File conversion issue: wav to flac with duplicates

[Miguel Brochu]

Hey guys im in the process of converting my whole library 6000 songs(230 GB) from WAV to FLAC to save space on my drive. I tried the option under
Tools / Convert Format

I ticked the box (replace the source file - the original will be deleted)  & (artwork always embed in converted file).

I realised that it was in fact converting the WAV to FLAC and also placing it in its original file but also not deleting some of the original songs from that said file. Now i tried the option

Tools / Manage Duplicates  (after the conversion process)

The keep file and duplicate section were mixed with WAV and FLAC in both sections. There was so many and did the mistake of hitting execute on the ones i did move to keep ( FLAC) but then i had songs missing from my playlist ( relocate missing file) also were missing their metadata as well as some song not retreivable at all beeing blank (no artist or album ingo)  if id click on em it would say file unavailable or something like that. Now i have made a back up of all my music and playlist wich i am redownloading on my drive ( i deleted all songs and playlist from original drive location)  to retry and fix it. This will be my THIRD attempt. Can someone guide me in the right direction please? Thanks

[frankz]

If the concern is that the wav files are not being deleted because of whatever reason (drive was busy, glitch, etc), why not just manually delete the WAV files that are left over after you've converted everything?  Seems a lot easier than going through the process multiple times to get that same result.  Search the main folder and subfolders for *.wav and delete them if there are any.

I've also found that, at times, metadata does not immediately appear in the converted (resulting) file.  A file rescan of these files fixes it.  It's been there for me, just not shown.

[Miguel Brochu]

If the concern is that the wav files are not being deleted because of whatever reason (drive was busy, glitch, etc), why not just manually delete the WAV files that are left over after you've converted everything?  Seems a lot easier than going through the process multiple times to get that same result.  Search the main folder and subfolders for *.wav and delete them if there are any.

I've also found that, at times, metadata does not immediately appear in the converted (resulting) file.  A file rescan of these files fixes it.  It's been there for me, just not shown.

Thank you Frankz, the reason i didin't manually delete the WAV. files after conversion is because the metadata stuck to the WAV. file and did not transfer over to the FLAC. when they did in fact duplicate I will try to rescan files again after doing so but i beleive i did and still nothing. i don't feel like rewriting all that data because it is months or even years of work. Maybe i will try to convert them to a different folder and keeping original file for now. if sucesfull il figure out how to repath playlist to the FLAC's and hopefully transfering the flacs as a whole to the original folder dosent mess things up. Sorry i am not the most techy person out here but i love Musicbee and have been using it for a few years now. i will let you know if i figure this dillema out.

[frankz]

if sucesfull il figure out how to repath playlist to the FLAC's and hopefully transfering the flacs as a whole to the original folder dosent mess things up.

This will not be easy, if it's even possible.

I will say that I've noticed that I only get problems doing this if the drive is heavily taxed (i.e. it's currently doing a backup or something else intense or if the MB task itself is very large).  Probably best to continue doing what you're doing - you're doing it the right way - but scheduling it for times that the computer isn't being used for other things and also in small batches.

If you do choose to go the route of keeping the originals for a time as tag security, the Additional Tagging Tools plugin is excellent at copying any/all tags and database information from the old files to the new files when needed.

[Miguel Brochu]

if sucesfull il figure out how to repath playlist to the FLAC's and hopefully transfering the flacs as a whole to the original folder dosent mess things up.

This will not be easy, if it's even possible.

I will say that I've noticed that I only get problems doing this if the drive is heavily taxed (i.e. it's currently doing a backup or something else intense or if the MB task itself is very large).  Probably best to continue doing what you're doing - you're doing it the right way - but scheduling it for times that the computer isn't being used for other things and also in small batches.

If you do choose to go the route of keeping the originals for a time as tag security, the Additional Tagging Tools plugin is excellent at copying any/all tags and database information from the old files to the new files when needed.

Frankz, i really appreciate all the help, i managed to redo all playlist by converting WAV. To FLAC. From each individual playlist one by one, the problem was my harddrive was right full (maxed out) plus some songs were in subfolders and for some odd reason it would create the FLAC. while not deleting the original WAV. In the same folder. So i had to manually delete them, one of my playlist after converting half stayed WAV and half were FLAC not in any form of order at all. Kind of a glitch. But today i spent all day redoing my one playlist what a job...so the main problem was lack of storage and the sub folders for some reason was giving me a hard time with conversions. Now i have one main folder with all my music in one. Now to do a mirror back up of my files on another harddrive and playlist back up. Thank you very much! Last time i will be going through a big conversion like this. Now i have my harddrive half full and lots of room while keeping original sound quality. Plus you are right, i tried multitasking while deleting files off my file directory while musicbee was converting and it would crash and act weird. So best to do one task at a time. Thank you my freind for helping the musicbee community. Ive seen you help lots of others out and have helped me in other situations as well. Cheers🍻

Keep on BEEing on aha

[frankz]

Thank you for the kind words.  Happy to help!