Firstly could the GPM sync posts in this thread be split off into a new thread with a better title? ... That could help someone with an interest in MM5 GPM integration.
Quite a lot of GPM progress in 2114
* I installed a fresh version of MM5 2114, allowed it to transfer my db and settings from MM$
* it transferred 42825 tracks MM$->MM5
* I had already uploaded all of my tracks to my GPM library using Google's Music Manager tool ... my GPM library also has approx an additional 1,979 of Google's tracks, which I have added to my GPM library. ... maybe a few less as Google may have screwed matching my uploaded tracks to what I had already manually included to my GPM library before the upload of my own collection. ...I have some other s/w which says that I have 631 track duplicates in my GPM library, so there should be at least 1,348 tracks which are not in MM5
* start MM5's GPM sync
** phase 1: approx 1 minute: opens my GPM library, and import GPM metadata
** phase 2: approx + another 7 minutes: match GPM metadata to MM5 metadata, and update MM5 tracks with GPM IDs etc, so that MM5 can access the GPM version of my tracks
** phase 3: approx + another 8 minutes: "copying" 199 new tracks into my MM% database ... why only 199 tracks? ... I have at least 1,348 which should be new
** phase 4: not sure how long, it didn't complete on the 1st run when i was measuring time: import playlists from GPM ... quite slow, 17+ seconds per playlist ... has no progress counter ... ie. for the other phases, progress is shown in the status bar with "n of m" type messages, so that I could see that progress was happening .. but the playlist stage has nothing ... could a progress counter be added here as well?
On the first run it got to a playlist, which has just 8 entries, and then got stuck ... the MM5 wheel keeps spinning ... status bar not being updated ... cpu is being consumed ... no disk or network access. ... sits there for over 15 minutes
I was going to close MM5, but my stumble clicking somehow triggered a dbox with a one line error report ... which then seemed to allow the import to complete ... or to silently crash ... ie, the wheel stopped spinning. there was no dbox telling me what had been achieved.
So, either MM5 was consuming cpu for 15 minutes trying to display the dbox, or I clicked something which terminated a fruitless loop, ... and then the error dbox got displayed.
On my second test (ie. start again, reinstall MM5 etc), this time it completed, and showed the error dbox. I think that the MM5 UI is very fragile during the sync process (see comment below). On the second time I went away, so I didn't interact with the UI at all, and the sync completed without stalling. ... The error dbox is uninformative ... this is a work in progress?
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9f444g7yy23bq ... x.png?dl=0
My MM db now has 52,537 (?!) tracks (ie. +9712 tracks.... ?! ... I only had a maximum of 1,979 extra tracks in my GPM library ... and the MM5 status bar reported that it was adding just 199 tracks ... ? .. maybe the message meant tracks from 199 albums?)
If I look at MM5 location node, I see that the sync has created 2 new locations: "Youtube" and "Google Play Muisc"
- In my NAS location I still have my original 42,825 tracks
- In the Google Play Music location there are 44,248 tracks ... ie. +1,423 tracks
- In the "YouTube" location I can see that it has exactly the number of tracks that my MM5 db has grown by, ie. 9,712 tracks ... some are tracks which are only in my GPM library, but most are my own tracks which I uploaded to GPM. ... These are now duplicated in my MM5 library.
If I view EntireLibrary>AllTracks, and sort to AlbumArtist|Album|Path|Track#, I can easily identify the duplicates.
There seems to be several causes:
- Where the track title contains a parenthesis, eg. "The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus)" or "Honey in Your Hips [Alternate Studio Take]" ... this accounts for most of the duplicates ... tracks like these are duplicated, ie. my NAS copy and also my GPM copy
- Where the track title has an apostrophe or a question mark or a period, ie. "Hard Travelin'", or "Who Are Parents?", or "Bess St."s
- Where the GPM version of the album has a suffix such as "[Expanded]"
- Where the GPM and MM5 report a track length difference exceeding 2.n seconds ... a latitude of 3.n seconds would get most ... a latitude of 5.n would get all of the ones that I have noticed so far
If you cleaned up the issue caused by the special characters, and increased the duration latitude a bit more, I could try again and see if there are any other causes ... at the mpoment there are too many to search through.
