Transporting Mediamonkey across several computers

[MrRoboto]

I'm sorry if this question has been asked before, but it's been buggin me. I carry all my music in a large removable drive that I transport between computers. In one computer (work) I make all the changes to my tracks (like fix the artist name, etc) but when I get it to my other computer (home) when I update my database (even when I erase the database and start over) those changes are not there. So, I'm wondering, what should I be doing to make sure the data is the same from one computer to the next? Is there a procedure for doing this? Thanks for your help.

[Lowlander]

Do you have 'write changes to tracks immediatly' enabled in the options menu? That might make a difference.

[MrRoboto]

Yes, that's checked. Says "Update tabs immediately after editing properties".

[Lowlander]

You might want to check if other applications at home see the changes you made at work. If you have WinXP you can check the properties in Windows Explorer of a changed file and see in the summary tab what it says (maybe go to advanced to see more info). Here it should show the updated information, does it? Or check in WinAmp or something like it. Could it be possible that the removeble drive has a write protection enabled ie. information is not written to it.

Are none of the files updated when you return to MM at home or just some?

Do you write tags to ID3v1 and ID3v2 at work?

I hopes this helps in uncovering your problem.

[Lowlander]

Okay, I changed my mind.

I assume you use both MM at work and at home. You update the tracks at work with new tags. Then you return home with the removable disk and start MM.

> No changes in tags noticed?

You use 'Add tracks to Library' to scan for changes???

> No changes in tags noticed?

(BTW 'Update Library' doesn't rescan the library it is just for maintaining the DB)

This so far seems to point to the problem that time stamp of the files doesn't change when modifying files in MM. Deselecting the option 'Only for changed time stamp' in the library options in the option menu might be able to solve this. Deselecting this might make scanning slow!

But then you write that when you delete the library and rescan the files you don't see the changes. This on first view seems to point towards the files not being updated at work. This first points towards 'Update tabs immediately after editing properties' not being selected at work, but you mentioned it was selected.

So now we have landed on a possible bug, but the question is where? On your work PC ie no updates were actually made, or at home ie updates are not recognized.

To rule out the first problem you can check the you changed at home through WinAmp (shows even the tags for ID3v1 and ID3v2 nicely), or through Windows Explorer as mentioned in the previous post. If the files show the changes you made at work, the problem lies with your home machine. If the files show no changes you might want to check if the removable storage has file protection ie read only.

Here my knowledge ends as I have not experimented with using a removable storage.

As always with a problem post it's advisable to include which version of MM you are running and what OS you are using (even some PC info can help), which in this case would be needed for both PC's.


I hope this helps you with your problem, you can also try to download the latest beta (currently 2.1 RC 1) and see if the problem persists or that improvements to the program have solved your problem. In any case post your findings here to aid the program makers and enlighten us users.


PS. Have you tried using the file monitor (Gold version only) this might be able to pick up the changes (might still need to deselect the time stamp option.

[Shibumi]

Where do you store the database for each copy of MM you are running. If you're using a portable drive that contains all of the source audio, it would be easiest to store the MM database on the portable drive. Then you just point the MM application to the database on the portable drive. Anytime you make updates to the database in one location, they are automatically visible to every copy of MM that points to that database.

I do it this way for my home pcs. The database is on the share where the mp3s are located. Every pc on my home network can read that (at the same time!) database and always see the latest changes.

[Lowlander]

Well true this is an option, but first of all MM should be able to pick up these changes. So you are merely avoiding the error.
Secondly this would only really work if all the songs were on the removable drive. If more songs are stored on either PC a local DB would be preferred to have no problems with missing songs in the DB.

But sharing a DB is a great option as some of the info written to the track is only stored in the DB and not in the tag (Read help file to see which tags are written to file and which to DB only). I'm myself have been using one shared DB for a while and it's great.