Problem: When I use Windows Explorer to browse the Core’s store and backup folders, the file names are still erroneous as when the Naim first ripped them - many Unknown artists, folders with Track 1, Track 2, etc, and (worst of all) incorrect artist and album names. I’d like those file names to reflect the corrections I made in the edits so I can recognize what they are without having to open the metadata file or album art.
Question: If I manually edit the Folder and Track names via Windows Explorer, will the Core have a conniption? Or will it just ignore the folder names that I change and go straight to the meta.naim file, which it seems to do now in order to read my “legal” edits?
The purpose is that I’m reorganizing my libraries and I need to de-duplicate my recent Naim rips with the stuff I’ve ripped previously without the core.
The accepted wisdom is that if you alter anything inside the Music/MQ folder, then you break the Core’s indexing and it won’t work properly. I have always thought that if you tell the Core to rebuild its index, then it would cope. But I have never had the courage (nor the need) to try it myself.
Another thing to think about is that everything in the Music/MQ folder is locked, so changing something would involve you in changing the file and folder attributes first. Again maybe you would break the indexing or maybe you wouldn’t.
A way to do it would be to copy the things you want to change from the Music/MQ folder to the downloads folder, and then delete the original files using the Naim app, so the indexing is not affected (you can do anything inside the downloads folder and the Core just automatically picks it up).
Well, David, I’ve ended up with exactly what you advised in the first place: “Don’t mess with the Music/MQ data.” Not because it’s impossible, but because it’s much simpler and faster just to move the offending “Unknowns” out of the Music/MQ folder and into the Downloads folder - just like you said.
As a reminder of what I was trying to do, I wanted the file names in my Backup folder to reflect the metadata edits that I made through the app. The key takeaways are:
Naim was very responsive and helpful.
My original idea of editing the meta.naim file had too many loose ends to be of practical utility.
They suggested that I make my edits in the backup, delete the meta.naim file, then use the app to delete the Core album and restore from backup. That only partially worked. I spent more time sorting out inconsistent results than it was worth. And it was unnecessary from a practical perspective.
The Naim Core “Backup” function copies the Core Downloads folder too, so there is no practical downside to moving an edited album into the Downloads folder. It shows up in the index the same as if it was in the Music/MQ folder.
Don’t try to edit the Core content except through the app (delete an album, for instance). I ended up having to delete my Backup and create a new one.
FYI, creating a new backup of 1250 albums/20,400 files took about 7.5 hours. It worked reliably.
After making a change to one album in the Backup folder, a “restore from backup” took only a couple of minutes since it needs only to identify and record the changes.
Similarly, doing a backup after altering the Core content through the app took only a couple of minutes.
Rebuilding/resetting the Core database worked well. It’s hard to time its completion exactly because it works in the background, but my system with over 20000 files on the Core seemed quite complete within ten minutes and by twenty minutes all the missing data symbols in my Favourites list had gone away. Adding off-board shares would extend that time, of course.
Live and learn. At least now I’m quite comfortable thrashing around in my Naim territory!
Thanks for that! It’s always interesting to know how someone gets on and I learned something too as I didn’t know it would do a differential restore (although that does make sense because the backup and restore functions use the same software module in the Core).
There is actually an easy way to tell where the reindexing has got to. In the Naim app, choose the Albums listing on the Core home page and scroll all the way to the bottom. There you will see a total albums number. When you do a reindex this resets to zero and then counts up as the reindexing proceeds. It counts up in jumps, not one at a time. Anyway if you know roughly how many albums you have, it’s easy to know when it has finished.