Deeper Library Clean

[Hugo_Sharp (Hugo)]

Thanks. I hadn’t known to rename the database folder. After following the above it’s removed the phantom entries and only processes the 90,000 tracks as it should. Thanks for that.

One thing remaining though is that the corrupted album entries still exist and i can’t delete them, only hide them. Any thoughts on this? It fails to delete when it can’t find the relevant flac file in the library.

[Hugo_Sharp (Hugo)]

@noris spoke too soon. It’s still referencing too many tracks (phantom tracks) when reviewing the library

[noris]

Hi @Hugo_Sharp,

Sorry to hear that starting fresh and then restoring hasn’t worked. I’m a little confused here so I’d like to clarify a few things before we proceed:

@noris

Can you also confirm that none of your other cores exhibit this behavior, neither the Mac nor the Innuous?

This issue only occurs on your MEC95, correct?

@noris

Restore your database from a backup before this issue started

Can you confirm that you have used a backup that is from enough time ago before this issue started? If you restored a backup from when this issue was already present, I fear that the changes might have been restored as well that could be causing this issue.

@Hugo_Sharp

Recently I stored the RoonBackup on the same external drive that holds my library files.

What is the exact model/manufacturer of your external drive? Can you confirm that the deleted Roon backup folder is still not perhaps in the recycle bin of the drive and is still being scanned?

@Hugo_Sharp

I’ve since deleted the backup files but think it may still be lingering as: i’ve only got 80,000 tracks on file but the latest rescan is up to a count of 220,000 files assessed and is taking ages to scan.

Can you share a screenshot of your Roon Settings → Storage Tab? It should look something like this:

@Hugo_Sharp

After following the above it’s removed the phantom entries and only processes the 90,000 tracks as it should

Before you went ahead with the library cleanup, were the phantom entries still missing from the listing? As in was it only after you performed the library cleanup that these phantom tracks started appearing?

@Hugo_Sharp

I restored the db (deleted db and then restored from a fresh backup).

Can you please share a copy of your Roon Database with us from the affected computer? You can use these instructions to send it to us as a shared Dropbox/Google Drive/Firefox Send link.

Thanks,
Noris

[Hugo_Sharp (Hugo)]

To update @noris I found there were many hidden files in the root of the drive where i had the music files. Mostly old backups of Roon that had been deleted. So i cleaned all those out and also moved the whole library into a folder of its own so there nothing else gets saved there except Roon music files. This fixed the issue of the 400,000 files Roon was scanning. The issue remains though that windows is very slow to do a full rescan of the library (about 2 hours vs 2 mins on mac) plus windows corrupts any files if i rename the host folder of the flac file. Plus just generally it does weird things like mix the tracks of two separate album folders into one album in Roon and then leave random single tracks out of the grouping. And then to fix it is a nightmare.

Is the above always the case with windows or have i got a singular issue?

@noris

This issue only occurs on your MEC95, correct?

Yes only on this core (ie the windows one, the mac is always perfect).

I’ll submit the db as above.

[noris]

Hi @Hugo_Sharp,

I wonder if the 400,000 hidden files caused the database to be in an unstable state. After you have removed those files, have you by any chance tried to restore from one of your backups? I would make a fresh Roon backup and possibly give this a go.

@Hugo_Sharp

windows corrupts any files if i rename the host folder of the flac file

Is this the Windows machine itself without Roon in the mix?

– Noris