Problems after moving MB to a new computer

[BillH]

I just bought a new Desktop PC.  I had MB installed and working great on my old desktop PC.  

1.  I backed up my D:\My Music folder on my old PC and restored it to D:\My Music on my new PC.
2. I backed up my ...AppData\Roaming\MusicBee folder on my old PC and restored it to ...AppData\Roaming\MusicBee on my new PC.
3. I backed up my ...AppData\Local\MusicBee folder on my old PC and restored it to ...AppData\Local\MusicBee on my new PC.
4.  I installed MB on my new PC and told it to look for music in my D:\My Music folder.

For the most part everything looks great.  Layout is the same.  The albums and tracks and cover art looks great for hundreds of albums.  My playlists all look fine.

However, I'm having the same issue that was described in this topic:  https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=36976.msg202938#msg202938

For about 25 or 30 albums, their is no meta data and often no cover art.

Here is what one album looked like on my old PC.

https://i.imgur.com/Pa4HyJP.jpeg

Here is what the same album looks like on my new PC.

https://i.imgur.com/2o6dWoy.png

Here is what the album looks like in File Explorer.

https://i.imgur.com/z4Jc8eK.png

As you can see from the screenshots, the album is messed up on the new PC.
   1. There is no album art despite there being a cover.jpg file in the folder and it shows as "Unknown Album" on the new PC.
   2. The artist shows as "Unknown Artist" on the new PC.
   3. The track titles are showing a track number in them which didn't appear on my old PC.
   4. There is no Year, Album, Track#, Album Artist, Artist, or Composer showing on the new PC even though it does appear on the old PC.  For some reason the Time and Bitrate do show.
  5.  The sort order is all mixed up on the new PC.  They are not in track order, maybe because there is nothing in the Track column?

What is odd is that for the album in my first screen shot the second song (track 16) is The Last Word on the album Deluxe Edition by Roy Buchanan.  This same song is in a playlist and there it looks fine.

https://i.imgur.com/gK3RJmV.jpeg
  
As I mentioned this is only on about 25 or 30 albums out of hundreds of albums.

Did I do something wrong  in what I did to install MB on the new PC?
Is there some way to correct the problem on the new PC?

I did search around and read a lot of topics on the forum, but didn't find anything directly related to my problem other than the one I referenced and there was no solution listed there.  Steven mentioned links to problem files which I would be happy to provide, but I'm not sure what problem files he means.

Thanks,
Bill

[frankz]

Have you tried...

Select all the files in the album->Right Click->Send To->File Rescan

...?

[BillH]

Thanks for the idea @frankz.  I just tried it but nothing changed.

Thanks,
Bill

[frankz]

You don't mention moving your library (*.mbl) file along with everything else and then opening it in the new install.  Instead, you had it scan your music files as if you were a new user again.  Why? 

If the tags are not in the music files, they're there.  The library database is the heart of your Musicbee experience.

This wouldn't explain why your Windows Explorer information is in tact, though, but one thing at a time.

It couldn't hurt.  If all of your music files are in the "same" locations as on the old computer, there's no downside to opening your old *.mbl file in the new MB install.

[BillH]

Sorry, I should have mentioned that I copied over the entire contents of the My Music folder over to the new PC.  That includes the MusicBee folder which contains all the .mbl files (I think, correct me if I'm wrong).

I'm not sure I understand.  Should I not have allowed the MB installer to scan my My Music folder?  I forget what the other options were.  Which one should I have used?

Now that the MB files I copied over previously may have been updated on the new PC, should I uninstall MusicBee from the new PC, recopy the MusicBee folder over to the new PC as well as the AppData folders and reinstall MusicBee using a different option in the installer?

Thanks,
Bill 

[frankz]

Yes, if you were trying to recreate what you had on the old computer,  rescanning your files as if everything was new was probably not the best option.

Personally, I'd go to...

File->Library->Open Library->Create New Library-....or choose an existing library that no longer appears in the selection list

...and then choose my old *.mbl file and see what happens.  

You can always re-open the new version that you created on the new computer if the results are sub-optimal, but you may just wind up with your missing information.

[sveakul]

Sorry, I should have mentioned that I copied over the entire contents of the My Music folder over to the new PC.  That includes the MusicBee folder which contains all the .mbl files (I think, correct me if I'm wrong).

I'm not sure I understand.  Should I not have allowed the MB installer to scan my My Music folder?  I forget what the other options were.  Which one should I have used?

Now that the MB files I copied over previously may have been updated on the new PC, should I uninstall MusicBee from the new PC, recopy the MusicBee folder over to the new PC as well as the AppData folders and reinstall MusicBee using a different option in the installer?

Thanks,
Bill  

This is a text book example of the confusion caused when trying to migrate an "Installer" version of MusicBee, especially when one is unclear on even what parts of it lie where.  Part of it is just due to the "funny" way (IMO) it uses the Music folder for program files, etc.

Your best bet would have been to have used the Portable version from the get-go, where migration could have been as easy as copying over ONE FOLDER, and just making sure that all your actual music files reside on the same drive letter paths as before.  You could still start all over from scratch with Portable and re-create your old look manually, which nobody with a complex setup really wants (understandably) to do.  And if as I suspect your original .mbl file contained the beloved "ratings" and other ancillary data, that part would be toast.

