Load command execution from command line

Hi - I am running Picard V2.13.3 in Windows. I am attempting to load a folder using -e LOAD on the command line. I have set the -d option so I can see what is reported in the logs. When Picard launches, I do not see my files showing in the center pane’s unclustered files (or anyplace else), but the log claims that the folder was successfully loaded. What am I missing?

I: 10:48:47,426 tagger.main:1566: Sending messages to main instance: [‘LOAD “F:\Music\Picard Play\Lawn Boy”’]
D: 10:48:47,466 tagger.init:315: Starting Picard from ‘C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\MetaBrainzFoundationInc.org.musicbrainz.Picard_2.13.3000.0_x64__kef61k5a7g40j\picard\tagger.pyc’
D: 10:48:47,466 tagger.init:316: Platform: Windows-10-10.0.22631-SP0 CPython 3.8.10
D: 10:48:47,466 tagger.init:318: Versions: Picard 2.13.3, Python 3.8.10, PyQt 5.15.11, Qt 5.15.2, Mutagen 1.47.0, Discid discid 1.2.0, libdiscid 0.6.4, astrcmp Python, SSL OpenSSL 1.1.1b 26 Feb 2019
D: 10:48:47,466 tagger.init:319: Configuration file path: ‘C:/Users/MikeC/AppData/Roaming/MusicBrainz/Picard.ini’
D: 10:48:47,466 tagger.init:321: User directory: ‘C:\Users\MikeC\AppData\Local\MusicBrainz\Picard’
D: 10:48:47,466 tagger.init:322: System long path support: True
D: 10:48:47,466 tagger.init:325: Qt Env.: QT_PLUGIN_PATH=‘C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\MetaBrainzFoundationInc.org.musicbrainz.Picard_2.13.3000.0_x64__kef61k5a7g40j\PyQt5\Qt5\plugins’
D: 10:48:47,466 i18n.setup_gettext:153: UI language: system
D: 10:48:47,466 i18n._log_lang_env_vars:138: Env vars:
D: 10:48:47,466 i18n.setup_gettext:161: Trying locales: [‘en_US’]
D: 10:48:47,504 i18n.setup_gettext:167: Set locale to: ‘en_US’
D: 10:48:47,506 i18n.setup_gettext:178: Using locale: ‘en_US’
D: 10:48:47,506 i18n._load_translation:125: Loading gettext translation for picard, localedir=‘C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\MetaBrainzFoundationInc.org.musicbrainz.Picard_2.13.3000.0_x64__kef61k5a7g40j\locale’, language=‘en_US’
D: 10:48:47,506 i18n._load_translation:128: [Errno 2] No translation file found for domain: ‘picard’
D: 10:48:47,506 i18n._load_translation:125: Loading gettext translation for picard-attributes, localedir=‘C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\MetaBrainzFoundationInc.org.musicbrainz.Picard_2.13.3000.0_x64__kef61k5a7g40j\locale’, language=‘en_US’
D: 10:48:47,516 i18n._load_translation:128: [Errno 2] No translation file found for domain: ‘picard-attributes’
D: 10:48:47,516 i18n._load_translation:125: Loading gettext translation for picard-constants, localedir=‘C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\MetaBrainzFoundationInc.org.musicbrainz.Picard_2.13.3000.0_x64__kef61k5a7g40j\locale’, language=‘en_US’
D: 10:48:47,516 i18n._load_translation:128: [Errno 2] No translation file found for domain: ‘picard-constants’
D: 10:48:47,516 i18n._load_translation:125: Loading gettext translation for picard-countries, localedir=‘C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\MetaBrainzFoundationInc.org.musicbrainz.Picard_2.13.3000.0_x64__kef61k5a7g40j\locale’, language=‘en_US’
D: 10:48:47,516 i18n.load_translation:128: [Errno 2] No translation file found for domain: ‘picard-countries’
D: 10:48:47,516 i18n.setup_gettext:201: _ = <bound method NullTranslations.gettext of <gettext.NullTranslations object at 0x0000012ED7592940>>
