I [didn't] give up

[Pauven]

Not sure how to get quotes and responses all in one post so I might have to make a few posts here, sorry about that.

While writing your response, if you want to add another quote, scroll down to the relevant post and use your mouse to highlight the text you want to quote. Then click the blue " double-quote button at the top-right of that post (you may have to scroll back up a bit to get to the button, but careful don't lose your text highlight). The highlighted text will be inserted into your new post.

Note, it will be inserted where you have your cursor blinking, so it's smart to move your cursor to where you want to insert the quote before you highlight and insert it.

[robert5733]

So much to contemplate here.

First off I have scoured your site about cost. I remember back when it said something about free, the only reference I can find now says CCC is free for 101 titles, and you need to buy a license for each PC running CCC. You have helped me tremendously and I really appreciate it. I was looking for the donate button but couldn't find that either. I feel I should be compensating you for your efforts with me.

Now back to the trials and tribulations. I have the windows 10 up and running and slapped the USB stick in. So much difference in speed and everything appears to be working perfectly.

So now I have been reading about CCC and thinking I might take the leap when I get all the computers running Windows 10, and using your advice about running both CME and CCC. I just have a couple questions after reading the tutorial.

If the computer running CCC does not have a login password, and I leave that blank in the CCC setup, will it still work, or will I need to create a password to login the user and have something to put in CCC?

In the tutorial, it says CMC/CME/CCC must all be running the same versions. After the first hiccups I used your suggestion and ran the beta for CMC and have been running it ever since. Now I have CCC and CME with version 6.0.2022.1103 and CMC with 6.0.2022.6. I have only used CNC and CME so far. Should I try going back to the final version CMC, wait for v7, or is it all going to work with what I have?

Thank you for your patience with me

[robert5733]

oh, just thought of another question, does the computer running CCC have to be connected to the internet at all times for the API service, or is it all just local? I usually only have it connected to the internet during updates to MM. It will still be connected to the LAN for communicating to other computers, just no internet access.

[Pauven]

CMC is now completely free. I thought I removed the references to trial limitations, but I guess I missed one somewhere. I used to have a donate page, but the website got corrupted and I had to restore an old copy which was missing the donate page, and I've just been too lazy to re-add it.

If the computer running CCC does not have a login password, and I leave that blank in the CCC setup, will it still work, or will I need to create a password to login the user and have something to put in CCC?

CCC doesn't require a password, and if you don't have one configured then just leave it blank. I believe that should work fine, but let me know if it doesn't.

In the tutorial, it says CMC/CME/CCC must all be running the same versions. After the first hiccups I used your suggestion and ran the beta for CMC and have been running it ever since. Now I have CCC and CME with version 6.0.2022.1103 and CMC with 6.0.2022.6. I have only used CNC and CME so far. Should I try going back to the final version CMC, wait for v7, or is it all going to work with what I have?

Good catch, but this is an exception: you can run CMC 6.0.2022.6 alongside CCC/CME 6.0.2022.1103.

Do not go back to the final version, as 6.0.2022.6 is newer and has several important bug fixes, as you have experienced.

does the computer running CCC have to be connected to the internet at all times for the API service, or is it all just local? I usually only have it connected to the internet during updates to MM. It will still be connected to the LAN for communicating to other computers, just no internet access.

CCC does not use the internet at all. When it connects to the My Movies API, this is your local My Movies install, not the internet.

CMC does use the internet to check for updates, which is nice. And when there's an update, it can automatically do the upgrade for you. I even added functionality for CMC to update CCC for you, even if CCC is on another PC without internet. CMC's update checks are optional, and you can turn them off in the settings if you prefer.

Thank you for your patience with me

Happy to help.

[robert5733]

perfect, running out to get some upgrade parts for the actual computers I'm going to be using and start upgrades tonight.

My final thoughts, I was up half the night running these things through my brain.

Taking your advice, and keeping two folders on the server, one for CMC_CME, and one for CMC_CCC. Just trying to wrap my head around the workings of exports.

