locate missing file stopped working?

[Fish]

Hello! i have a ton of playlists on my mp3 player, and all of them for whatever reason, have the (!) on every single song, with no name. so, i use the "locate missing files" tool in tools, and it locates all my songs and i can listen to my playlists. as soon as i unplug my mp3 player, and plug it back into my PC, i have to do this again. its annoying, but it is what it is.

today, suddenly, "locate missing files" no longer works. i go to tools, locate missing files, auto-match. and it loads for a microsecond, then stops. and won't locate any of the songs. rendering all my playlists totally unusable.

what happened?? is there a way i can fix this??

[phred]

It might be that your mp3 player has a different drive letter every time you connect it to Windows.

[Fish]

It might be that your mp3 player has a different drive letter every time you connect it to Windows.

Thank you! that was one of the first things I thought too, but nope. its E. not only that, all the "missing" songs are located in E as well. so I know thats not the case... ahh

[Mayibongwe]

When you attempt to play those files with the exclamation marks (missing files), do they play?

[Fish]

When you attempt to play those files with the exclamation marks (missing files), do they play?

host image url

no, it gives me this message, then makes me manually find the file on the device. which would take forever to do, considering i have thousands of songs in this state...

[Mayibongwe]

So when you say that the drive letter E does not change with every connection, what would have changed on the file path when you reconnect the device?

Where do you then normally point MusicBee to when you use 'locate missing files'?
Is it the same file path displayed on your screenshot?

[Fish]

So when you say that the drive letter E does not change with every connection, what would have changed on the file path when you reconnect the device?

Where do you then normally point MusicBee to when you use 'locate missing files'?
Is it the same file path displayed on your screenshot?

when i click "locate missing files" i click "start-auto match" and up until yesterday, it would just automatically find all the files. the file path is the exact same, as far as i can see. the actual song on the device, is identical to the file path shown in the screenshot. so i have no idea why it can't locate them

[Mayibongwe]

That's an odd duck.
Can you, for the same file shown on your screenshot above, go to the File Explorer and post a screenshot like the one below:

[Fish]

is this correct?

[Fish]

(also out of my thousands of songs this had to be the castlevania music huh?? i swear i listen to good music too i promise)

[Mayibongwe]

Well, there's the oddity in the duck.

It looks like the file path on your first screenshot (where MusicBee experts to find the song) reads:
E:\Music\Users\kevin\...

Your actual music file is located on:
E:\Users\kevin\...

Consult here for a guide on how to relink your music files to point correctly:
Missing Files: Relink Music File Paths, Locate Missing Files (and Prevention)

[Fish]

Well, there's the oddity in the duck.

It looks like the file path on your first screenshot (where MusicBee experts to find the song) reads:
E:\Music\Users\kevin\...

Your actual music file is located on:
E:\Users\kevin\...



thanks so much for the help!! [/url][/img]

that does seem to be the problem, unfortunately the solution doesn't work. am i doing something wrong here?

also, if i do this, and just do one folder at a time. it works, until i close music bee. and re-open the program. then all the files are missing again

Consult here for a guide on how to relink your music files to point correctly:
Missing Files: Relink Music File Paths, Locate Missing Files (and Prevention)

[Mayibongwe]

that does seem to be the problem, unfortunately the solution doesn't work. am i doing something wrong here?
also, if i do this, and just do one folder at a time. it works, until i close music bee. and re-open the program. then all the files are missing again

That's not enough information to work with. You need to elaborate on why it didn't work, such as:

When you relink that one folder and reopen MusicBee, what file path is MusicBee now expecting to find a particular song from that folder?
Has MusicBee's expected file path now changed from what you had pointed it to before you closed it?
If nothing has changed on the MusicBee file path before and after closing it, has the windows file path changed after you closed MusicBee?
Have you disconnected and reconnected the device? Have the file paths changed since then?

Please test this using that same song from above so that we easily follow what's changing or remaining constant.

[Fish]

post image online

alright! just to make sure, is this correct? because doing this dosen't seem to have any effect,

[Mayibongwe]

alright! just to make sure, is this correct? because doing this dosen't seem to have any effect,

Yep, that looks correct. All you have to do to troubleshoot this is to take note of:

a) the file path displayed by MusicBee in the properties of the tag editor when the song plays (which one would assume to be E:\Users\kevin\...)
b) the file path displayed by MusicBee when the file is deemed to be missing (which earlier on was E:\Music\Users\kevin\...)

Now that you have relinked the file path or located that particular song, I believe you are saying that it 'gets lost again' when you restart MusicBee and/or reconnect the device, correct?
If so, then you need to relook into the file paths in a. and b. above to see what has changed. Tell us what changes and then we can take it from there.