Author Topic: Duplicate tracks throughout library after replacing hard drive  (Read 2513 times)

joninge

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I've been a very happy MB user for some time, but recently had to replace the hard drive in my computer.  The tech who did it transferred all my MB data to the new drive, but I noticed that in the middle of my Music (album) directories (c:/Users/Jon/Music/10cc, Beatles, Billy Joel, etc.) is a directory labeled MusicBee.  That in turn contains a "Ripped Files" sub-directory which contains another full set of my Music (album) directories and tracks, e.g. c:/Users/Jon/Music/MusicBee/Ripped Files/10cc, Beatles, Billy Joel, etc.  Is this a standard configuration? 
The problem is that now that I've reinstalled MB, every album contains two copies of every track, one in the Music directory and one in the Ripped Files one.  I've tried using the Manage Duplicates tool, but when it displays the duplicate tracks to be managed (which is everything in the library, over 11,000 tracks) it mixes up the directories where it found them.  For example, the Path of the first track on an album is shown as the /Jon/Music/10cc directory (as an example) while its identified Duplicate File is in the/Jon/Music/MusicBee/Ripped Files/10cc directory.  The same is true for the next track, but the third track has the directories reversed; the main Path is shown as the /Ripped Files directory while the Duplicate File is in the Jon/Music one.  The next track is back to the first order, the couple after that are reversed again, and so on in apparently random fashion.
How can I clean this up?  The Duplicates Manager tells me to drag and drop from one side to the other to sort the tracks I want to keep, but I can't do that for every single track in the library.  Help!
Jon

psychoadept

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I would suggest saving duplicates to a playlist and then sorting the playlist by Path. Then you can easily delete all the files from only one directory.
Last Edit: October 28, 2021, 05:18:03 AM by psychoadept
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phred

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and then sitting the playlist by Path.
sorting
Someone needs to disable their auto-correct.   :)
Download the latest MusicBee v3.5 or 3.6 patch from here.
Unzip into your MusicBee directory and overwrite existing files.

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joninge

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Thanks for the responses.  I set up a new playlist with two albums in it, each with duplicated tracks, and clicked Sort by Path.  MB appeared to do this, separating the tracks into two sets of complete albums, but it didn't display their paths, so I'm not sure which set to delete!  The Playlist Settings option offers to let me "use custom fields for this playlist only" but doesn't give me a list of fields to choose from.  Where do I set these?

phred

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From the track details view, right-click anywhere in the header bar > set displayed fields > drag URL from the left side to the right side > 'X' (upper right corner) out of the display fields window.
Download the latest MusicBee v3.5 or 3.6 patch from here.
Unzip into your MusicBee directory and overwrite existing files.

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joninge

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Got it, thanks.

Any feedback on whether it's normal for the Music directory to have a MusicBee folder among its Album folders, and for that to have a Ripped Files folder containing a duplicate of all the music Albums and Tracks?  After "data restoration" by the tech who replaced the hard drive, I now have (for example) \Users\Jon\Music\10cc\One Night in Paris as well as \Users\Jon\Music\MusicBee\Ripped Files\10cc\One Night in Paris, and so on for pretty much all of my music.  I'm tempted to delete the Ripped Files directory completely, but don't know if MB needs it for anything.

Jon

psychoadept

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sorting
Someone needs to disable their auto-correct.   :)

Ha, I swear it was right at first!

After "data restoration"

Assuming you ripped these albums from CD, it sounds like the data restoration dredged up files that had actually been deleted. As the name suggests, "Ripped Files" is typically the directory MusicBee uses when ripping CDs, before the tracks are officially imported into the library.
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joninge

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That's what made sense to me from a naming convention viewpoint, but does MB physically move the files from /Ripped Files into /Music when it imports them into the library?  It doesn't seem like it would need to, as long as it knows where the tracks are.  I'm just not sure why so many albums, almost all of which are indeed ripped from CDs, would be in both locations, physically, which is what File Explorer is telling me.

And I've found at least one album that's in /Ripped, but not /Music.

I suspect I may have no alternative but to physically move all my albums into one directory, go through them and delete all the duplicates, one at a time, rename that directory as /Music and then have MB re-scan it.  But with 2,000+ albums, it's not a prospect I look forward to.  And I'm not sure what MB's library would like like afterwards, as it would presumably have lost the location of every track it formerly knew about.

Jon

psychoadept

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If you use the duplicates to playlist method, then it should only catch tracks that are actually duplicates. Whatever's left in the Ripped Files folder after that could be integrated into the library more easily.
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phred

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And I'm not sure what MB's library would like like afterwards, as it would presumably have lost the location of every track it formerly knew about.
If you move the tracks within MB using the computer node, MB will know where every track is. If you do it outside of MB (with a file explorer) then you're going to be investing much more time in this.

Create a new folder in the computer node > move all tracks to the new folder (using the computer node) > delete your duplicates > select the remaining tracks and move them to organized folders. Be sure to test one or two albums first to make sure you're getting the results you expect.
Last Edit: October 29, 2021, 11:45:27 AM by phred
Download the latest MusicBee v3.5 or 3.6 patch from here.
Unzip into your MusicBee directory and overwrite existing files.

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The Wiki
Posting screenshots is here
Searching the forum with Google is  here

joninge

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Thanks to both of you for your prompt responses, and patience with my questions.  I hate to sound like the newbie I am, but "computer node"?  I've searched for and read several references to it in this forum, but can't find any way to show it in MB.  "Computer" is checked "on" in the Preferences/Layout 1 screen; if I right click a track and ask it to Search/Display in Computer Node it shows me another view of the album and tracks, but no computer directory tree, which seems to be what other folks are seeing, judging by the thread comments.  Is there some trick to getting it to display?  It sure sounds useful.

frankz

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If you open the  left sidebar, it'll be the section called "Computer"

joninge

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Ah, found it!  The left sidebar wasn't being displayed at all (I was confusing it with the left _panel_ that lists Album, Artist, Genre, etc.), and I couldn't see any options to switch it on in any of the Preferences screens.  Finally found it by clicking the Configure Layout icon next to the Search box at the top right of the screen; must have missed that somewhere along the way.

Thank you all for your help!  I think I can take it from here.

Best regards

Jon