And since you want to be able to use CMC with CME, but may also want to try CCC, you could do:
C:\CMC_CCC
C:\CMC_CME
Copy your flash drive's data to C:\CMC_CME, since that's how you already have it configured. Then in C:\CMC_CCC, extract a brand new copy of CMC (it will default to using CCC), and configure CCC in that folder.
Then, if you want to use CMC with CME data, just run the C:\CMC_CME\CMC.exe. And to use CMC with CCC data, run C:\CMC_CCC\CMC.exe.

When CCC does a full export, it is getting the covers, fanart and .xml from the media folder and saving it in the CMC_CCC folder? It is then on the constant lookout for changes to media folders, or just MM changes?

Say I’ve been using CCC for a month and have watched 10 movies. CCC has sent the flag to MM to set them as watched. MM has updated the mymovies.xml as watched. That is the only change made to the movie folder for that movie is the .xml?

When CME does an export, it writes new mmtitle.xml, fanart, and covers to the media folders? (if force export is enabled) (CMC_CME won’t be used to watch movies, so no watched status updates will be flagged there. If used for travel, I copy the CMC_CME folder and movies wanted to flash, take them along and delete them after, so CMC_CME never knew anything happened)

Say that now I got a new movie. I put it on the server and update MM and save meta data. I now need to open CMC_CME to update the mmtitle.xml, covers, etc. CME now sees the new movie as well as the 10 watched movies have changed .xml data. It will want to export these 11 titles. It exports, which changes the time stamp on the files.

Now I open CMC_CCC and it sees these 11 titles as changed/added and does an export, are any changes made to media folder (This would create an endless loop), or is it only changes to the CMC_CCC folder?

[Pauven]

When CCC does a full export, it is getting the covers, fanart and .xml from the media folder and saving it in the CMC_CCC folder? It is then on the constant lookout for changes to media folders, or just MM changes?

Yes, that is correct. And CCC does not look in the media folders, just MM changes.

Both CCC and CME pull data directly from the My Movies API. The main difference is where the data is stored after exporting.

CME stores the data (XML and artwork) in your media folders. This is why CME is good for portable collections. You can copy a few movies onto a portable drive and the metadata comes along for the ride, and then scan it while on the road with CMC and it only shows the movies your brought with you. When CMC scans your media folders, it builds a local CMC Movie DB. To improve speed, both CME and CMC can operate in a changes-only mode, so where only titles modified in My Movies get exported via CME, and any media folder changes get caught by CMC.

As the data flows from My Movies > CME > Media Folders > CMC, there's an opportunity for changes in your media folders to appear in CMC, even if it isn't in My Movies.

CCC stores the XML data directly into a CMC format DB, and the artwork in the local CCC directory that becomes a network share. It does NOT write to your media folders at all. In addition, CCC exports MORE data than CME, which at first seems odd since they both pull from the same My Movies API, but the main reason is that by going straight into the CMC DB, data for offline/virtual titles can be exported. CME can't do this since there's not a media folder to write for offline/virtual titles. Then when CMC syncs, it's simply grabbing the latest data directly from the CMC format DB that CCC created, so CMC doesn't look in your media folders either.

As data flows from My Movies > CCC > CMC directly, any changes you make to your media folders won't appear in CMC, unless you apply those changes to My Movies. That also means any custom/extra artwork you have in your media folders won't come into CMC. Essentially, CMC+CCC = WMC experience. CMC+CME is more like PLEX or XBMC.

Also, another benefit to CMC+CCC is speed. The export of data from My Movies to CCC/CME can take hours (for example, a Full Export on my collection is 2.5 hours with CCC, even longer for CME as it has to write to my server's media folders). CMC's folder scanning is fast compared to My Movies, it can scan & import all my media folders in 5-15 minutes. But CMC can sync with CCC in seconds (i.e. typically < 5 seconds).

