Duplicates, Duplicates, Duplicates........Help!

Hi Slim…thank you for your response/help. I am going to ask a few questions since Im pretty frustrated.

  1. Where do I define a new folder…in the storage tab?
  2. Im not sure where to go to get all of my albums except in the folders on my Music Server (hard drive).
  3. When you say “disable” or “remove” these current folders (ie Music Folder?) Is this in the Storage tab as well?
  4. No Tidal, no problem
  5. Again, adding the new folder is that under the Storage Tab as well.
  6. Scanning the folder is fine …and I am assuming this is under the storage tab.
  7. Where do I check Roon’s listing.

Should I set up a new path (ie mark’s mini-music server) and than delete the old ones. Sorry, Im fairly computer literate but, have been at this for months and dont want to lose what I have done. Trying to do all this so I can get rid of physical software however, I didnt write down every CD I loaded and therefore am having a hard time figuring out what is missing from the collection now.

If there was ever a time to have phone contact, now would be it. Wish that was an option since I have spent many months doing this and keep encountering this problem,

Thanks again for your input, advice and PATIENCE!!!..Mark…trying to Chill:)

OK, first and foremost do a Roon backup, to more than one place if you can. Then -

  1. Not talking about Roon, yet. Just set up a new folder using your OS to do that. Don’t put it under any folder directories you may have been referencing in Roon, Make it completely stand alone.
  2. Using your OS software, File Manager if you have Windows or FInder(?) if you have macOS, copy all the music files, from the folders you currently have defined to Roon, into the folder you just defined.
  3. Setting->Storage has 3 vertical dots to the right of an enabled folder. Clicking those will give a drop down menu. Select Disable. Do that for all the folders you have defined to Roon.
  4. Great no Tidal.
  5. Settings->Storage->Add Folder. Add the folder you just defined and populated using your OS copy software.
  6. Setting->Storage, for the file you just added in #5 drop down the menu in #3. Click rescan.
  7. After all scanning is done, any files Roon had trouble with will be listed here, Settings->Library->Skipped Files. You may have to do a Refresh. Dunno, never used this screen.

You library should have remained untouched, but do a restore from the backup if things don’t look right.

Under no circumstances, do you have to delete any files from disk.

These changes are just temporary until we can get to a stable point to analyze from.

I’m home watching football, so I’ll check your post from time to time.

Hi Slim

Hope you’re enjoying the game…Giants/Texans?

Ok, I created a new folder on my desktop entitled New Music Folder…very original. I than backed up to 2 locations (snapshot attached). I went to my Music Server and highlighted all of the folders containing the music files and tried to copy them to the new folder (New Music Folder) which is on my desktop. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough storage on my Mac mini to transfer all of these files into the the new folder. I could take the New Music Folder and insert that into my Music Server (external hard drive with plenty of storage). The problem is I tried to do that and then when I was done the only thing on my music server hard drive was a folder entitled New Music Folder. Im not sure thats the intention so I undid it and am basically left with an empty folder on my Mac mini. Any suggestions?

12%20PM

Wow, a little complicated.

Before we go any further, there are two things you must be dead nuts sure about. 1)Your Roon library is backed up and I see you have already done that and 2) you don’t destroy your music files, there’s no going back from there. Ya know, when you do a Roon backup, that’s only backing up your Roon library, not your music files. I hope you’re doing something else to back those up, but maybe that’s a conversation we should have later.

OK, your next post should say that you -

  1. have made a new folder somewhere that you have room to copy all your music files into.
  2. have copied all the music files you think you should into that folder.
  3. have enabled that new folder, and only that folder in Roon.
  4. did a rescan on that folder.

When you get there, let me know the results. It’ll take awhile, so I check for a post in about 45 minutes.

Bills/Vikings.:roll_eyes:

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It’s really NOT a good idea to backup your Roon database slap bang into the middle of your library of music files. Put your database backups somewhere else, please.

Thanks for your patience. The Music Server is a raid drive with two 6 terabyte drives mirroring each other. The Music Server have a whole bunch of artist folders with multiple albums from each artist. I took a snapshot (attached) in order to provide a sample visual. Are you saying that I should separate each album out and copy the albums to a separate folder? The only way I can do this is literally open up each artist folder and than copy each album folder into a new folder (i.e. New Music Folder). The example attached demonstrates what Im trying to convey with Acoustic Alchemy being the example. If I were to do that, I would have a list of approximately 1400 album folders in the new folder (i.e. New Music Folder). Please confirm as that is a very long process and I want to make sure Im doing this correctly.

Thanks, Mark

Hi Geoff…please explain…its backed up in 2 places (1. in my Roon file on my Mac mini and 2. on my Music Server (external hard drive).

Thanks,
Mark

If I look at your screenshots in this thread, I see that you have “Music Server” set as a watched folder in Roon (twice, as a matter of fact - not surprising that you are seeing duplicates). So Roon will assume all folders under that will contain music files.

And then you have also defined “Music Server” in the path to your folder used for Roon (database) backups.

So it appears to me that you are mixing Roon database backup files in with your music files…

I appreciate what you are saying however, based on a previous suggestion I disabled one of those paths under the storage tab and am still experiencing the problem. I did this about 4 or 5 days ago and am still in the same place with this problem.

OK, hold up. I though you fixed this in the prior discussion you had with eric.

If the folders are still being referenced twice then that explains duplicates. You shouldn’t enable a folder twice.

Don’t do anything I have suggested until you remedy the enabled folders problem.

OK, i read your reply to @Geoff_Coupe after I posted. Situation is a little confusing. Could you post what you have in Settings->Storage?

Yes, please see attached shot which is currently the way Im set up.

OK, thanks.

I can’t speak to iTunes libraries. Could the inclusion of this library be causing duplicates. Dunno.

@Geoff_Coupe ?

It’s possible. However, I wouldn’t touch iTunes with a bargepole, so I’m no help here - sorry…

OK, just for shits&giggles disable the iTunes library and rescan the other library.

If that doesn’t resolve anything, I’ll answer your questions about how to copy.

Im not sure either but, I didn’t add that it was there from day one years ago when I first started this journey. Just really frustrated since I recently have invested a lot of time adding the majority of these albums and the problem keeps occurring.

Ok, just did it and I now have dropped down to 1344 albums which is about 45 albums less than when I started this morning. Also, there are still a lot of duplicates in these 1344 which if I start to hide will decrease this number further. Also, I thought iTunes is an integral part of Roon so Im getting confused whether this should be on or off. Finally, if I start deleting the duplicates Im back to where I started not knowing which albums I previously loaded are not in the overall collection since they seem to drop out randomly.

This is not fun!!!

iTunes is not an integral part of Roon.

What do you mean by this. Do you mean 1)that you ripped a whole bunch of CDs or 2) that you copied a bunch of files from your iTune library?

If #2, you can’t do that. That will result in duplicates.

Everything is ripped from the original CDs. When I insert the CD, iTunes comes up and rips the CD. It immediately shows up in Roon upon doing so.

Aha, I don’t use iTunes. When you rip with iTunes does it 1)ask you where to place ripped files or 2) just place them in iTunes library, automagically?

If #2, then how does music files get into the other folder you’re referencing?

Ive always done it this way from the beginning and no I don’t direct it. It places it in an iTunes library and also stores it on my external hard drive. See snapshot of the iTunes preferences.