If you don't already, you should also strip off any leading blanks from the MM tags before trying for a comparison.
These were my 2nd and 3rd tests of GPM sync with 2114. ... The first time it stalled in what I have called phase 3 above ... that time I think that I may have triggered a problem by interacting with the MM5 GUI while the sync was running (I tried to open the EntireLibrary|AllTracks|Location node on the Media Tree .. The wheel kept spinning, progress on the Status bar stalled ... and the GUI was frozen. ... so maybe the GUI is in a delicate state during GPM syncing?
You tried to explain to me once before what the "Youtube" location was? I didn't understand. ... But I see that it is useful when using MM5 GPM sync facility. It is somewhere where you can see what the sync has added to the MM5 db .... and you can manually "remove" what is not wanted. ... there needs to something like that, because otherwise syncing could mess up a database couldn't it?
I still think that there should a log from a sync process ... ie. somewhere for:
* the cause of any login failure
* a message saying whether the sync completed normally
* msg from any exception encountered
* statistics: number of tracks with metadata at GM, Number tracks|playlists added to MM, number updated at MM
After playing MM5 GPM sync a little, I think that people may be concerned about using it, as it is at the moment.
If I sync from my MMA db, I know exactly what I am going to be syncing back to my MMW db.
A person's GPM library is a bit more an unknown thing. The Google UI for building, managing, and observing the library is just horrible. ... It is hard to know|remember just what is in there. There can be duplicates. There can be junk you added once, and forgot about.
Maybe I just want to sync just 1 new album, or just a few selected tracks.
Syncing the whole library back is a great bonus from MM5, as long as there is visibility to see what it has done ... and there is some way that it can be fully or partially undone ... a preview before adding tracks would be preferable ... ie. facility where I could cancel the import of all, or selected, tracks or albums.
At the moment there is poor visibility. ... There is no preview of what is going to be added. ... No facility to seek approval. ... The YouTube location is way that the additions can be detected and removed ... but are you going leave this as is? ... and before the fact preview would be better that after the fact damage repair.
Firstly could the GPM sync posts in this thread be split off into a new thread with a better title? ... That could help someone with an interest in MM5 GPM integration.
Quite a lot of GPM progress in 2114 :)
* I installed a fresh version of MM5 2114, allowed it to transfer my db and settings from MM$
* it transferred 42825 tracks MM$->MM5
* I had already uploaded all of my tracks to my GPM library using Google's Music Manager tool ... my GPM library also has approx an additional 1,979 of Google's tracks, which I have added to my GPM library. ... maybe a few less as Google may have screwed matching my uploaded tracks to what I had already manually included to my GPM library before the upload of my own collection. ...I have some other s/w which says that I have 631 track duplicates in my GPM library, so there should be at least 1,348 tracks which are not in MM5
* start MM5's GPM sync
** phase 1: approx 1 minute: opens my GPM library, and import GPM metadata
** phase 2: approx + another 7 minutes: match GPM metadata to MM5 metadata, and update MM5 tracks with GPM IDs etc, so that MM5 can access the GPM version of my tracks
** phase 3: approx + another 8 minutes: "copying" 199 new tracks into my MM% database ... why only 199 tracks? ... I have at least 1,348 which should be new
** phase 4: not sure how long, it didn't complete on the 1st run when i was measuring time: import playlists from GPM ... quite slow, 17+ seconds per playlist ... has no progress counter ... ie. for the other phases, progress is shown in the status bar with "n of m" type messages, so that I could see that progress was happening .. but the playlist stage has nothing ... could a progress counter be added here as well?
On the first run it got to a playlist, which has just 8 entries, and then got stuck ... the MM5 wheel keeps spinning ... status bar not being updated ... cpu is being consumed ... no disk or network access. ... sits there for over 15 minutes
I was going to close MM5, but my stumble clicking somehow triggered a dbox with a one line error report ... which then seemed to allow the import to complete ... or to silently crash ... ie, the wheel stopped spinning. there was no dbox telling me what had been achieved.
So, either MM5 was consuming cpu for 15 minutes trying to display the dbox, or I clicked something which terminated a fruitless loop, ... and then the error dbox got displayed.
