MusicBee is deleting files instead of adding to library

[Jelly]

Hi
I'm a relatively new user of MusicBee. I've been using it to sort out my music library (approx 15,000 tracks on NAS). I've had the same problem twice now:
1. I added a 4 CD set of tracks to my "new music" folder on the NAS, which is monitored by MusicBee, expecting that MusicBee would organise and save the album into the correct folder using my template. It didnt, so I asked it to scan folders for new files, which took a few hours. At the end of this, MB seems to have completed deleted all of the tracks instead of adding them.
2. I've just had the same experience with an album where I changed the album artist name within MusicBee, which correctly resaved and filed the new files. However, I then found I had three tracks left over, which I had missed the first time. I could see them in the folder but MusicBee wasnt finding them, so I selected "add files to library" and navigated to the folder with the three tracks and selected them. MusicBee then immediately deleted them. I have searched the NAS and cannot find the files anywhere and they dont appear in MusicBee library.
This is very annoying.
Any ideas on what is going wrong - the log file seems to be empty, so I havent got much more info that I can post.

[phred]

What version of MB are you using? (Help > About)
How was MB installed? (Store, Installer, Portable)

Have you checked the Inbox for the missing files?
MB doesn't delete anything unless you've told it to, intentionally or by mistake.
Do you have auto-organize enabled?
What's the template that you're using to organize?

[Steven]

What you say simply doesnt sound plausible unless you are not describing the issue accurately.
The File Scanner does not have any code to delete files, so if the only thing you did was Scan for new files, they wont be deleted.
If during the file scan, MB cannot find a file at its expected location then it will prompt to remove dead links from the library, but again thats not deleting files, just prompting to remove invalid file links from the library.
Perhaps a good starting point would be to post a screenshot of the Library preferences tab and also the auto-organise files panel as well

[musicbee4dwd]

Check your disk to see if the files are there, but MB isn't seeing them. In other words, use a file browser to check the physical files on disk.

[Jelly]

Hi thanks.

I'm using v.3.4.7805 Store.
There's nothing in my Inbox.
The template I'm using is <Album Artist>\<Album>\<Disc-Track#> <Title>

I think you're right that it must be an auto-organise issue, which I previously had working.
I listed all tracks grouped by date, and managed to find the tracks from the 4 CDs, based on the date when I added them. They had been given a selection of track data that didn't match the album that they came from. I deleted those versions, disabled auto-organise and added the 4 CDs again, manually corrected all of the track data and then used the "organise" function to move the tracks to the correct folder on my NAS.
However, I still cannot find the three tracks that disappeared from an existing NAS folder. They are three tracks by "Them" that were in a Van Morrison folder. Before my OP I had already tried using Windows File Manager to search my music folder / sub-folders for them, which did not locate any tracks by "Them" or with the tracknames. I also looked in the MusicBee folder on my local hard drive but there is nothing in there and a MusicBee search doesnt locate the missing tracks either.
My guess is that MusicBee has given them some track name / artist data that is completely wrong (based on the metadata resources it's using), which is why I can't find them. ... I'll just have to listen to all 13,500 tracks to locate them ;-)

[ma_t14]

You could use a tool like Everything, search by extension (e.g. *.mp3) and sort by date modified. That should be a better starting point than listening to all your tracks  

[musicbee4dwd]

My guess is that MusicBee has given them some track name / artist data that is completely wrong (based on the metadata resources it's using), which is why I can't find them. ... I'll just have to listen to all 13,500 tracks to locate them ;-)

My point is that MB didn't change the filename. This is why I continue to suggest that people NOT rely ONLY on meta to find their flies. If files are named correctly in the first place, we can simply perform a search for the physical file. I recently had MB tag a file wrong on auto tag and I was just like you, "Huh? where did my file go?"

A simply search for the missing file found the file, and then I could see the meta error in "properties."

I have of my local music, that was once huge like yours, named conventionally in a systematic naming order, e.g:

ArtistName_SongTitle.FLAC

Ex:
   AlmondBrothers_WihppingPost.FLAC
   SpecialEFX_DeepAsTheNight.mp3

Now I can always find my music no matter what software I am using, and no matter if it is tagged or not. All I have to do is look at the file name.

If we rely on tagging only, and our file names are something like:

file001sdfr458.FLAC

Well, good luck!

[hiccup]

This is why I continue to suggest that people NOT rely ONLY on meta to find their flies. If files are named correctly in the first place, we can simply perform a search for the physical file.

Did you read what the OP explained? He has done a filename search for the filenames as he expected them to be, but that didn't work.

The reply from ma_t14 right before yours is the correct and helpful suggestion for this specific problem.

[musicbee4dwd]

This is why I continue to suggest that people NOT rely ONLY on meta to find their flies. If files are named correctly in the first place, we can simply perform a search for the physical file.

Did you read what the OP explained? He has done a filename search for the filenames as he expected them to be, but that didn't work.

The reply from ma_t14 right before yours is the correct and helpful suggestion for this specific problem.

I think he said this:

"Before my OP I had already tried using Windows File Manager to search my music folder / sub-folders for them, which did not locate any tracks by "Them" or with the tracknames."

He did not say he searched by "file name." That's why  suggest file level naming method. He may have his files named as  explained, but it was unclear from his post. It seems like he did have them named at the filename level, but I was not sure.

[Jelly]

Apologies for not being online recently.
I did search for file names. The underlying problem is that I had MusicBee set to rename files at the same time as organising them (which I think is a common setting). So when MusciBee renamed the files using the incorrect metadata, the files can no longer be found (because I dont know what they are called any longer).

[phred]

Did you follow these instructions that ma_t14 provided in reply #5?

You could use a tool like Everything, search by extension (e.g. *.mp3) and sort by date modified. That should be a better starting point than listening to all your tracks  

[Steven]

I did search for file names. The underlying problem is that I had MusicBee set to rename files at the same time as organising them (which I think is a common setting). So when MusciBee renamed the files using the incorrect metadata, the files can no longer be found (because I dont know what they are called any longer).

if you put your new untagged files into the Inbox tab then they wont be auto-organised until you move them to your music library