How to migrate bookmarks from COMPUTER-A to COMPUTER-B?

[cag8f]

Hi all.  I have two Windows computers.  On COMPUTER-A I've added many podcasts, and from several I've created several bookmarks which I can view/play from the MusicBee bookmarks tab (screenshot).  On COMPUTER-B I have installed MusicBee fresh. It contains no music, podcasts, or bookmarks.  What are my options for migrating the MusicBee bookmarks from COMPUTER-A to COMPUTER-B?

In this case, my plan to migrate the podcasts from COMPUTER-A to COMPUTER-B is to carry out a more manual migration.  I don't plan to migrate by backing up MusicBee on COMPUTER-A and restoring to COMPUTER-B.  I tried that a few months ago and there were many prohibitive issues, so I'm planning to migrate the podcasts by simply copying the files from COMPUTER-A to COMPUTER-B, then adding them to the correct folder on COMPUTER-B so MusicBee recognizes them.

Thanks in advance.

[karbock]

Hi cag8f,

The information you need is summarised in this post:
MusicBee File Paths (Installed vs. Portable)

In the TOC, use these sections:
(2)
     (H) Podcasts
     (I) Bookmarks

Don't hesitate to ask if something is not clear.

[cag8f]

Hi @karbock,

Thanks very much for the reply. I had a look at that post.  I still have a few questions if you don't mind.

To describe my situation, I have MusicBee installed on COMPUTER-A, with podcasts and bookmarks.  I have now installed MusicBee fresh on COMPUTER-B, and have not copied any files from COMPUTER-A to COMPUTER-B.  When I open MusicBee on COMPUTER-B there is absolutely nothing to play right now--it is completely blank.

At this point, are the instructions saying I can simply copy the bookmarks index (i.e. %APPDATA%\MusicBee\bookmarks.dat) from COMPUTER-A to COMPUTER-B, and after the bookmarks will immediately become available for play on COMPUTER-B?

To remind you, these bookmarks were all created from podcast episodes that are also in MusicBee on COMPUTER-A.  Does that mean the podcast episodes need to first be added to MusicBee on COMPUTER-B? Or are there even more steps that need to be taken before I can play the bookmarks on COMPUTER-B?

Thanks! :-)

[sveakul]

All the bookmarks are are time indexes to portions of the actual podcast files, so of course you would need to have all of the podcast files moved to Computer B as well.

If the MusicBee install on Computer A had been a Portable install, just copying the folder you installed it to to Computer B would have solved your problem.  Of course anything that had been added to the library on A would have to exist on the same path as on B.

[karbock]

I couldn't agree more with sveakul (who answered while I was typing).

If you have an installed version of MusicBee instead of a portable one:
copy from computer A to computer B (while MusicBee is not running on B):
- the podcast episodes and their index (H.2 + H.1)
- the covers (H.3)
- the bookmark index (I.1)
Afterwards, all the podcasts and their bookmarks must be available in MusicBee on computer B.
(Successfully tested on my computer, by copying from a portable instance of MusicBee onto an installed version.)

[cag8f]

Thanks very much to both of you. @karbock I've given your instructions a try for one single bookmark.  I was able to accomplish what I want, thanks very much.  That should be sufficient for me.

In case you're curious though, in my exercise, after I carried out the migration steps, I still had to carry out some manual steps before I could play the bookmark on COMPUTER-B. I'll describe below.

Issue: Note that on COMPUTER-A I have ~50 bookmarks created from different podcast episodes.  After I copied one podcast episode and bookmarks.dat to COMPUTER-A, I then opened the Bookmarks tab in MusicBee on COMPUTER-B.  There were ~50 rows, just as on COMPUTER-A--which is expected.  But in every row, the value in the following columns was blank: Artist, Title, Album, Commen--only an exclamation point icon was displayed in the far left column .  Those values are not blank in COMPUTER-A MusicBee.  Luckily the values int he Start and End columns were displayed correctly, which allowed me to correlate a row to its correct podcast episode (see screenshot here).  This is expected for most, since currently, all rows except one correspond to bookmarks created from podcast episodes I have not yet migrated to COMPUTER-B. But this was also the case for the bookmark attached to the podcast episode I had already migrated to COMPUTER-B.

Resolution:  To resolve this, using the Start/End values, I located the row containing my desired podcast, then double click it.  MusicBee then said it could not locate the source file and asked me to locate it (screenshot). Once I did that, the row then displayed all the missing column values.  I could then double click the row to play tthe bookmark.  Of note though, at that point, the values in the Start/End columns stopped displaying.  When I re-started MusicBee, they returned.