On my second test (ie. start again, reinstall MM5 etc), this time it completed, and showed the error dbox. I think that the MM5 UI is very fragile during the sync process (see comment below). On the second time I went away, so I didn't interact with the UI at all, and the sync completed without stalling. ... The error dbox is uninformative ... this is a work in progress?
[url]https://www.dropbox.com/s/9f444g7yy23bqbh/MM%20GPM%20sync%20error%20dbox.png?dl=0[/url]
My MM db now has 52,537 (?!) tracks (ie. +9712 tracks.... ?! ... I only had a maximum of 1,979 extra tracks in my GPM library ... and the MM5 status bar reported that it was adding just 199 tracks ... ? .. maybe the message meant tracks from 199 albums?)
If I look at MM5 location node, I see that the sync has created 2 new locations: "Youtube" and "Google Play Muisc"
[list]In my NAS location I still have my original 42,825 tracks[/list]
[list]In the Google Play Music location there are 44,248 tracks ... ie. +1,423 tracks[/list]
[list]In the "YouTube" location I can see that it has exactly the number of tracks that my MM5 db has grown by, ie. 9,712 tracks ... some are tracks which are only in my GPM library, but most are my own tracks which I uploaded to GPM. ... These are now duplicated in my MM5 library.[/list]
If I view EntireLibrary>AllTracks, and sort to AlbumArtist|Album|Path|Track#, I can easily identify the duplicates.
There seems to be several causes:
[list]Where the track title contains a parenthesis, eg. "The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus)" or "Honey in Your Hips [Alternate Studio Take]" ... this accounts for most of the duplicates ... tracks like these are duplicated, ie. my NAS copy and also my GPM copy[/list]
[list][*]Where the track title has an apostrophe or a question mark or a period, ie. "Hard Travelin'", or "Who Are Parents?", or "Bess St."s[/list]
[list]Where the GPM version of the album has a suffix such as "[Expanded]"[/list]
[list]Where the GPM and MM5 report a track length difference exceeding 2.n seconds ... a latitude of 3.n seconds would get most ... a latitude of 5.n would get all of the ones that I have noticed so far[/list]
If you cleaned up the issue caused by the special characters, and increased the duration latitude a bit more, I could try again and see if there are any other causes ... at the mpoment there are too many to search through.
If you don't already, you should also strip off any leading blanks from the MM tags before trying for a comparison.
These were my 2nd and 3rd tests of GPM sync with 2114. ... The first time it stalled in what I have called phase 3 above ... that time I think that I may have triggered a problem by interacting with the MM5 GUI while the sync was running (I tried to open the EntireLibrary|AllTracks|Location node on the Media Tree .. The wheel kept spinning, progress on the Status bar stalled ... and the GUI was frozen. ... so maybe the GUI is in a delicate state during GPM syncing?
You tried to explain to me once before what the "Youtube" location was? I didn't understand. ... But I see that it is useful when using MM5 GPM sync facility. It is somewhere where you can see what the sync has added to the MM5 db .... and you can manually "remove" what is not wanted. ... there needs to something like that, because otherwise syncing could mess up a database couldn't it?
I still think that there should a log from a sync process ... ie. somewhere for:
* the cause of any login failure
* a message saying whether the sync completed normally
* msg from any exception encountered
* statistics: number of tracks with metadata at GM, Number tracks|playlists added to MM, number updated at MM
After playing MM5 GPM sync a little, I think that people may be concerned about using it, as it is at the moment.
If I sync from my MMA db, I know exactly what I am going to be syncing back to my MMW db.
A person's GPM library is a bit more an unknown thing. The Google UI for building, managing, and observing the library is just horrible. ... It is hard to know|remember just what is in there. There can be duplicates. There can be junk you added once, and forgot about.
Maybe I just want to sync just 1 new album, or just a few selected tracks.
Syncing the whole library back is a great bonus from MM5, as long as there is visibility to see what it has done ... and there is some way that it can be fully or partially undone ... a preview before adding tracks would be preferable ... ie. facility where I could cancel the import of all, or selected, tracks or albums.
At the moment there is poor visibility. ... There is no preview of what is going to be added. ... No facility to seek approval. ... The YouTube location is way that the additions can be detected and removed ... but are you going leave this as is? ... and before the fact preview would be better that after the fact damage repair.