with no difficulty.  Just don't have more than one open at the same time.

Here's how.

Sorry for necroing this, but do you still run your setup like this without major issues 3+ years down the road?

I'm in the process of installing windows on my htpc to be able to watch movies with 2 different languages (eng and ger) over 2 different audio devices (avr audio passthrough via hdmi and headphones via soundcard) in sync at the same time so my father gets his German dub and I get the original audio.

That got me thinking that I could also install MusicBee on the htpc while I'm at it.
Since all my files are in samba shares on my NAS, mounted via drive letters in windows, replicating these shares/paths on the htpc (simply mount the same shares of the server with the same drive letters) should be trivial.
I've contemplated using one shared library in the past for other members of my family (they are lazy and hate scanning) but quickly discarded the thought because of play count issues, scrobbling and possible database corruption that I read about at the time.

However since I'd be the only one using either my PC or the htpc for music that would no longer be a problem and a shared library sounds tempting.
I'm already doing something similar with 2 Kodi instances on different pcs which access the same mariadb on my server as their "brain".

Do you use LastFM in your setup and how does that react to you starting to play a song on device A and finishing it on device B?

[frankz]

https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=36915.0

I don't start playing songs on one machine and finish on another.

[Casual Tea]

https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=36915.0

I don't start playing songs on one machine and finish on another.

I didn't know that thread existed.

I have the option to save the playback position active.
That's what I meant with starting to play a song on device A and finishing it on device B:
Stop playback and exit the program on device A, playback position is saved as 2min 30 for example.
Then start Musicbee on device B and resume playback from 2min 30.
I wonder if that would get scrobbled correctly.

On another note:
How's the performance with the Musicbee configuration and database on a network share compared to having it locally on an m2 ssd for example?
My library is fairly large (807k tracks, 21.2TB) and I'd hate to harm performance (I'm quite happy that re-sorting the library, switching between tabs etc. currently only takes 2ish seconds).
In comparison MediaMonkey took more than 10 seconds for the same tasks on the same hardware.

[frankz]

https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=36915.0

I don't start playing songs on one machine and finish on another.

I didn't know that thread existed.

I have the option to save the playback position active.
That's what I meant with starting to play a song on device A and finishing it on device B:
Stop playback and exit the program on device A, playback position is saved as 2min 30 for example.
Then start Musicbee on device B and resume playback from 2min 30.
I wonder if that would get scrobbled correctly.

On another note:
How's the performance with the Musicbee configuration and database on a network share compared to having it locally on an m2 ssd for example?
My library is fairly large (807k tracks, 21.2TB) and I'd hate to harm performance (I'm quite happy that re-sorting the library, switching between tabs etc. currently only takes 2ish seconds).
In comparison MediaMonkey took more than 10 seconds for the same tasks on the same hardware.

I don't know how it would perform on an m2 ssd because I've had it set up this way in some form since I started using MB.  I don't notice any lag and I never wait around for things to happen in the program, but my library is 1/10th the size of yours.

You can always set it up separate from your current install and try it.

[Casual Tea]

I've tried it. You can amend your guide a bit if you want to as I've noticed a few things.

There's no need to start over (reconfigure and rescan).
You can carry over your layout, settings, library etc. from the non portable local install by simply copying the contents of

Code

C:\Users\Username\Music\MusicBee

to the

Code

MusicBee\Library

subfolder of the portable MusicBee installation and also copying over

Code

C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\MusicBee

to the

Code

MusicBee\AppData

subfolder of the portable MusicBee installation.

If your music files were stored locally previously (for example on a drive in your PC as drive letter G) you might have to use

Code

File -> Library -> Relink Music File Paths...

to adjust the file paths to a network location (\\192.168.1.3\Music for example) that all the PCs you plan to use MusicBee with in this fashion have access to.

For my use case I did not even need to do that as I had mounted my music library as Z: in windows as a samba share from my TrueNAS server. Since I also created the exact same share of Z: on the second machine that I use the portable configuration on there was no need to change any file paths.


All I did was to download the portable version of musicbee, extract the archive, install it to my internal ssd, copy over the 2 folders as described above, copy the portable installation to a network share on my server, start musicbee from that location, locate the library within the portable musicbee installation and create a shortcut to the MusicBee executable location on both PCs. If I had not already recreated the Z: share mount on the 2nd PC for other reasons I also would have had to do that.

Performance via the network is almost on par with the performance on my m2 ssd and scrobbling works. Even when I start playing a track on my desktop PC and finish it on the HTPC.

Thanks for the guidance, I'm happy with the result.

Edit:
I forgot to mention that if windows asks you if you want to trust the program from an unknown source when you open musicbee from the network location, you can avoid that by adding the file server IP to the trusted intranet sites.

In windows that is:

Code

Internet options -> Security -> Local Intranet -> Sites -> Advanced -> add the IP of the file server and confirm + save