Change watched folder location for internal storage [Answered]

Hello all. I am a happy user of Roon 1.3 on ROCK for some weeks now. I copied all my music to the internal SATA drive in 2 main folders: Library and Xmas (for holiday albums).

The watched folder is (automatically?) set to the root of the internal storage drive.

I would like to separate these locations in my collection, as the Christmas music will not be played most of the year. I think a good solution for this is like suggested in Splitting my music collection, by adding each of the main folders as watched folder instead of the root of the drive.
However, I cannot change the watched folder location in ROCK. The Browse Folder button is missing from the Edit Storage Location window:

It does not matter if I disable the watched folder or not. If I click the Add Folder button on the Storage Settings page, I get the Browse Folder button, but the window it calls is empty except for an Add Network Share link.

So it seems to me that it is not possible (in this current version of Rock) to change the watched folders on the internal storage. Or am I overlooking something?

Try disabling the folder you have then use add folder and you should be able to choose the individual folders on your disk, I have done exactly that on my ROCK setup.

Also with the current watched folder disabled, I still cannot add a new folder from the internal storage.
I can add a network share and it is possible to add the folders on the internal storage this way (at \\rock\Data\InternalStorage\Library), but that seems quite a devious way and not really straight forward.
However, for now it does work as I would like to.

I have added both folders this way. However, it is not possible to delete the Music Folder, that can only be enabled or disabled. For now it is disabled and the music is accessible by the network shares, but that does not seem to be the right way. I guess the single Music Folder for the internal storage is a conscious choice from Roon.
Can someone confirm this?

This is not an option with ROCK.

Danny, thanks for the confirmation on the workings of ROCK.

Is there any chance that the possibility to easily divide the collection will be added to ROCK?
While my current configuration does work as I want, it looks a bit unfortunate. Also it looks as if I could just as well kept my library on my Synology NAS instead of going for the all-in-one box with the internal storage in the NUC.

I tried using tags, but that way the entire collection is still visible from other parts of Roon.

The design of ROCK is that the internal storage is meant to be turn-key and always just music.

You can do what you want with external storage in ROCK or by running your own Linux build.

We’ve heard this concern about holiday music… Can you give an example of what “joining” you dislike?

I understand (most of) the design choices of ROCK and appreciate them! But of course with such a turn-key approach there are always users who are 95% satisfied and want just a little extra here or there. :wink:
So if my request will not be honored then I will continue to use ROCK just as it is, no doubt about that.

As for examples: I don’t know if I understand what you mean by “joining”, but what I dislike is that for I come accross the holiday music the whole year whereas I will only play this music in the last month of the year (give or take a week).

It was now more striking as I added the holiday music last, so it filled up my entire Overview screen in Recently Added. But the holiday albums are visible on all main screens: Discover, Albums, Tracks. I made a tag for these albums but you have to enable that on every screen.
I just found out now that the tag selection is remembered, so I have to do this only once. But I will have to combine this tag with any other selection I might make. Also in the Discover screen there is no way to set the tag, so any album or genre might show up there eventually.

Maybe it is good to mention that I have just started using Roon some weeks ago, so I may look over some of the standard features.

Please let me know if my response is answering your question or if you want more information from me.

Hi,

cannot the ‘Ignored Paths’ feature be used here? Change the Xmas folder name to ‘temp’ and Roon should ignore it. Change it back to ‘Xmas’ in December…

I dealt with this problem on my NAS just by moving the Xmas folder out of a watched folder for the rest of the year. Similarly, can you not keep the ‘Xmas’ folder on a USB drive and just plug it in in December (if the temp workaround does not work for some reason)? That way the NAS stays out of the picture and you have a ‘one box’ solution.

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Or alternatively update Roon’s ignore path and add/remove ;/Xmas/ as required.

Both good suggestions: using the ignored paths (either by renaming the folder or indeed adding/removing Xmas to the list), and also using a temporary disk/usb stick. In both cases the main collection can be on the default internal storage location. I think I will go for the ignored paths and add/remove my Xmas location there.

Thanks everyone for the responses!

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if you do go with the ignored paths approach, which seems like a good way to me, one piece of (possibly obvious) advice:

add a path like this: ;/Xmas/, with the slashes at both ends, instead of ;Xmas or similar.

The first one is guaranteed to only match exactly the directory name Xmas, the other would also match against files that happened to include the string “xmas” anywhere in the file or directory name. “my xmas song.mp3” or whatever, which might not be what you want.

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I just made the transition from a Windows laptop to ROCK. The move went smoothly: implicitly followed the instruction on the Roon and Computer Audiophile websites. I should probably now rest content and not try to make changes, but my music collection is on an aging NAS. I want to move it to a second hard disk in the NUC with Roon Rock. The OS is on an M2 drive. The “Music Folder” is currently disabled.

I assume I can do the following and keep my edits, etc.:

  1. Copy my music from the NAS to Music Folder.
  2. Go to Settings, Storage, disable the NAS location
  3. Enable Music Folder.

Is this the right sequence? Is there anything else I need to do so as not to lose my edits, etc.? If I do get into trouble I won’t know how to quite extricate myself, so I’m trying not to do anything until I’m absolutely certain.

@support, I’m not sure how you go about changing your music collection to internal ROCK. Is it the same as this KB article?

Cheers, Greg

Hi @Sucheta_Mazumdar ----- Thank you for your question, let me see if I can offer some help here.

Before anything, please make sure that you have a backup created of your current DB, and just to be safe I would also make a backup of your musical library for good measure. This will ensure that you have a fallback just incase anything happens.

  • I would “disable” the folder(s) currently being watched (i.e from the NAS) and then access ROCK’s WEB UI to stop RoonServer from running.

  • Copy the musical content from the NAS to the desired location.

  • Return to ROCK’s WEB UI and start RoonServer again.

  • Go to your “storage” tab and next to the watch folder you disabled, click the “three button” menu, and select “edit” then “browse”.

  • Navigate to/select the new storage location and should be all set.

-Eric

Thanks very much @eric. The move was altogether painless. Your instructions were precise and very helpful. I’m glad I made the move. In my system, the sound quality is much better with ROCK than with Roon Server on a laptop. Perhaps having a linear power supply for my NUC and the fact that the OS is doing just one thing does make a difference. The experts can argue over that. For those who like simplicity and good sound it’s a no-brainer.

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Glad to hear everything went smoothly, @Sucheta_Mazumdar !

Happy listening!
-Eric