I [didn't] give up

[robert5733]

UPDATE:

So I mapped SISU to the server address and it is indeed working, so apparently mapping is not available with MM.

I tried CMC_CME with the new path to see what happens and it adds a dvdfolder so 2 discs available for SISU. Thought maybe the xml needed time to update so exported sisu again and synced sisu and now theres a third dvd folder disc available. They will all play so I don't think there will be a problem so I think it's time to nuke the whole works.

I will remap MM, clean the meta-data, rewrite the meta-data, delete CMC_CME, CMC_CCC, restart them from the beginning with fresh meta data and see what happens.

Is there going to be any problems by just deleting the contents of the two folders CMC_CME and CMC_CCC, and putting a fresh copy back to start new? I know that they write to the registry, just want to make sure I'm not going to screw something else up by doing this.

[Pauven]

I am using a NAS storage drive, with what will be my server PC mapped to it now. I only have the one computer running MMCM CMC CME CCC right now, will add another later with just CMC. I have a structure for mapping each drive with w: x: and y:, All computers are mapped alike to avoid confusion with These programs.

Just the one PC? I'll admit, I'm a little confused as to why it wasn't working. Typically this issue only crops up when you have multiple PC's if their drive paths/mappings don't match 100% But since you were doing everything on a single PC, the drive mappings shouldn't have been an issue - yet somehow they were.

I will try this movie using the server path and see what happens while I wait for your response. My question ahead of that will be, do all client computers running CMC connecting to the host running CCC have to be mapped in some way in order to connect to the NAS, or will they connect using the address given to them from the host, so no mapping needed

CMC+CCC PC's would always connect via the path provided from My Movies. As long as you use the UNC server path, no mapping is required.

Another reason that Binnerup says not to use mapped drives with MM is for users of other media players, like Dune or Popcorn Hour, for which drive mapping functionality doesn't even exist. The only way for these devices to reach your media is to specify UNC server paths.

So I mapped SISU to the server address and it is indeed working, so apparently mapping is not available with MM.

Yay! While I'm certainly glad it is working, I'm still baffled mapped drives weren't working on your single PC setup.

I will remap MM, clean the meta-data, rewrite the meta-data, delete CMC_CME, CMC_CCC, restart them from the beginning with fresh meta data and see what happens.

I know that's a big task, I hope it goes well. In the long run, it will be worth it.

Is there going to be any problems by just deleting the contents of the two folders CMC_CME and CMC_CCC, and putting a fresh copy back to start new? I know that they write to the registry, just want to make sure I'm not going to screw something else up by doing this.

No problem at all, but to be honest there's really no reason to nuke CMC/CME/CCC. The way I designed the Full Export and Full Sync functionality, it is equivalent to nuking, it truly starts fresh. But if it makes you feel better, nuke away.

The CME/CCC settings will survive the nuking, though, so when you reinstall then most of your settings will still be set. Just be sure to review everything to make sure it's how you want it.

[robert5733]

I restored the computer to just before installing CME and started fresh. Not sure you care about my stats, but here’s what I ended up with.

I remapped MM with the the new path in all drives, thankfully if you change one it asks if you want to change all titles with that path. I cleaned the meta data for the 3 drives and rewrote with new data.

Cleaned meta data in CME and Exported new data with CME. Probably should have just did the meta data and not covers though. It exported correctly with 1828 titles in 3 hrs with no errors. Synced with CMC_CME in about 5 min with correct number of titles and another 10min for .jpg sync. Received the same error about invalid code execution. Movies play and everything seems to be operating correctly.

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Exported with CCC and it reported correctly with number of titles in 2 hours 40 minutes with no errors. Makes me wonder about my restore though. Seems to be operating slower and pausing. The last export I did completed in 45 minutes, so it makes me think there is something going on behind the scenes somewhere. I checked the wrong box during restore and wrote only differences in the restore instead of full restore. Been seeing a few bugs I don’t like. Might have to do this all over again. Will talk to you about that possibility at a later date.

Synced with CMC_CCC too quickly to worry about time, jpg took about 30 seconds, with no errors and correct movies. Still have debugging on so received the same error about accessing CMC_MovieDB.xml.

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Disabled debugging, closed and reopened CMC_CCC and no errors to report.

Think I am good at this point. Taking a break for awhile before possibly rebooting and/or trying computer #2.

Thanks again for all your help and support. Hopefully these posts might help others in the future.

[Pauven]

Received the same error about invalid code execution.

