Analyze files for duplicates is replacing/updating Tags

[tintmylf]

I thought I'd turn on the "Analyze files for duplicates" option to see if/how many duplicate tracks were lurking about my library. I was very careful to confirm that "Update file info from Tags when rescanning files" was unchecked. After doing so, restarting (since I have it monitoring music folders to scan on startup), and letting it run for a few hours to scan everything, I discovered numerous tracks in my library where various bits of tagged information had been changed, including artist names, album names, album artists, and ratings, among others. Thankfully I had a backup of the DB.

As a test, I carefully repeated the process and the same thing happened. As it is analyzing files it is changing data in the library, presumably to match that embedded in the file, even though the explicit option to do this is turned off.

An obvious short term solution is to make sure I sync the library data back to the files prior to turning on the analyze option, but this behavior appears to be incorrect as far as I can tell. If the analyze option is supposed to update tags in and/and all circumstances this should be made more clear.

I'll run another test where I sync some, but not all, of the changing tracks prior to turning on the analyze option to confirm that these do not change when analyzed if synced in advance, but wanted to report what I'm seeing now since this test could take awhile to run properly.

Addendum: I'm using MediaMonkey 4.1.16.1836 in Win10.

[Ludek]

"Analyze files for duplicates" isn't causing a file property change.

You indicated that you re-scanned and monitored some folders with
[ ] Update file info from tags when rescanning files
disabled.

But you probably forgot to disable:
[ ] Infer file properties
which is causing that once a property (like title, artist, album) is missing then it infers the info from tags or filename+path (based on the further settings)

[tintmylf]

You are correct that Infer File Properties was checked. But it wasn't just adding missing properties, it was changing existing properties. Your answer implies that when you turn Analyze Files on it treats all properties as missing, whether they are or not. There may be good reason for this, but again, I think it should be made more explicit.

I've had "Infer File properties" checked for years while actively monitoring folders (but with Analyze for Duplicates turned off) and it doesn't change existing properties...nor does it spontaneously replaced blank properties if you've removed incorrect information from a field within the DB but failed to sync it back. This is an interaction of the Analyze Files function which apparently treats analyzing a track for the first time as a fresh Add/Replace.

[Ludek]

Analyze files for duplicates really shouldn't and aren't expected to change _any_ property.
If you are still seeing the issue, could you please try to replicate it on a smaller group of tracks and catch it in debug log? It is item 4b here http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=69

Thanks!