"Empty" Library and playlists, freeze on closing

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fossphur
Posts: 12
Joined: Sun Jan 08, 2012 8:29 am

"Empty" Library and playlists, freeze on closing

Post by fossphur »

I've had this problem since upgrading from version 3.x (whatever I had before). I now have 4.0.6. (MediaMonkey Gold for life!) :)

Anyway specifically what happens is when I click on any of the Library/Collections or on my old playlists, they appear to be empty. The first time this happened I just about flipped my lid - I swapped to MediaMonkey because it seemed to handle my 30,000 file database quite well and as you can guess it is a nightmare to imagine recreating those playlists. Anyway I don't know what I did but the playlists at some point magically came back so again this time I am not that worried. I trust that MediaMonkey hasn't REALLY lost everything, but I don't understand why it isn't displaying. I can see the MM.db file in my AppData/Roaming and it is around 140mb which seems the right size. So the database is there, and the files are all there. Oh yes, I should mention after a hard disk failure a few years ago and a miraculous recovery of ALL my music, I am taking no chances and have my music stored on a Network Raid storage device. Anyway the files are definitely intact and they appear when I browse via My Computer/Network/etc in MediaMonkey, just not in the Entire Library. I would have thought the Library list would appear faster than waiting for a scan of the files through the network but that's not what I'm seeing. Actually on closer inspection, the Library isn't entirely blank. The folders listed under Entire Library -> Location are all there. Artist and album names are similarly there, genres are listed, etc. However none of the actual songs that should appear in these categories will display in the details or browser windows.

So, on the offchance it would help, I did a complete database optimisation and the library and my playlists seem to be populated again now. I'm now attempting to close and open MediaMonkey to see if it retains this working state of affairs => but now MediaMonkey is semi-frozen and refusing to close. I can play/pause and adjust the volume but not change the song and nothing actually plays. I am going to have to end the process tree to get rid of it. And now I can confirm that when the program is reopened, everything seems blank again.

I checked whether my AppData folder was wrong in the registry as per another post I saw on the forums here and that was not the problem in my case. The datestamp on the MM.db file is changing and updating as I would expect when I close and open MediaMonkey but something just isn't quite working right, and it loses anything gained by a database reoptimisation every time I am unable to close MediaMonkey cleanly. I suspect if I managed to get a clean close it might clear this glitch, but it just doesn't happen. Now it seems that ending the process isn't even working.

Uh oh, I did another database optimisation to try to recreate my initial success and now it has dropped the database size down to 77mb, which seems far too small.

I am going to restart my computer then try optimising again. I'll report back with progress.

Afterthought: Windows 7 64-bit
Lowlander
Posts: 56491
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2003 5:53 pm
Location: MediaMonkey 5

Re: "Empty" Library and playlists, freeze on closing

Post by Lowlander »

Are you accessing the Network RAID via UNC path or mapped drive. The latter isn't recommended and can cause these symptoms. You also may want to disable Folder Monitoring for now to track down what the source of the behavior is.
bailso
Posts: 52
Joined: Sat Feb 02, 2008 12:24 am
Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: "Empty" Library and playlists, freeze on closing

Post by bailso »

Lowlander you might recall that I recently had a NAS problem. I reset the NAS and restored my music files to a different location on the NAS (which does not delete files on reset). The library can no longer associte the old entries with the new file location. Is there anyway of rectifying this with some kind of global replace ofpath name in the library? I do use network drive mapping but have kept the logical file name constant.

Can you describe the alternative to network drive mapping you recommended above.

Thanks again
Lowlander
Posts: 56491
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2003 5:53 pm
Location: MediaMonkey 5

Re: "Empty" Library and playlists, freeze on closing

Post by Lowlander »

File > Locate Moved/Missing Files should work in most cases, otherwise see: http://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/index.p ... w_computer
bailso
Posts: 52
Joined: Sat Feb 02, 2008 12:24 am
Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: "Empty" Library and playlists, freeze on closing

Post by bailso »

It did - thanks again.