Thanks for sharing. That error message rang a bell for me, so I went back into my code to check it out. It happens in a weird scenario where the My Movies XML data says there's episode data, but the already processed CMC data disagrees and says there's no episode data. At the time I wrote that error message, I was confused how this was occurring, so more than anything that error message is a placeholder to remind me to fix this scenario. Out of sight out of mind, I totally forgot about this. After looking at it again, I'm still confused, my code definitely looks broken there, and the solution isn't obvious... Hmmm...

Exported with CCC and it reported correctly with number of titles in 2 hours 40 minutes with no errors. Makes me wonder about my restore though. Seems to be operating slower and pausing.

One possibility is that My Movies is slower with UNC paths vs. mapped drives. I know that seems silly, since it's accessing the same data on the same drives via the same connection, but it might be that My Movies is doing something different/extra when it detects UNC server paths.

One thing to know about My Movies is that it does access your media during the API export. Binnerup says that this is to retreive data needed for Dune players, to grab some extra data about the media/folder structure or something like that. So when CCC (and CME) asks for the title data via the API, the data includes more than what is in the My Movies DB, it also spins up the media drive and pulls some directory data too. Personally, I hate this, because I'd rather let my media drives stay asleep, and the extra data returned is not used by CCC/CME/CMC. Worse, I believe this is the main reason the My Movies API (and even MMCM's GUI) is so slow, as every time you pull back data for a title, there's a lag while it also scans the media folder. I've asked Binnerup to at least provide an API option to disable this extra folder scan behavior, but so far no luck.

And yes, as far as I can tell, that pausing is when the title's media directory is being accessed by My Movies. I've also noticed the export gets slower as it progresses, fast for the first few titles then progressively slower. No idea why, perhaps My Movies exhausting it's local cache.

So, anyway, it might be that this directory scanning behavior, combined with running back-to-back full exports in both CME and CCC, has drastically slowed down MM performance. And this ties back into my first comment about UNC vs. mapped drives. Since Dune doesn't work with mapped drives (as far as I know), it might be that this additional directory scan only happens for UNC paths. If I'm right about all this, it makes sense that you are noticing that the export got slower. I theorize that you may also notice the MM GUI to be slower too as you move around from title to title.

Think I am good at this point. Taking a break for awhile before possibly rebooting and/or trying computer #2.

That's wonderful! I'm so happy to hear about your successful transition to CCC. You've accomplished the hard part already. Setting up the 2nd computer should be a breeze in comparison.

Please be sure to follow the full CCC setup guide here on the forum (if you haven't already). Setting up the final tasks like the auto-start on boot will really make CCC sing.

Thanks again for all your help and support. Hopefully these posts might help others in the future.

I'm always happy to help. Fingers crossed your journey helps others too.

[Pauven]

By the way, I edited your original title of this post, from "I give up" to "I [didn't] give up". Hope you don't mind, I felt that tweak better summarized your journey.

[robert5733]

Thanks for the title post update, it does make a little more sense.

Just wanted to post an update for syncing a second computer. Had to fight with it for a bit, but got it working. Here's what I found.

Initially I couldn't connect to either CCC or the Netshare folder. I could see the Netshare folder in Explorer, but got a message that I didn't have permission. Played around with the permissions for awhile, so not sure what I did before the working result, but here's what I did. In change advanced sharing I turned on file sharing for public, private and guest networks(because my network is unknown by not being connected to internet, can't choose one to configure, did them all) and turned off password protected sharing. Right clicked Netshare, properties, and went to sharing, advanced sharing and made sure share this folder was enabled, back to sharing, share and added Everyone group and changed to read/write and selected share. Connection established and good to go.

Then came CCC conection. READ THE INSTRUCTIONS. Nope thought I had it handled and changed all kind of permissions and shared the folder and played with all kinds of settings(tried to remember evrything I did and set it all back as best I could) still no connection. Decided it was time to see what I could find in the forums and came across the directions. FIREWALL. Disabled the firewall and viola, connection. Followed the directions for windows defender firewall and enabled both instances of CCC, selected both public and private(because network is unknown) enabled firewall and baboom. Everything connects, did a sync and everything is working as designed.

Now for the only problem I encountered. I'm connected by HDMI to a 4k TV(on server PC). When trying to close CCC it pops open the message/dialogue box asking to close or minimize CCC. I have done this enough times to know the choices but can only see the top most part of the selection.

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Searched the internet and seems to be a problem with 4k in many programs. Connected to another TV and a monitor and had no problems on them, it is only the 4k TV.

Tried all kinds of fixes with resolution, text size and many other things. Played with CCC settings compatibility, and came up with a solution that worked. Right clicking CCC, properties, change high dpi settings, enabled "override high dpi scaling behavior" and selected "system under scaling performed by. I can now get the entire box.

