I purchased the My Cloud a couple of weeks ago to use with Sonos. I started ripping my vast CD collection in FLAC and saving to My Cloud. It was going great for a week - I had ripped about 60 CD’s and it was working well with Sonos. Then, I noticed that almost all of the albums I had saved were missing several tracks. It wasn’t that Sonos couldn’t find them - when I looked in the Shared Music folder from my laptop, the files for the missing tracks were gone.
I couldn’t figure out what - if anything - I had done wrong. So, I tried re-ripping the missing tracks and all was well for another few days. Now, I see that it has happened again!
I intend to back-up my music on a USB drive, but if I can’t rely on My Cloud at all, I’ll have to consider returning it and getting something else.
Is this an unusual situation, or is it something that can be easily resolved? I’d appreciate any help.
I can’t believe that the tracks have actually disappeared from the MyCloud. However, it is possible that your ripping software or media player has filed them away in a folder you are not expecting. This is particularly irritating with iTunes. For example most of the album tracks will be in the album artist folder, but if there is a collaborating artist on some tracks, these may be filed elsewhere. Try doing a file name search for the missing tracks from the root directory.
I did search as you suggested and the tracks can’t be found. Sonos can do the same as you described with iTunes, so I search under artists, albums, genres, etc - to no avail. The strange thing is, after saving the albums, the tracks on each are completely listed. It’s only after a few days tha they start to disappear.
Mmm, the plot thickens… I still don’t see that the MyCloud could be systematically losing the data. There is nothing inherent in the device that would cause this to happen. I’m not familiar with Sonos, but I have accidentally deleted files from MyCloud when chosing “delete from library and computer” rather than “delete only from library”, so it is certainly a good idea to keep a back up. I suspect the problem is with a setting in the Sonos software rather than the MyCloud itself, in which case you would still have the same problem if you switched your storage solution. Have you tried Sonos customer support?
I don’t believe Sonos can modify or move files - it only accesses them. They were all there for several days, then some just disappeared. I don’t think it has anything to do with Sonos at all.
I’m using Exact Audio Copy to rip my CDs to FLAC files on my desktop. Then I cut and paste them to My Cloud. I then update my Sonos library, which simply catalogues what it finds on My Cloud. Each time, all the files are found and I’ve played a great many of them without any problems. Then, a few days later, several tracks disappeared from My Cloud.
Even if you are not using Twonky this may still cause some problems if you locate your files in that area.
Secondly, are you ripping your music directly to the MyCloud? Rip them to your computer then copy them over to the MyCloud later. This will avoid files dropping out if there are connectivity issues.
I use EAC and rip to FLAC. I always rip to the PC, then scan artwork and import to my MediaMonkey library. I use MM to analyse volume, add artwork, and then compress to MP3 for portable use. Only then do I transfer the files to the MyCloud. Ripping locally is faster; I did try ripping to the MC, but it ran at less than half the speed.
I have about 63k tracks. I check that MM and Twonky report the same number of tracks. I have never had a track physically disappear. I have had all sorts of trouble with files vanishing logically (I.e. from the Twonky library). Hence the FAQ…
I would go and look at the physical storage (using a file browser, not a media browser). If the files are physically vanishing, then something is deleting them; like dubie, I’d be surprised if the MC, for all its faults, is deleting them.
Hmm, I think I’ll try as you suggested and create my own music share as I’m not using Twonkey. Maybe there’s a conflict somewhere. I certainly don’t know what else to do at this point, so I’ll try almost anything! What’s the difference between a file browser and a media browser?
A file browser (e.g. Windows File Explorer, Apple Finder) looks at the physical file structure; the directory or folder names and file names. It shows you what files are physically stored on the disk.
A media browser looks at a logical view of a music library created by a media server from track metadata. This browser allows different views of the library; by Artist, Album, Track, Genre, etc, sorting by the various metadata fields. It shows you what tracks the metadata says are present.
“Sonos can do the same as you described with iTunes, so I search under artists, albums, genres, etc - to no avail.”
This suggests Sonos is giving you a media browser view, based on the metadata. It’s what I’d expect it to do. It may have a ‘By Folder’ view; this should be closer to a file browser view, but I’d recommend using File Explorer to look for missing files.
Metadata is often wrong. Scanning of metadata by media server programs seems to be problematic. So, if you think files are being deleted, it’s best to look at the actual filesystem, not a media library derived by looking at the metadaa content of that filesystem.
Ahh, gotcha. I suspected that’s what you meant, but I wasn’t sure. Yes, when I use file browser view, the tracks are missing, same as shown in media browser view. I will create a new folder and copy the remaining files to it. If that’s successful, I will then delete them from the shared music folder.
It is odd, indeed. Everything else seems to be working fine. I can’t be the first person to ever encounter this issue. Actually, a friend was visiting last night and I told him about the problem. He said that when he ripped his CD’S to his laptop as MP3’s, it happened to him too - some tracks on some albums eventually disappeared.
I started transferring the music files 3 hours ago and it’s about halfway done.
OK, I’ve created a new folder and moved all of the music files. Now, I guess I’ll have to re-rip the missing ones and wait a few days to see if they stay. I need some resolution to this issue within the next couple of weeks, because if the problem is with the My Cloud (of course, we don’t know for certain yet), I’ll be returning it to Staples, who have a 30-day return policy. I hope it turns out to be something that’s relatively simple to fix, because other than disappearing tracks, it seems to work perfectly well for my purpose.
No, he doesn’t have Sonos. Something just popped into my mind - can an anti-virus program remove such files, if it mistakenly thinks they are threats? They shouldn’t be infected files, as they came from prerecorded CD’s. I don’t even know if my anti-virus scans My Cloud.
Not only are they prerecorded, they’ve been compressed to FLAC, so any malware ought to have been destroyed. Not that I’ve heard of malware embedded in audio tracks. Malware on ‘enhanced CDs’, yes.
But I guess it’s possible they ended up with a malware fingerprint. Most virus checkers move suspicious files to a quarantine area; have a look there. They usually report such finds, too. My virus checker doesn’t look at the MyCloud.
I had done a Google search, but hadn’t come across that thread. Thanks for finding it. I skimmed through the first few dozen posts, but nothing is giving me any comfort yet…
if you are finding that you are repeatedly losing the same tracks, I believe that these disappearing files are caused by illegal characters in the file name, e.g. ?"@%# etc.or possibly Cyrillic alphabet characters. Also there might be problems with overly long file names. I have in the past found that some files I had with Russian text file names were invisible in my browser. Personally I try to keep my music track file names as short as possible. When you are ripping the music files, are you using an online database to fill in the track details? That may be the cause of the naming issues. I use CDex for ripping and have found it to be reliable.
