Discrepancy in Album Counts on Identical Drives (ref#IXMP0M)

Support
1

I have 1 main drive (APFS) and 2 backups for my Roon library (1 APFS and other Fat32) All 3 drives show the same track count in Roon (765,128) My maain drive shows 62,319 albums while the 2 backup drives only show 54,923 and 54,913. The browsing preferences are all set to yes.

I just used Carbon Copy Cloner to compare the drives and the Roon library on all 3 uses the same disc space.

2

Hello @Paul_Elliott,

To put it simply: the discrepancy in album counts is happening because Roon is still actively working on identifying your massive library (over 200,000 tracks are currently pending).

While tracks remain unidentified, Roon relies on your physical folder structures to group them into albums. Because APFS and FAT32 file systems read folder paths differently, Roon is grouping these unidentified albums differently on each drive.

There is nothing wrong with your backups! Please just leave your Core running and wait for Roon to finish building and identifying the entire library. Once the background process is complete, the album counts will naturally align across all your drives.

3

Ok thanks, doesn’t the the spiner at the top right signify that Roon is identifying the library, I waited until it stopped spinning.

4

Hi Vadim, Roon is no longer actively working on identifying my library. I switch libraries to compare them and one library still has the larger number of albums approx 62319 while to other 2 have approx 54, 923 and all 3 have the same number of tracks and all use the same disc space. I always wait until the spinning disc at the top of the screen has finished. Is there a way to force Roon to identify the missing albums correctly?

The folder count using terminal is 69299 in both Novus 20TB and Lacie

5

@Paul_Elliott,

Could you please clarify what you mean by “switched libraries”?

Could you also describe how you change the library in Roon?

Understanding your exact process will help us pinpoint the problem.

Thanks!

6

Hi Alex,

I mean that I go into Roon storage settings, disable the current Roon Library (Novus 20TB) and enable another copy of the Roon Library (LaCie 16TB) and wait for Roon to import all the tracks and stop analysing.

I hope that clarifies my meaning

7

Hi @Paul_Elliott,

Thanks for the extra detail — that really helps clarify things.

Looking at your setup, I can see you actually have three separate storage locations configured in Roon, not two:

  • Novus 20 TB → folder: /Roon Music Library
  • Roon library → folder: /Roon Library
  • LaCie 16TB → folder: /Roon Library

The key thing I notice is that Novus 20TB and “Roon library” use different folder names, which suggests they contain different music — and when both are active at the same time, Roon combines them into one library. Your 62,319 album count is most likely the combined total of both those drives together.

When you switch to LaCie, you’re only enabling one drive, so you’re missing whatever is on the other active drive — which would explain the ~7,400 album gap.

Could you confirm a few things:

  1. When you see 62,319 albums — which storage locations are enabled at that point?
  2. When you see 54,923 albums — which ones are enabled then?
  3. Do you recall when you added the “Roon library” drive to Roon? It may contain music that isn’t on your other drives.

Once we know which combination gives which count, we can pinpoint exactly what’s missing from your backups.

8

Hi @Vadim,

Thanks for the insight, the 60K album library is the 20TB, but I’ll confirm properly soon. I also realised the other day that the Roon library disk also contains a folder of radio program files.

BTW These libraries are temporary while I’m waiting for my SSDs to be replaced under warranty, there were 4 SSDs in my OWC express 4M2 enclosure 3 of which fried. This was my Roon library which I’m planning to reinstate after they’re returned and I copy one of the libraries back to the SSDs.

9

Hi @Paul_Elliott,

That context really helps, and sorry to hear about the SSDs — losing 3 out of 4 is rough!

The radio program files in the “Roon library” folder would also explain part of the discrepancy, as Roon would attempt to import those as tracks and group them into albums, inflating the count.

Once you’ve had a chance to confirm which storage locations are active when you see each album count, we can confirm exactly what’s going on and make sure your backup libraries are complete before you copy back to the new SSDs.

Take your time — no rush given the circumstances!