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I am now beginning the cleanup of music folders so I can move on to the next step and see how my music goes.

[Pauven]

Good work on getting your firewall opened. There's more than one way to do this, and there's dozens if not hundreds of different firewalls that can be used, so I just have to provide general guidance in the directions on how to do this.

Regarding the network share connectivity issue, I'm wondering if you didn't miss a step. It would have been easy to miss as I think it was optional for your single PC solution, but now that you're trying to connect remotely, it's not optional. In CCC > Settings > Startup Options, you need to make sure the Username and Password for the Local Windows Account is configured:

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By default, the Username will self populate using the account you are currently logged in with. If for some reason you want it to use a different account, then you would click the Override checkbox and then replace the Username.

The info you type here is sent to CMC when CMC syncs to CCC. This permits CMC to then access the shared network folder, since it should be accessible using these same credentials.

Thanks for letting me know about the scaling issue on the minimize prompt, I'll check that out.

[robert5733]

Music appears to be a major problem for me also. Let me try to explain what I got happening here. I did a sync with my music folder and have all kinds of things out of whack. Pretty much figured out where my problems lie, “windows media player”, thanks microsoft. I have been using WMC since the XP days. I rip the album to the folder, and open media player to update the database since that is what WMC uses to display collections. I use iTunes to sync with my phone. Over all these years media player/iTunes has apparently screwed my details for the albums up. They could be fighting each other. On some albums there are multiple album names for the same album, which then shows in CMC as 4 different albums(Fixed AC/DC as a test and shows proper albums now). A lot of the albums are missing the folder.jpg. I can go through each album and update the album artist, album name, genre,etc and add a folder.jpg image. That would take care of the details. Am going to set them both to not update files, if I can and don’t plan to use media player anymore, but some things open automatically and don’t want to update any files.

UPDATE: I have updated all the files(at least for a first quick run) and ran another sync, no errors and all the files look correct with the correct number of albums(but genres are all over the place).

So I believe I am ready to use the program and finally get rid of WMC. I'm sure there might be some little things along the way, but we can probably close this thread and if any problems arise, I can start a new thread addressing the issues. Like Windows 11, I might go ahead and link my office computer since everything is working so well at this point. Long hard road for me, but if I can do it, everybody should be able to get on board.

[Pauven]

Unfortunately, this can be a common issue with music. CMC reconstructs your collection by reading the MP3 tags embedded in each audio file, and if this data isn't correct then you get wonky results. If the Album name isn't consistent, or the Artist name isn't consistent, then it gets ugly as you discovered.

Years ago when I first began coding the music library, I attempted to import the music library from Windows Media Player, unfortunately Microsoft used a proprietary database and it cannot be read.

Browse around the forum here and you will see that many of us have used various tools to clean up our collection. Some are fully manual tag editors, some provide a semi-automated approach including audio recognition to ID unknown tracks, and some are fully automatic.

One thing I discovered myself is that no matter what tool I used, I absolutely hated the genres. They are way too detailed, and broken into too many subcategories. There's a post on this forum somewhere in which I did a deep dive on this. Like the difference between "Rock" and "Rock**" (in which the asterisks represents chart toppers, I believe). I wanted a greatly simplified list of Genres, but I also didn't like overriding the genre tags.

So I came up with my own solution, and it's built right into CMC. It's the Genre Mapper. Just open CMC > Settings > Music Library > Music Genre Mapping <-- set to Enabled. And then click on Map Music Genres.

In there you can map each source genre to a target genre. It doesn't change the tags in the file at all, instead it simply changes how they are presented in CMC. So I can map both "Rock" and "Rock**" to just "Rock". And if you ever want to get back to the original genres, just disable the feature.

Note that the list of genres to map is built after scanning your collection, so scan it first. And if you add new music, you may need to update the mappings for any new genres that appeared.

[robert5733]

Never ending... had it all set up with no problems, watched movies cleaned and synced music played music no problems. Go to watch a movie tonight and "unable to run powerdvd"
Tried looking through logs and can't find anything. The path to powerdvd is correct and I can open pdvdlp.exe from that folder in explorer. I can navigate to the folder and see the files in the folder. Ran the check path in CCC and it says all paths are fine.
I select play and see the overlay to launch powerdvd, then get the error can't launch, close the error and launching powerdvd stays on screen, go back to main menu and launching powerdvd is still on screen briefly and disappears.
playclick log says everything is fine but there is no powerdvd launching.

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