AutoRateAccurate 2.4.3 (22/10/2009) - for MM3

[Big_Berny]

I too think it's date related, I used to have English(US) (M/d/yyyy), but after installing Windows 7 I set it to Romanian (dd.MM.yyyy). I got the error at the very start of the auto-rating process, probably because all my songs were rated with the old format. I changed back my regional settings to US and now it seems to be working again, but it would be nice to be date-format independent.
Interesting enough, one newer added song had: 0001 AR 000002548371709 05.07.2009 435 AutoRateAccurate 05, but it still worked and now it's: 0001 AR 000004610353599 5/7/2009 435 AutoRateAccurate 05

Yes, I know that this is a problem but unfortunately it can't be solved that easily. An option would be that it always writes as English(US)-date for example but I don't know if this is better for us Europeans.
In a future version this maybe can be solved when the script uses its own database-fields which can be defined as date and not just as text like the customfield.

One more thing, can you make the auto-rating process run in the background (low-priority)? The problem is that when I start MM I play a song, auto-rating starts and when the song ends it takes a while until MM goes to the next song (I have a big library so it takes a while).

Well that's strange because I don't have that problem... Here the process takes a while but in the meanwhile the new songs begins. There's no skip. Do you use 2.4.2?

Big_Berny

[florin]

I think writing the date in a "standard" format, no matter what the OS is set to, is a good idea. I don't think anyone uses the date in the custom field. At least I don't.

Regarding the other thing, yes, I'm using 2.4.2 and I notice that playback pause only when the initial Auto-rating is running (after the first start of MM). I *think* it's only as long as phase 1 is running. It's not a big issue, my system is on 24/7 so I close MM only when updating it. I can't think of a cause, I thought it was an I/O problem, but now I moved the OS & applications to a fast SSD and kept the 5400rpm drive for storage. It's still takes a few minutes to complete though. Keep in mind that I have a 40.000+ songs library and the MM database is a ~120 MB file.

[Big_Berny]

I think writing the date in a "standard" format, no matter what the OS is set to, is a good idea. I don't think anyone uses the date in the custom field. At least I don't.

I'll think about that for the new version.

Regarding the other thing, yes, I'm using 2.4.2 and I notice that playback pause only when the initial Auto-rating is running (after the first start of MM). I *think* it's only as long as phase 1 is running. It's not a big issue, my system is on 24/7 so I close MM only when updating it. I can't think of a cause, I thought it was an I/O problem, but now I moved the OS & applications to a fast SSD and kept the 5400rpm drive for storage. It's still takes a few minutes to complete though. Keep in mind that I have a 40.000+ songs library and the MM database is a ~120 MB file.

Ok, that's good to know. I'll look what I can do.
EDIT: I changed some stuff which wil maybe solve the problem. The strange thing is that I don't have this delay. I'll release a alpha version as soon as the new version is ready for testing.

Big_Berny

[RifRaf]

i think this issues must have been date and regional settings as well, i normally use dd/mm/yyyy (australia) but i think the issues started after changed regional settings for some other issue and that may have caused it, has been fine since wiping out first played date.

am wondering if you could consider this for your next version. since you have the last played and playcount stored in the custom tag would it be possible to have an import feature to get this info from the file and populate the mm db with it. would like to rescan in all files since i did alot of fixes on another pc but the database is keeping extra junk that i wish to remove but do not want to lose the info that has been generated from using autorate accurate for the last few months.

i imported all songs to another pc, it saw all the rating info, but when i ran autorate it promptly wiped out all the ratings as the db had no playcount info and adjusted the files accordingly, thank goodness for backups if i had been able to use the info in custom5 to populate mm then i think this would not have happened.

[Big_Berny]

i think this issues must have been date and regional settings as well, i normally use dd/mm/yyyy (australia) but i think the issues started after changed regional settings for some other issue and that may have caused it, has been fine since wiping out first played date.

Yes, this was the problem. I'll try to define a default date-setting for all AutoRateAccurate-setups to avoid that problem in the future.

am wondering if you could consider this for your next version. since you have the last played and playcount stored in the custom tag would it be possible to have an import feature to get this info from the file and populate the mm db with it. would like to rescan in all files since i did alot of fixes on another pc but the database is keeping extra junk that i wish to remove but do not want to lose the info that has been generated from using autorate accurate for the last few months.