I think the major factor that puts MM at the head of the pack is the quality of this forum.
fossphur
Posts: 12
Joined: Sun Jan 08, 2012 8:29 am

Re: "Empty" Library and playlists, freeze on closing

Post by fossphur »

I have been using UNC not mapped drives, I think I remember having trouble with mapped drives in the past so I avoided it when I set up my NAS.

I've restarted my PC and the library is blank again. So I've also turned off folder scanning as you suggested. I can see the task in the status bar saying "Reading files...." but unlike what I remember, I can't see that it is making any progress or reading any files. I think I will need to close/open Media Monkey to get it to stop startup scanning.
fossphur
Posts: 12
Joined: Sun Jan 08, 2012 8:29 am

Re: "Empty" Library and playlists, freeze on closing

Post by fossphur »

I finally got a clean close of MediaMonkey and still the library is empty. I let it rescan and then let it close but even though the library gets populated, when I reopen MediaMonkey the library is empty again. The Now Playing window does have the last song that was played listed in it although it is not part of the collection on my NAS. Any ideas what I could try next?
(AGH I was wrong, mediamonkey ISN'T cleanly closing. It just minimises and refuses to close.)
Last edited by fossphur on Sun Jul 29, 2012 11:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
Lowlander
Posts: 56491
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2003 5:53 pm
Location: MediaMonkey 5

Re: "Empty" Library and playlists, freeze on closing

Post by Lowlander »

So selecting the Entire Library > Location node in the Media Tree will show 0 files? (Enable under File > Manage Collections)
fossphur
Posts: 12
Joined: Sun Jan 08, 2012 8:29 am

Re: "Empty" Library and playlists, freeze on closing

Post by fossphur »

Lowlander wrote:So selecting the Entire Library > Location node in the Media Tree will show 0 files? (Enable under File > Manage Collections)
Yes that is exactly what I mean by empty library. 0 Files but you can see it remembers some of the tag information from albums that SHOULD be in there.

Image

I managed to get the media monkey window to close by "ending process" in task manager but the process itself is still there, and hasn't cleanly ended.
Last edited by fossphur on Sun Jul 29, 2012 11:44 am, edited 1 time in total.
Lowlander
Posts: 56491
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2003 5:53 pm
Location: MediaMonkey 5

Re: "Empty" Library and playlists, freeze on closing

Post by Lowlander »

The folder you're showing will only show files in that folder, not any of it's subfolders. This is why I suggested selecting the Entire Library > Location node as it shows all files in the MediaMonkey Library.
fossphur
Posts: 12
Joined: Sun Jan 08, 2012 8:29 am

Re: "Empty" Library and playlists, freeze on closing

Post by fossphur »

Hi Lowlander glad to catch you online at the same time as me. There ARE files in that folder, as well as folders in that folder. None of them are showing. The Library is apparently empty.
Lowlander
Posts: 56491
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2003 5:53 pm
Location: MediaMonkey 5

Re: "Empty" Library and playlists, freeze on closing

Post by Lowlander »

So selecting Entire Library > Location node (let it load) shows only 1 file in the status bar (must be at least 1 as your screenshot shows 1 in a subnode)?
Lowlander
Posts: 56491
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2003 5:53 pm
Location: MediaMonkey 5

Re: "Empty" Library and playlists, freeze on closing

Post by Lowlander »

In that case, capture a debug log (step 4b) where you scan in the files (Files > Add/Rescan Files using UNC paths), close MediaMonkey once the scan is done, and then start MediaMonkey and send it to support: http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=69
fossphur
Posts: 12
Joined: Sun Jan 08, 2012 8:29 am

Re: "Empty" Library and playlists, freeze on closing

Post by fossphur »

Thanks, I will try this now. The part I think I will have trouble with is the part where I have to close mediamonkey - I am going to have to restart because it just won't close.
Lowlander
Posts: 56491
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2003 5:53 pm
Location: MediaMonkey 5

Re: "Empty" Library and playlists, freeze on closing

Post by Lowlander »

Disconnect any portable devices connected, otherwise it may be an addon preventing the close. This however shouldn't affect the Library (settings are affected though).
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