For example, I've been testing the new user experience this past week with CMC v7. I already have CCC running, and I go and install CMC on a new PC, point it at CCC, and instantly have my full collection synced. Not 15 minutes, not 5 minutes, not even 1 minute. It's so fast, it feels impossible, even to me. It still boggles my mind that what takes 2.5 hours to go from My Movies > CCC, goes in mere seconds to CMC. Once you experience this, you don't want to use CME anymore...

Say I’ve been using CCC for a month and have watched 10 movies. CCC has sent the flag to MM to set them as watched. MM has updated the mymovies.xml as watched. That is the only change made to the movie folder for that movie is the .xml?

It's slightly more complicated. CMC updates CCC that those 10 movies have been watched. CCC supports multiple users (i.e. Wife/Kids/Guests), and so these movies can be tracked at watched for specific users. CCC maintains its own user accounts (these are NOT My Movies users), and Parental Restrictions are available too.

You can link a CCC user account to ALSO update My Movies that a movie is watched. So CCC has the 10 movies watched, and optionally they get marked watched in My Movies too (this always updates the primary My Movies account, as the My Movies API doesn't allow for specifying a particular user to update). And then CCC re-exports those 10 movies as "Changed" (there's bug in My Movies, it doesn't report them as changed, so CCC takes care of it automatically).

And then if you have CMC running on multiple PC's, the CCC data is synced to each PC, so every users Watch History (and Parental Restrictions and display preferences too) are always in sync on all PC's.

Now, if you watch 10 movies with CMC+CME, CMC will create text files in the media folders to flag those movie as watched. CME scans your media folders, and if it sees a flag file, it updates My Movies that the movie is watched. Also, due to that bug mentioned above, CME will re-export those 10 movies as if they were changed, so that the watched history is exported back to the XML file.

Note that if you are using both CCC and CME, the watch history can become out of sync with each other. For example, if you watch in CMC+CME, then the XML files get updated, but CCC does not. If you watch in CMC+CCC, then CCC gets updated, but CME and the XML files do not. This is because of that My Movies API bug, it doesn't report these titles as changed when the Watched flag is changed. An occasional FULL EXPORT in both CCC and CME can always sync this back up if it becomes a problem.

When CME does an export, it writes new mmtitle.xml, fanart, and covers to the media folders? (if force export is enabled) (CMC_CME won’t be used to watch movies, so no watched status updates will be flagged there. If used for travel, I copy the CMC_CME folder and movies wanted to flash, take them along and delete them after, so CMC_CME never knew anything happened)

This sounds correct. Your portable collection is isolated, so anything you watch there won't be reflected in CME/CCC/My Movies.

Note, you can easily toggle a movie between Watched/Unwatched, per user account, in the CMC GUI. The "Clear" button on the remote, also the Escape key on your keyboard, will toggle whatever movie you have highlighted. You can also open a movie's details and go to the last tab, Actions, to toggle. If you do this with CMC+CCC, then this watched history is stored in CCC, synced back to My Movies if you have that user linked, and also syncs over to all CMC+CCC PC's.

Say that now I got a new movie. I put it on the server and update MM and save meta data. I now need to open CMC_CME to update the mmtitle.xml, covers, etc. CME now sees the new movie as well as the 10 watched movies have changed .xml data. It will want to export these 11 titles. It exports, which changes the time stamp on the files.

Correct. And the changed time on the files is what allows CMC's Smart Sync to detect changes only.

Now I open CMC_CCC and it sees these 11 titles as changed/added and does an export, are any changes made to media folder (This would create an endless loop), or is it only changes to the CMC_CCC folder?

Yes, this is also correct. No changes to the media folder, as explained above. Only changes to the CMC_CCC folder.

But I would suggest a better method here. Leave CCC running all the time. This is needed to allow CMC PC's to sync to CCC. If CCC is running, then Watched History, User Account changes, collection changes, etc., may be synced to all PC's. And if you let CCC check for MM changes every 5 minutes (default interval, configurable), then essentially as soon as you make a change in My Movies, it will appear within minutes in CCC, and then on each CMC PC as soon as they sync next. It makes everything feel real-time, always up to date, just like WMC worked.

