Roon should have a way of displaying some useful information about the “deleted” entries it proposes to clean up when doing a Settings -> Library -> Clean Up Library -> Clean up deleted file action.
After all, the underlying cause of the lost or missing file(s) might be a network, hardware, or system problem that would be hard to identify or correct without knowing which file(s) are involved. Contacting Support with the logs seems like a slow and hard way for Roon to provide the needed information
The “Clean up” options under “Library Maintenance” do not delete files. They delete entries in the library database for files that are no longer visible to Roon or have been deleted. The dialog box explains this clearly. The three checkboxes have detailed explanations.
I think what you are asking will add to confusion and increase support inquiries.
Why? As it is now, all you know now is that Roon could no longer see some unspecified files. They may have become invisible to Roon for some reason that should be corrected, rather than having their entries removed. Especially for those that have the Roon library monitoring several different locations, it might be an unobvious hardware or software problem that is interfering with their visibility to Roon. Without knowing which file(s) are involved, it’s pretty hard to find or correct the problem.
Would you also have Roon stop displaying the list of skipped files for this reason?
Not true. The 3 sections clearly spell out the source of the files no longer visible to Roon.
If you see that Roon wants to cleanup file entries in any one of the 3 sections, you should know if that makes sense based on how you have been using Roon. For example, if Roon lists files to clean up from the last section and you don’t think you have any disabled storage locations, you probably need to go look to see what storage locations have been disabled.
I’m afraid we’re not writing English using the same meanings for all the words. The 3 sections do NOT spell out the source of the files. They spell out the reason that Roon wants to clean up some entries, without providing any information from the entries themselves which could be used to identify which particular files went missing.
If, for whatever reason, hardware, software, or user error, some files can’t be found by Roon any more, I don’t want to go off examining all my monitored locations to see if anything (based on my perfect knowledge and exact memory of every file they should contain) is missing (or had its security or filename accidentally changed). I want Roon to explcitly tell me which entries, corresponding to which missing files, it proposes to delete.
There are existing, fairly recent entries in this Support section by people who had hundreds or thousands of entries Roon wanted to delete. They had to contact Support to try and figure out what was going on and get advice on how to correct it. If the entries (files) had been listed they would have had much better information to start with and find out if it was an easily correctable local problem, rather than having to immediately contact Support.
No, Roon tells you the source and the reason but not the individual file names. Here is the list:
Source for the first check box: files that have been deleted via Roon, deleted from the file system, or removed from a streaming service.
Source for the second check box: files unavailable from a storage location that no longer exists.
Source for the third checkbox: files unavailable because the storage location or account they are associate with are disabled.
It seems what you want is for Roon to monitor your library and be able to report back when any files are removed or made unavailable for any reason and you want a detailed list of said files. I would love to hear how this could be implemented with an appropriate UI for all customers to understand and use.
Like I said, what you want will increase support enquires. It will also increase the UI complexity and take away from coding resources that could be utilized to make Roon better for everyone, not just those that want to see what files may have gone missing…or not.
I agree with the OP Roon needs to list what it’s deleted. I posted a similar ticket last night. I keep getting loads of deleted files in the first section, hundreds over the last month. I want to know what these are. I have not changed my storage path and don’t delete from Roon or the drive attached to my ROCK. Its likely streaming services removing stuff from their catalogues but I need to know. I am loosing 30 albums worth at a time in some cases, this is a lot to loose from a collection streaming or local.
It does not clearly spell out where they are from. It gives you a list of possibles nothing more. We want a list of the items it’s deemed to delete. If it’s a streaming service due to loosing the rights or changing the version I need to know, so I can replace it. At the rate it’s clearing out files on my system I have lost over 500 tracks in the last month. That’s too many not it know what they where and from where.
What’s wrong with a simple list of files it’s removed in a simple to read log? Hardly difficult to create or understand that. Roon already had entries for the files in the dB.
Go ahead, describe a complete and friendly UI able to handle all the possibilities that is simple to code and support. Or do you want to click a button and have it dump to a text file with no explanation as to what the text file contains?