I'm not telling you that as a demand that you fix it. I can and will move forward with the steps you've given me.  I'm telling you about this issue because you sound like you might be a developer, or someone else interested in knowing about this behavior.

Thanks very much for the help from both of you.

[karbock]

(...) But in every row, the value in the following columns was blank: Artist, Title, Album, Commen--only an exclamation point icon was displayed in the far left column . (...)

The first thing that comes to my mind: is the path to your Podcast folder exactly the same on both machines?
D:\cag\media\music\Podcasts\The RIPEcast\...

[cag8f]

Thanks for the reply.

> The first thing that comes to my mind: is the path to your Podcast folder exactly the same on both machines?

No it's not.  Let me try to run some tests to see if ensuring the same folder structure will help alleviate this issue. 

But on that note, can I ask a related question about that process?

On COMPUTER-A I have several different podcast subscriptions.  Each different subscription has a sub-folder in a folder named Podcasts, and as you saw this folder is in a custom location: D:\cag\media\music\Podcasts\  When I add a new podcast, a new sub-folder is automatically created in this Podcasts folder.  How can I reproduce this behavior on COMPUTER-B? On COMPUTER-B, new podcasts are added to %USERPROFILE%\Music\MusicBee\Podcasts.

Here is what I've checked:

* On COMPUTER-A, none of the podcast subscriptions have the option 'override default folder for downloaded podcast files' ticked. So somehow I convinced MusicBee that this custom location was the default folder for new podcasts.

* On COMPUTER-A, in Preferencess-->Library-->Monitored Folders there is one path: D:\cag\media\music\  I ensured this was also done on COMPUTER-B. But after, new podcasts were still added to only %USERPROFILE%\Music\MusicBee\Podcasts.

[karbock]

The settings for 'Monitored folders' do not define where future podcasts will be stored.

The default parent folder for the podcasts is specified here:
Preferences -> tab 'Library' -> section 'podcasts' -> 'naming template' -> button 'Reorganise...'

There, try replacing:
    (your user profile path)\Music\MusicBee\Podcasts
by:
    D:\cag\media\music\Podcasts\
(if you have a D: drive on computer B, of course)
and clicking on button 'Reorganise'.

Then you will have the same podcast location on both computers.

[cag8f]

>> There, try replacing:
>>     (your user profile path)\Music\MusicBee\Podcasts
>> by:
>>     D:\cag\media\music\Podcasts\

OK thanks for that.  So is that to say, at some point in the past, on COMPUTER-A, I must have carried out such a chnage of folders?  Is there any actual record that I did this, or a field in the MusicBee preferences that indicates this folder was been changed?  On COMPUTER-A I don't see that anywhere.  Just curious for the future.

>> if you have a D: drive on computer B, of course

GOOD CATCH :-D  In this case, I actually don't have a D drive on COMPUTER-B--I hadn't noticed until now.  And I don't know if creating one for this purpose would be worth it in this case. So in light of that, I think I"ll probably just stick to the manual steps required when migrating bookmarks.  But it was a good learning exercise, and I'm glad I have a viable solution.  Thanks very much for your help there.

[frankz]

Would File->Library->Relink Music File Paths work here? I don't use podcasts so I don't know.  Pretty sure it worked for me on audiobooks when I started using MB though.

[karbock]

Would File->Library->Relink Music File Paths work here? I don't use podcasts so I don't know.  Pretty sure it worked for me on audiobooks when I started using MB though.

I had tried, but it doesn't apply to podcasts, obviously.
MB v3.5.8736 P

EDIT: corrected typo

[karbock]

OK thanks for that.  So is that to say, at some point in the past, on COMPUTER-A, I must have carried out such a chnage of folders?  Is there any actual record that I did this, or a field in the MusicBee preferences that indicates this folder was been changed?  On COMPUTER-A I don't see that anywhere.  Just curious for the future.

MusicBee doesn't record a complete history of changes.
The setting files contain for each item the last value, but there is a .bak version for some of those files and for the library, containing the values before the last save:
* MusicBee3Settings.bak
* MusicBeeLibrary.bak
* MusicBeeLibrarySettings.bak
* Subscriptions.bak

[frankz]

Would File->Library->Relink Music File Paths work here? I don't use podcasts so I don't know.  Pretty sure it worked for me on audiobooks when I started using MB though.

I had tried, but it doesn't apply to podcasts, obviously.
MB v3.5.8736 P

EDIT: corrected typo

If it was obvious, I wouldn't have asked.

[karbock]

If it was obvious, I wouldn't have asked.

Sorry, the word 'obviously' was badly chosen: I wanted to express the meaning of 'as it appears'.
It can't be inferred from MB's menus, so it's not obvious, but that's what appears from a test.