Library bak file cannot be saved

[Fréderique]

Hello,

I installed MusicBee version 3.4.7805 a year ago upon installing a new desktop. It worked fine until today. It didn't open and I was asked to add or localize the music library. I noticed that the .mbl file was missing in the MusicBee file in Program Files (x86), so I added it from my backup files. Then it opened without any problems but upon closing I got an error message saying that the bak file couldn't be saved, access denied. See screenshot. It's in Dutch but I suppose you'll know what it is about. I whitelisted MusicBee to my antivirus program as the message suggested but that didn't help. I find this strange as I didn't have any issues before and I didn't change anything. I have full administrator rights. Can you explain what went wrong and what I should do?

Thanks,
Fréderique

[vincent kars]

" .mbl file was missing in the MusicBee file in Program Files (x86), so I added it from my backup files. "
You probably added the MusicBeeLibrary backup to the wrong location.
Localisation is a read only map, part of  the Musicbee installation, not for user data.

Check File > Open library for the right path or point Musicbee to the right location
In my case it is in my user dir
C:\Users\vince\Music\AllMusic

[Fréderique]

Hi Vincent,

Thank you for responding.

I was able to reproduce what I did, bringing the backup .mbl file to the MusicBee file in Roaming. I compared my MB files to the ones in my laptop. Now I see that there are two MB files, one installation file in Roaming and one with the user data in C:\Users\User\Muziek. In the latter on my desktop there is only one file: Artist Pictures and one Thumb and one picture. Not the .mbl and .bak files and all the other ones that I see in the laptop files.

The same goes for the MB files in Roaming, very different from my laptop MB files. It seems that these files got corrupted somehow.

The path MB points to for the library is the one in Roaming, see screenshot.

Does this all mean that I better re-install? I have the settings saved but I suppose those settings also include the setting for the library path. How do I go about best?

[Steven]

c:\program files (x86) is a windows protected folder and you should not be using a sub-folder for your musicbee library. It would only work if you ran MB as an administrator
Most people use the default which is the windows music folder

[Fréderique]

Thank you, Steven, for your reply. I understand completely that it should not be there. The thing is I don't recall choosing that location. As all the files seem heavily corrupted, something must have happened to these folders/settings. I have to re-install Windows on the desktop as it contains a few bugs, maybe this has affected MB.

So can I re-install using the saved settings?

[sveakul]

Thank you, Steven, for your reply. I understand completely that it should not be there. The thing is I don't recall choosing that location. As all the files seem heavily corrupted, something must have happened to these folders/settings. I have to re-install Windows on the desktop as it contains a few bugs, maybe this has affected MB.

So can I re-install using the saved settings?

Since in all probability by now there are MusicBee files in various conditions scattered all over your PC, I would recommend forgetting about trying to save settings and instead do a complete uninstall of MusicBee, and do a Search-and-delete for any file/folder of that name as well AFTER the uninstall.  Just be sure all your music files are in a safe place.  Then, download and install the PORTABLE version of the latest MusicBee, installing to a folder outside the Windows permissions hierarchy, like "C:\MusicBee" .  And re-do your settings from scratch.  This isn't as bad as it sounds, and with the portable version all you need to do to backup everything is copy the "MusicBee" folder elsewhere.  That lets you do trial-and-error without ever worrying that you can't return to the last backed-up state for another go.

[Fréderique]

Thank you, sveakul, for your suggestion. I'm aware of the portable version and its advantages. But as I'm completely overwhelmed by the overload of technicalities in my life, re-doing the settings from scratch is a nightmare. That is why for years I didn't go to the next version of MB. And when I found out about the saved settings I was overjoyed.

I have a new idea. I have an old laptop and am in the process of installing a new laptop (am now on the desktop). I can use one of their saved settings when re-installing MB on the desktop. I looked at their Localisation paths in MB at Open library. One was C:/Users/User/Music/MusicBee and the other was my music partition on the internal HD. Which one is the right one, so I can use those saved settings. As these two are not the same, apparently I must be doing something wrong when assigning the library.

[Fréderique]

So this is what I did.

I uninstalled MB and downloaded the latest version. All my music files are in one partition of my internal HD called E:. After starting MB up I set the files to be searched in the main two music files there. After they were loaded MB opened and I put in the last saved settings from the new laptop. Then I got a pop-up where I saw the E: file but it said not located and I clicked on localisation and chose the C:/Users/User/Music file where the MusicBeeLibrary.mbl is. All seems to be well now. Can you confirm this is correct and the right way to go about assigning the library?

Do I understand correctly that the .mbl file points MB to where the actual music files are located?

[psychoadept]

I'm not sure I followed your steps, but regarding your last question, yes the .mbl file is what points to the audio files on your system. The .mbl IS your library, the database containing all the info about your collection. It does NOT contain any settings. Library settings have a file that should be in the same directory as the .mbl file, and all other settings are in the appdata folder. For the portable version, that's a subfolder of your installation directory. Otherwise it's your %User%/AppData folder.

One thing this means is that if you reinstall MusicBee in some new directory (or on a new system), you can take an existing .mbl file and overwrite the one created on installation. If you're not intentionally maintaining multiple libraries, I would delete any extra .mbl files, so there's never any confusion which one is the right one.

[Fréderique]

I re-installed MB again to make screenshots of what happened as I thought something hadn't gone right.

I did a complete uninstall with RevoUninstaller (so also leftover files). After installation of MB I chose the files in E: as my music library but it said the files were already there. That is probably because I didn't reboot before re-installation, I guess. Then I put in the saved settings and all looked well. I checked the library path and it is C:\Users\User\Music. No other pop-ups this time and no problems upon closing.

I must say I still don't have a clear picture of how this all works with the library, but I think it works again as it should.

Thank you so much for your help and patience. It was really confusing to me.