Just got the program; I may be a dumb noobie, but I’m not afraid to show it. The program is great, seems to be too good to be true!
Like another poster, I used it to rename the files in a folder I keep on an external drive, which is used to create the iTunes library. Brought the folder in, scanned, saved the changes MBP had made, including renaming all the track files from “1-02 Track 06.mp3” and so on to their actual names on the album. Saved, and all the icons changed to the green bar. Success, or so I thought. None of the files had the tracks renamed on the external drive, so of course not in the iTunes library either.
I’ve gone through related topics without really getting the guidance I need. One poster said he’d had success with a similar thing by ticking a box somewhere (I assume preferences) in the program, but I could not find what to do there. I have “Rename Files”, “Move Files”, and “Save Tags” checked in Options.
I seen to recall hearing something about a problem with Picard outputting to a NAS directory.
Try copying the files you’re going to process to a local drive on your system and set the output directory in Picard to another local directory. If they process properly then that would seem to be the issue. If that’s the case, you should be able to just copy the renamed files back to your external drive after processing.
Then you could try processing the files directly from the external drive but still output to a local drive. If that works, it will save you one step.
What I do here is do all Picard processing (both input files and output directory) on a local hard drive on my Windows machine, and then copy the renamed and tagged output files to my NAS for secure storage and service by my network media server. It has worked well for me.
Can you provide a debug log (see https://picard.musicbrainz.org/docs/troubleshooting/) ?
Just do a simple test, using one file, and post the debug log somewhere, providing us a link to it.
It may reveal what is going.
According to the log, file was moved to: /Volumes/LaCie 80/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music/Traveling Wilburys/Traveling Wilburys/The Traveling Wilburys Collection/02 Dirty World.mp3
rdswift . . . thanks for the excellent suggestion. It worked as far as using locations on my local system is concerned, then copying to the external drive. However, it did not change the iTunes library even after a restart of that awful program, which is another issue.
According to the log, file was moved to: /Volumes/LaCie 80/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music/Traveling Wilburys/Traveling Wilburys/The Traveling Wilburys Collection/02 Dirty World.mp3
Isn’t this file created ??
It has been! I was looking in /…/Traveling Wilburys/ and did not see**the rest; I expected the original file to be overwritten by the MusicBrainz processed one. Thank you for pointing this out to me; it changes my approach.
I could be wrong, but I think with iTunes, you need to import songs into it (e.g. by dragging them onto it), rather than simply moving the files to its library directory without telling it. At least, that’s how I do it.
As good as Apple’s products generally are, they’re not designed for people who actually know what they’re doing…
One thing worth noting is that when you import a file into iTunes depending on the value of Preferences:Advanced:Copy file to iTunes media folder when adding to library iTunes will either simply refer to the file in in its original location, or make a copy of the file and then refer to that.
The option is enabled by default on MacOS and disabled on WIndows.