New installation: It looks I cannot create my library (no progress in scan proce

[AndreaT]

Hello, I am a very new user of MusicBee, 2nd time attempting to install it.
Before going to the problem, let me clarify that I am an old user of Foobar2000 and somehow also of JRiver MC. I have installed both players many times, so I have some knowledge about the "common" set-up steps, but I am not experienced at all with MusicBee.

Now, coming to the problem I ma facing:
1) I installed MB last stable version 3.4 on a Window 10 32bit laptop having all Windows patches and so on.
2) Because I know I have large library spanning 4 HDDs, at the initial set-up phase I did NOT selected to scan for files, but I selected the folders/drivers where my files are.
3) Then I set-up the audio chain and also well selected in Library the option "continuosly monitor" and "on start-up check for ...".
4) After that I restarted MusicBee as per instruction received
5) Nothing happes... Libray is empty also after 15 minutes... No entry in the "Music => All Tracks"
6) So, I tried to force a scan using the option "Files => Scan Folder for new files"
7 After 1h I am still having nothing in the Library, while MusicBee looks starving on doing something ... as CPU usage is around 25% (see screenshot below)
https://imgur.com/wHRgsEu

I was expecting, as it is for Foobar and JRiver, to have some background scannig service running and to see the library getting populated.
But nothing. I checked the Libray Stat info, and it is empty!

Question: what shall I have to do now?

Thanks and regards
Andrea

[psychoadept]

Hi, welcome to the forum!

If your library is very large, as you say, it's entirely possible that MusicBee is still working on that first scan. The monitored folder scans are "silent", they aren't shown in the UI anywhere. My suggestion, for now, would be to turn off monitored folders and use the "Scan Folder For New Files" command instead.  Then scan in your files in smaller batches, maybe one drive at a time, until you're confident it's working as expected.  Once everything is in MusicBee, you can turn monitored folders back on and it should function more efficiently since it only has to deal with new or updated files.

[AndreaT]

Hello psychoadept, thanks for your prompt follow-up but I am not sure to have understood how shall I have to proceed.
Let me try to recap:
1) Set Library scan only at start-up (I don't see the option to disable it at all)
2) Then I have also to remove the already set-up set of HDDs and folders
3) Then I will try to scan 1 HDD at a time

But... other question ... if I remove then one HDD, am I going to loose that portion of the library or not?
And other question, how does MB library scanning engine manage the deletion (wanted removal or file system folder/structure change/rename) of files?
Foobar2000 and JRiver automatically detect this type of change and update the library accordingly. Is it the case of MB as well?

Thanks and regards
Andrea

[psychoadept]

1. To disable startup scan, just remove the folders from that section until you're ready to use it again (which I guess is the answer to #2)
3. Yes, see https://musicbee.fandom.com/wiki/Importing#Scan_Folders_for_New_Files

Regarding losing the library, no. Once files are in MusicBee they will remain unless MusicBee detects they've been deleted, and even then it will prompt you for whether you want to remove them or not.

By default, MusicBee will always prompt you whether you want to delete a file from just the library or the whole computer. This can be disabled in preferences, if you're comfortable with that. MusicBee also deletes files to the Recycle Bin, if you ask it to remove them from the system, so if you delete something by accident you should be able to find it again.

Edit: Just for clarification, MusicBee will usually detect things like tag changes automatically in a monitored folder, but if you're planning to reorganize your files and don't want to lose metadata like playcount or date added, then you should do file moves from within MusicBee. There's a wiki page on file organization, too.

[AndreaT]

Hello psychoadept, thanks again for your kind support.
I did as you directed for my first HDD and it worked.
Now I am going to do the same for the other 3, one at a time.
To avoid to rescan again the same HDD, I removed from the Scan_Folders_for_New_Files window the old HDD. Is it correct?
I ask you this because MusicBee at the second use of the function already propose the old scanned items in the panel.
Regards, Andrea

[psychoadept]

Yes, generally you can remove folders you don't need when you scan for new files. On the other hand, unless there's been a significant update, usually a re-scan of the same folder goes much faster because MusicBee is only checking for new files and changes on old files.  I think this is based on the date modified attribute of the files.  (There is a separate function to force a rescan on files already scanned into the library.)

[AndreaT]

Hello psychoadept,

Thank you much, I am now importing my last HDD and, so far, the system did not reported any problem.

Is there a kind of LOG file or whatever else I can check for having the confirmation of "no problem" or "list of exceptions"?

Regards, Andrea

[psychoadept]

You can open the error log from the Help menu. Generally if you don't see an error message pop up during the process, there's nothing to worry about.

[AndreaT]

Hello psychoadept,
yesterday I completed the import process but I got errors.

Even if MB import process (the panel) did not reported errors, the Log file shows several errors of "File open failed".
I have also the impression that this Error Log retains only information about the last execution of Scan_Folders_for_New_Files because I could find errors only about the last added HDD... very strange to not have any error from the other 3 HDDs...

Moreover, I think that the problem might be bigger than what reported in the Error Log because at the end of the import, MB reports only 538457 tracks, while JRiver tells 706741.
Also Foobar library scan reports around 690k items (Foobar doesn't read videos, while JRiver does).

Are you able to support me solving this big problem?

Thanks and regards, Andrea