Frankz is giving you the best advice anyone could if your plan is to stick with the original migration, i.e. try re-choosing the original .mbl library file, and dealing with any path discrepencies aftewards.  Based on your first post, where you said only 25 or 30 albums got messed up, you might also be better off just re-doing those and being glad that the vast majority seem to have survived fine.

[hiccup]

1.  I backed up my D:\My Music folder on my old PC and restored it to D:\My Music on my new PC.
2. I backed up my ...AppData\Roaming\MusicBee folder on my old PC and restored it to ...AppData\Roaming\MusicBee on my new PC.
3. I backed up my ...AppData\Local\MusicBee folder on my old PC and restored it to ...AppData\Local\MusicBee on my new PC.
4.  I installed MB on my new PC and told it to look for music in my D:\My Music folder.

Apart from the good (better) advices already given, that's the wrong order of doing things.
You should first install, and then copy files/folders after that.

[BillH]

This is a text book example of the confusion caused when trying to migrate an "Installer" version of MusicBee, especially when one is unclear on even what parts of it lie where.  Part of it is just due to the "funny" way (IMO) it uses the Music folder for program files, etc.

Your best bet would have been to have used the Portable version from the get-go, where migration could have been as easy as copying over ONE FOLDER, and just making sure that all your actual music files reside on the same drive letter paths as before.  You could still start all over from scratch with Portable and re-create your old look manually, which nobody with a complex setup really wants (understandably) to do.  And if as I suspect your original .mbl file contained the beloved "ratings" and other ancillary data, that part would be toast.

Frankz is giving you the best advice anyone could if your plan is to stick with the original migration, i.e. try re-choosing the original .mbl library file, and dealing with any path discrepencies aftewards.  Based on your first post, where you said only 25 or 30 albums got messed up, you might also be better off just re-doing those and being glad that the vast majority seem to have survived fine.

I guess at this point I wish I had used the portable version.  When I first installed MB I didn't know it even existed.  I think it would be hard to convert to that at this point though.

The paths are identical on the old and new PCs so that shouldn't be a problem.  One problem with trying to redo the albums is that I have a lot of playlists and when you redo an album any songs on the album are lost in every playlist they are in.  I would have to write down where every song on each album is used in a playlist and add them back after re-doing the album.  That is a pain in the you know what.  I'll do that if I end up having to.

Thanks,
Bill

[BillH]

1.  I backed up my D:\My Music folder on my old PC and restored it to D:\My Music on my new PC.
2. I backed up my ...AppData\Roaming\MusicBee folder on my old PC and restored it to ...AppData\Roaming\MusicBee on my new PC.
3. I backed up my ...AppData\Local\MusicBee folder on my old PC and restored it to ...AppData\Local\MusicBee on my new PC.
4.  I installed MB on my new PC and told it to look for music in my D:\My Music folder.

Apart from the good (better) advices already given, that's the wrong order of doing things.
You should first install, and then copy files/folders after that.

Thanks @hiccup.  Good to know.  I'll install the program first this time.

Thanks,
Bill

[BillH]

I uninstalled MusicBee and deleted all the MusicBee folders in AppData Local, AppData Roaming, and My Music.

1.  I installed MusicBee on my new PC and didn't start it up.
2.  I backed up my D:\My Music folder on my old PC and restored it to D:\My Music on my new PC.
3. I backed up my ...AppData\Roaming\MusicBee folder on my old PC and restored it to ...AppData\Roaming\MusicBee on my new PC.
4. I backed up my ...AppData\Local\MusicBee folder on my old PC and restored it to ...AppData\Local\MusicBee on my new PC.5
5.  I started MusicBee  on my new PC and it automatically picked up the correct music library (the .mbl file) based I'm sure on my settings in AppData and My Music MusicBee folders.

Everything looks great.  All the issues I mentioned in my original post are gone.

Thanks you for your help @frankz and @hiccup.  This whole process of migrating the installed version of MusicBee to a new computer should be documented in the MusicBee Docs.

Thanks!
Bill

[sveakul]

This whole process of migrating the installed version of MusicBee to a new computer should be documented in the MusicBee Docs.

Actually that has been discussed/described in the forum a dozen times (enter "migrating existing installation to a new PC" as a search in the box at this link: https://cse.google.com/cse?cx=426af386625354430#gsc.tab=0), but as far as an official, fixed, complete, approved-by-developer description posted in a prominent location, we certainly could use one of those!  Among other things.  I'm glad things finally worked out for you and congrat's on the never-say-die approach for retrieving all your info.

[BillH]

Actually that has been discussed/described in the forum a dozen times (enter "migrating existing installation to a new PC" as a search in the box at this link: https://cse.google.com/cse?cx=426af386625354430#gsc.tab=0), but as far as an official, fixed, complete, approved-by-developer description posted in a prominent location, we certainly could use one of those!  Among other things.  I'm glad things finally worked out for you and congrat's on the never-say-die approach for retrieving all your info.

I thought I had remembered what I did when I got my old PC 5 years ago.  That had worked.  Obviously as I'm 5 years older my memory didn't work so well.  I should have searched more before trying the migration.  Oh well.  Got there in the end...  with help.

Thanks,
Bill