Note, if CCC is not running, then watched history events are queued up in CMC, waiting until the next sync when CCC is running again. So CMC+CCC will operate in a standalone mode when CCC is offline, very similar to CMC+CME. This is not ideal, it is just a fail safe so you can still use CMC when CCC is not running. But the design is to have CCC running all the time (on one PC only, shared to all PC's running CMC).

Similarly, if My Movies is stopped/offline/down/crashed, CCC will queue changes waiting for the next time My Movies is running. CCC can still sync the last exported collection changes and any Watched history events to all CMC PC's. CCC is the man-in-the-middle, he's still working even if My Movies is down, sharing data with all CMC PC's, and then when My Movies gets back from vacation it will sync up all changes in both directions.


One last thing I need to mention, since you're planning to use both CME and CCC - don't run them at the same time. My Movies is single threaded - it can only support requests from one user/program at a time. So if CCC is talking to My Movies, CME can't. And if CME is talking, then CCC can't.

I use both apps myself. I keep CCC running 24/7, scanning for changes every 5 minutes, and keeping all my CMC PC's synced up with the latest changes. About once a month, I stop CCC and launch CME, and do a Changes Only export to update my media folders. I personally only do this as a backup - should Binnerup close shop and My Movies ever die, I like the fact that I have XML metadata and artwork in my folders, so CMC will still work. Obviously your frequency for running CME will be different, maybe you'll do it weekly, or quarterly, or only before trips, whatever works for you. But just make sure stop CCC before running CME, otherwise if they both talk to MM at the same time, everything grinds to a halt and timeout errors can occur.


I know that was a lot, probably too much info. Take your time to digest it, hopefully it was clear and will answer your questions.

[robert5733]

I fired up the new windows 10 and went ahead with a full export of CME to make sure everything was good to go. It did a full export with the correct amount of titles and no errors. I then did a sync with CMC and it gave me the right amount of movies but gave me an error (attached) “Invalid code execution”, and no movies covers were displayed. I then received access violation errors. I remembered that I was supposed to be using the beta version of CMC. I replaced the CMC with the beta and everything worked with the exception of the same error above. No other errors (other than screensaver) appeared. I am yet to parse through all the logs and see if I can find reference for the error.

I then exported with CCC and it completed the correct number at 1828 titles in just under 45 minutes. I am going to turn on debug logs in CMC and see if it gives me the same error, and see if there is any other info I can gain from them if the error appears there also.

No access errors or invalid code errors in CMC_CCC. Upon opening after sync I keep getting a “An error occurred in the application” message though. Bug report (attached) says ”Cannot create file "C:\CMC_CCC\CMC_MovieDB.xml". The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.” The file is there and appears to be intact. I then select to continue process and everything seems to be there.

IMG_1793.jpg (141.05 KiB) Viewed 2738 times

Perfect>>>>Not so fast…select a movie to play and….error…Invalid file path(attached 3 Debug logs that mention errors). Closed out everything and opened CMC_CME and played the same movie and no problems launching PDVD and playing the movie. The debug says “Path is not a network device” “Folder Does Not Exist” “Folder may be on a Mapped Drive - Attempting to Refresh” “Mapped Drive Refresh Failed - Disc Location Invalid”. I remember somewhere in your instructions, it says Binnerup states MM won’t work with mapped drives, but it works with CMC_CME just not CMC_CCC.

IMG_1794.jpg (122.86 KiB) Viewed 2738 times

Will continue to look under the hood and see if I can come up with anything while I await your response

[robert5733]

First thing I found is that if I close CCC and then open CMC_CCC I don't get the error "C:\CMC_CCC\CMC_MovieDB.xml". The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.” Still can't play a movie though, same error about path invalid

More digging has uncovered the possible problem. Played the movie in CMC_CME and got the debug logs to compare with CMC_CCC. The container in CCC is ctUnknown, whereas in CME it is ctDVDFolder

IMG_1795.jpg (104.75 KiB) Viewed 2736 times

IMG_1796.jpg (109.66 KiB) Viewed 2736 times

Here are the pics of the CMC_MovieDB.xml files for the same movie

IMG_1797.jpg (118.73 KiB) Viewed 2736 times

IMG_1798.jpg (119.47 KiB) Viewed 2736 times

[Pauven]

I am going to turn on debug logs in CMC and see if it gives me the same error, and see if there is any other info I can gain from them if the error appears there also.