Show deleted files button in the library maintenance section, it shows a table of tracks its removed from the db, with, album , then file location (Tidal, Qobuz, Local with path). Basically the view you get in tracks already. You can also export as XL. Hardly rocket science.
It’s obvious you don’t care if dB entries are being removed from you library without any knowledge of what they are. I do, I use the streaming services a lot and want to know if i have to replace them.
Roon is fundamentally a Music Library Management, Integration and Delivery tool. If the Roon Library Cleanup is proposing to delete database entries or pointers, it is perfectly reasonable for a User to want to easily and quickly know what source or target objects are involved. How can that not be so?
Feature Requests is a stream where Roon Users can post requests for changes or additional features that they would like to see made available. The only appropriate responses from other Roon Users are to say “Yes, that would be good, I also vote for this”, or to post a method of doing what is requested or a workaround.
I do not understand why you would go into battle to put down a reasonable request and to argue against it, unless the request fundamentally changes the way Roon works in other aspects such that Roon is degraded.
It is up to Roon staff to determine if a Feature Request is worthy of consideration and implementation, not other Users, and it is puzzling why you would take it upon yourself to effectively attack what to me and others, seems a perfectly reasonable function. How easy or difficult to implement the feature is technically is irrelevant, and is up to Roon Devs to resolve, not Roon users to challenge other Roon Users on.
Why on earth should Roon not make it easy and automatic to get a list of deletions to enable User investigation/remediation? If you have a workaround, fair enough, post the helpful response, it there is a feature that does what the OP is requesting but he has not discovered it and you know how to do it, fair enough - post the helpful response. If you don’t want or need such a feature, fair enough, just move on.
I think the OP is asking for something like this, if not, I am … Add a “View Details” link so you can see listed what is about to be removed from the library database with a “clean” action.
Roon alreay monitors my library - that’s how it can identify this situation and suggest deleting the entries. It already has code and a UI to create and display a list of files it’s having a problem with - that’s what it does with the Skipped Files item already available under Libraries.
What you are defending is analogous to you, in a physical Library and acting like Roon, going to the Librarian and saying “I can’t find 5 books on the shelves, so I want to delete them from the catalog”. Do you think the Librarian would say “Sure, go ahead and do that”. Or, do you think the Librarian would say “What books are they? We need to see what happened to them before we remove them from the catalog.”
To put it another way, Roon, by asking whether you want to delete the entries, implies that you have a decision to make, and that there are alternatives to giving it the go ahead to delete. Unfortunately, right now Roon doesn’t give you any information about what those entries might be.
I think that’s worth fixing, and don’t think it would be terribly hard to implement. You disagree. Neither of us knows for sure what the cost/benefit result would be. We should probably agree to disagree.
+1
For me as a predominantly streaming user of ROON I have often looked at this screen and wondered if I should “clean my library”
If the files are removed from a streaming service, I’d like to know.
If I clean my library and the files are re-added to the service I assume I won’t get them back.
If I don’t remove them and they are re-added do they reappear in my library?
If there are a mixture of local files that I do wish to remove and streaming files that I don’t can I separate these two to allow a partially dusted library?
At the moment it’s a confusing feature that I would like to see updated.
Dear “Feature Request” team. I’ve had this phenomenon happen again. There I was randomly playing with settings, as you do, I goto Library Maintenance, and there are 22 files to clean up. Why? What are they? Where’d it find them? What happened? Who knows?! It’s extremely disconcerting. We need a “View details” link here at very least, as suggested (with picture) above. Thanks!
This makes a lot of sense to me as well. I just checked, and there’s no additional detail available in the RoonServer_log.txt either. I was sort of hoping maybe the files would be listed in the debug logs on the server as a hack-ish way to see what’s up.
I’ve got 10 “deleted files” to clean up and I’d sure love to know what they are before I dump them.
… Add a “View Details” link so you can see listed what is about to be removed from the library database with a “clean” action.