Informations like SkipCounter and FirstPlayed should still be there after re-adding the songs as this informations are stored in the cutstomfield. As you said correctly. For this information it would also be possible to export them into an extra-file and import them later in a new database.

i imported all songs to another pc, it saw all the rating info, but when i ran autorate it promptly wiped out all the ratings as the db had no playcount info and adjusted the files accordingly, thank goodness for backups if i had been able to use the info in custom5 to populate mm then i think this would not have happened.

Well the problem is that the script can't store all important informations from the database in the customfield. For example a future version will probably allow you to use variables like "Played within the last 7 days" and for this it uses the playtable from MM where all plays are stored. IMHO for you something like a database-cleaner-script which allows you to reset specific fields should be a better solution. Don't know if something like this already exists but it should be possible.

[RifRaf]

Informations like SkipCounter and FirstPlayed should still be there after re-adding the songs as this informations are stored in the cutstomfield. As you said correctly. For this information it would also be possible to export them into an extra-file and import them later in a new database.

this would be a great if the play info could be exported for each song to be reimported into a new database, there seems to be no easy way to backup the info, apart from a custom tag as you do use.

and yes a database cleaner would be usefull but the issue i currently have is with old albumart but its already a known issue it appears, the album art tagger from trixmoto is doing a good job off removing invalid art and then things should be ok again. looking forward to the update, this is one of my favorite plugins and thanks heaps for making it, no way i can manually tag ratings in a decent way and this is a great tool to assist.

[kalowski]

One more thing, can you make the auto-rating process run in the background (low-priority)? The problem is that when I start MM I play a song, auto-rating starts and when the song ends it takes a while until MM goes to the next song (I have a big library so it takes a while).

Well that's strange because I don't have that problem... Here the process takes a while but in the meanwhile the new songs begins. There's no skip. Do you use 2.4.2?

Big_Berny

I have the same problem. I've just waited 15 minutes after a song ended to see if the next one would begin whilst 2.4.2 tried to rate songs. I had to force MM to shutdown.

[sourceminer]

Just out of Curiosity, I have been using these auto rating systems. However the one thing that seems to be missing is the ability to take the songs in your library and match them to what the hits were according to the Charts, for the era. Is there something like that out there that can help with rating songs?

I personally have rated about 3000 Songs, however I have new music now and I am not sure what I have anymore. Unless I take the time to listen to everything.
Have any suggestions on how to speed up the rating process?

[Big_Berny]

@People with playback-delay prblem because of first autorating: Which version of MM do you use?

@sourceminer: And where should the script get the informations about the charts? You want to enter the number by yourself?

[florin]

Well, it happens with 3.1.0.1256 and all the betas back to a few months (since I've been using MM).
This is what happens:
1. open MM, start playing one song
2. when the song is nearly over, cross-fading should kick in - AAR starts calculating ratings (Ph.1 followed by Ph.2)
3. playback stops at the end of the first track, it doesn't advance to the next song

If I double-click the next song playback starts normally, when this track finishes it skips to the next one even if AAR is still doing Ph. 2

[Kanzar]

Hummm, how's it going on the new version? :V

[Big_Berny]

Hey guys,
yeah, I'm a bit busy at the moment but nevertheless I work on it from time to time. Can't say when it's finished though as I really have a lot of features on my todo-list. And since it's finally summer here...

I'll keep you updated.
Big_Berny

[Blasty711]

I love this script. I have been having problems with it in the past especially since I upgraded to MM3.1. BUT, I have downloaded the latest version you have and it seems to be Autorating my 18,000 songs. I hope it works. I have not gotten any errors so far.

[Blasty711]

Worked GREAT for me. I love it. Thanks.

[Blasty711]

I am finally glad to have a script that will do this for me. I NEVER remember to rate my songs manually. Most of the time is because I am away from the computer while the songs are playing. Usually at a high volume. BUT, I Love It. Thanks Big_Berny!