D: 10:48:47,516 i18n.setup_gettext:202: N
= <function at 0x0000012ED7E473A0>
D: 10:48:47,516 i18n.setup_gettext:203: ngettext = <bound method NullTranslations.ngettext of <gettext.NullTranslations object at 0x0000012ED7592940>>
D: 10:48:47,516 i18n.setup_gettext:204: gettext_countries = <bound method NullTranslations.gettext of <gettext.NullTranslations object at 0x0000012EDA839D00>>
D: 10:48:47,516 i18n.setup_gettext:205: gettext_attributes = <bound method NullTranslations.gettext of <gettext.NullTranslations object at 0x0000012EDA839C40>>
D: 10:48:47,516 i18n.setup_gettext:206: pgettext_attributes = <bound method NullTranslations.pgettext of <gettext.NullTranslations object at 0x0000012EDA839C40>>
D: 10:48:47,536 webservice._network_accessible_changed:388: Network accessible requested: 1, actual: 1
D: 10:48:47,556 webservice.set_cache:410: NetworkDiskCache dir: ‘C:/Users/MikeC/AppData/Local/MusicBrainz/Picard/cache/network/’ current size: 89.8 MB max size: 100 MB
D: 10:48:47,566 pluginmanager.load_plugins_from_directory:264: Looking for plugins in directory ‘C:\Users\MikeC\AppData\Local\MusicBrainz\Picard\plugins’, 0 names found
I: 10:48:47,566 pluginmanager.load_plugins_from_directory:252: Plugin directory ‘C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\MetaBrainzFoundationInc.org.musicbrainz.Picard_2.13.3000.0_x64__kef61k5a7g40j\plugins’ doesn’t exist
D: 10:48:47,566 ui/playertoolbar.init:91: Internal player: QtMultimedia available, initializing QMediaPlayer
D: 10:48:47,641 ui/playertoolbar.init:98: Internal player: available, QMediaPlayer set up
D: 10:48:48,217 tagger.main:1596: Looking for Qt locale en_US in C:/Program Files/WindowsApps/MetaBrainzFoundationInc.org.musicbrainz.Picard_2.13.3000.0_x64__kef61k5a7g40j/PyQt5/Qt5/translations
I: 10:48:48,223 browser/browser.start:121: Starting the browser integration (127.0.0.1:8000)
D: 10:48:48,315 ui/mainwindow.auto_update_check:1785: Skipping startup check for program updates. Today: 2026-04-06, Last check: 2026-04-06 (Check interval: 7 days), Update level: 0 (stable)
D: 10:48:48,316 config.event:261: Config file update requested on thread 54676
D: 10:48:48,389 util/remotecommands.parse_commands_to_queue:245: Queueing command: LOAD ‘“F:\Music\Picard Play\Lawn Boy”’
I: 10:48:48,389 tagger.run_commands:411: Executing command: LOAD ‘“F:\Music\Picard Play\Lawn Boy”’
D: 10:48:48,860 tagger.init:189: Parsed: ParseResult(scheme=‘’, netloc=‘’, path=‘“F:\Music\Picard Play\Lawn Boy”’, params=‘’, query=‘’, fragment=‘’)
D: 10:48:48,860 tagger.handle_command_load:501: files: {‘“F:\Music\Picard Play\Lawn Boy”’} mbids: fset() urls: set()
I: 10:48:49,421 tagger.run_commands:447: Completed command: LOAD ‘“F:\Music\Picard Play\Lawn Boy”’
D: 10:48:49,503 tagger._run_commands_finished:463: command executor stopped

My guess is that it appears that you are enclosing the title with typographic quotes rather than regular quotes, and they are being interpreted as part of the path.

1 Like

Thanks - That was it exactly! I surprised the Picard log didn’t indicate some kind of an error,

1 Like

It sort of did in that it showed the path with the curly quotes enclosed in single quotes. I agree that it didn’t show an error message like “Path does not exist”, which sort of surprises me. If I remember, I’ll have a look at the code later this week when I have a few minutes.