No access errors or invalid code errors in CMC_CCC. Upon opening after sync I keep getting a “An error occurred in the application” message though. Bug report (attached) says ”Cannot create file "C:\CMC_CCC\CMC_MovieDB.xml". The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.” The file is there and appears to be intact. I then select to continue process and everything seems to be there.

Ironically, it is the Debug Logging that is causing that particular error. The file CMC_MovieDB.xml is in a human readable format, which can help with debugging, but it is a large file that can be slow to write. It is not needed for normal CMC usage, the smaller and much faster CMC_MovieDB.bin file is used instead. For this reason, I have CMC only create CMC_MovieDB.xml when Debug Logging is enabled, and solely for use by humans.

So by having Debug Logging enabled, CMC is writing to a large, slow file, and it is trying to do this from multiple code entry points at the same time. As CMC has become faster, this competing for file access rights has become more and more of a problem, so it's quite common now to see this error crop up.

Long story short, it totally doesn't matter. This file is only useful for debugging purposes, and these errors don't cause any harm, only a nuisance. And the solution is to turn off Debug Logging.

select a movie to play and….error…Invalid file path(attached 3 Debug logs that mention errors). Closed out everything and opened CMC_CME and played the same movie and no problems launching PDVD and playing the movie. The debug says “Path is not a network device” “Folder Does Not Exist” “Folder may be on a Mapped Drive - Attempting to Refresh” “Mapped Drive Refresh Failed - Disc Location Invalid”.

Unfortunately, this is a collection management issue - you have not been following Binnerup's guidelines for how to manage your collection.

Earlier we talked about the differences between CMC+CME and CMC+CCC, and one difference I neglected to mention is how file paths are treated between the two solutions.

With CMC+CME, you simply point CMC to a file path (mapped folder, network drive, local directory, all good no difference to CMC). CMC scans the folders, finds everything it can find that is playable, and builds your collection from scratch based upon what it found. And of course, it stores the file path to every playable file based upon its search results.

With CMC+CCC, CCC extracts the file path from My Movies and shares it with CMC. So now the file path in CMC is exactly what you configured in My Movies Collection Management. And while that should be a good thing, in your case it's now a problem.

I remember somewhere in your instructions, it says Binnerup states MM won’t work with mapped drives, but it works with CMC_CME just not CMC_CCC.

Yes, CMC works fine with mapped drives. It could care less if a drive is local or mapped or a network share. But the problem arises when the mapped drives of one PC are different than the mapped drives of another PC.

For example, on you My Movies Collection Management PC, you have a drive W mapped to some path, such that W:\SISU points to a playable title on your MMCM PC. But on your CMC PC, it doesn't have drive W mapped at all, or if it is mapped, it is mapped differently, pointing to somewhere else, so that W:\SISU isn't reachable. In this case, it's impossible for CMC to know how to fix this, so a playback error occurs.

This type of issue is the primary reason why Binnerup says mapped drives are unsupported, and I fully agree with his perspective. A mapped drive is nice as a human conveyance, a convenient way for you to quickly access a network resource. But for a multi-PC application like My Movies and CMC, this is now a hindrance.

If you perfectly replicate your mapped drives on each and every PC, this issue should be mitigated. But honestly, the right solution is to not use mapped drives at all with My Movies.

More digging has uncovered the possible problem. Played the movie in CMC_CME and got the debug logs to compare with CMC_CCC. The container in CCC is ctUnknown, whereas in CME it is ctDVDFolder

No, this is not the issue, and this is working as designed. In CMC+CME, when CMC scans each folder it determines if the media is a DVD, Blu-ray, 4K UHD, or some type of encoded media, and this media type info is stored in CMC's DB for future use.

In CMC+CCC, the My Movies API doesn't provide the same level of detail as to what format the media exists (and what little detail My Movies does provide is often incorrect anyway). So ALL media from My Movies to CCC is flagged as Unknown.

At that point, I had a choice to make - I could either have CCC scan every folder to determine what media type exists there, which would wake up all your sleeping servers/drives adding unnecessary wear and tear and energy consumption, OR I could have CMC scan the folder only on playback. I chose the latter option, because it was the most efficient and it happens fast enough that you don't even notice it occurring.

But that can only happen if the media folder is reachable. Had it been reachable, CMC would have replaced ctUnknown with ctDVDFolder or ctISO or ct4KUHD or whatever else it found, and then chose the right playback options, all in real-time. So the problem above remains, the mapped drive path is incorrect, a side-effect of which is that CMC can't determine the container type.


So, ultimately you have two options. One is to fix your filepaths in MMCM to not use mapped drives, but rather point directly to server(s) network paths - I recommend this!! The other is to add the exact same mapped drives to each and every PC.

This second option, adding mapped drives, seems like a ton less work and will produce quicker results, but in this case you may a secondary issue that is about to bubble up, and again the issue would be with your filepaths in My Movies. Hopefully it's not an issue at all, but some users incorrectly map their movies by pointing at the inside subdirectories like VIDEO_TS. For example, good and bad below:

• \\Server\MovieName\Disc1 <--GOOD
• \\Server\MovieName\Disc1\VIDEO_TS <--BAD

I have no way of knowing if you incorrectly mapped any titles using the wrong approach above, but if (and that's a big IF) you did, then simply adding a mapped drive won't fix the underlying problem with bad filepaths in My Movies. So you'll have to determine this for yourself, but if you have this issue, then you'll have to fix in MMCM.

[robert5733]

Ironically, it is the Debug Logging that is causing that particular error. The file CMC_MovieDB.xml is in a human readable format, which can help with debugging, but it is a large file that can be slow to write. It is not needed for normal CMC usage, the smaller and much faster CMC_MovieDB.bin file is used instead. For this reason, I have CMC only create CMC_MovieDB.xml when Debug Logging is enabled, and solely for use by humans.

I will try turning debugging off later after I hopefully get it working and see what happens then.

Unfortunately, this is a collection management issue - you have not been following Binnerup's guidelines for how to manage your collection.

I have searched for guidelines and cannot find anything. Using what you said below, it is correct though, more to follow

For example, on you My Movies Collection Management PC, you have a drive W mapped to some path, such that W:\SISU points to a playable title on your MMCM PC. But on your CMC PC, it doesn't have drive W mapped at all, or if it is mapped, it is mapped differently, pointing to somewhere else, so that W:\SISU isn't reachable. In this case, it's impossible for CMC to know how to fix this, so a playback error occurs.

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.

This second option, adding mapped drives, seems like a ton less work and will produce quicker results, but in this case you may a secondary issue that is about to bubble up, and again the issue would be with your filepaths in My Movies. Hopefully it's not an issue at all, but some users incorrectly map their movies by pointing at the inside subdirectories like VIDEO_TS. For example, good and bad below:

\\Server\MovieName\Disc1 <--GOOD
\\Server\MovieName\Disc1\VIDEO_TS <--BAD

I am going to work with SISU since that is what I already showed logs for.

This is the disc path assigned in MM W:\SISU

path assigned mymovies.jpg (93.09 KiB) Viewed 2724 times

By clicking location type (Side A) for the path we see a location choice for W:\SISU

path choosing movie in mymovies.jpg (137.07 KiB) Viewed 2724 times

In file explorer we can see W:\SISU as seen in MM assignment

path with w chosen.jpg (135.31 KiB) Viewed 2724 times

and then the contents of W:\SISU

path with SISU contents.jpg (87.71 KiB) Viewed 2724 times

The actual server path not mapped is seen here

path for actual server.jpg (90.85 KiB) Viewed 2724 times

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