Hi,
I have my music on a MyCloudMirror Gen 2 where I have a folder for the artist and subfolders for the artist’s albums using the album name. Recently I noticed that some albums aren’t displaying, and it appears to be ones whose album title begins with “.”(periods). For example, …But Seriously by Phil Collins. If I right click on the album folder and look at Properties>General, the Hidden attribute is checked, and I cannot uncheck it. Is there a way I can make these folders unhidden? Do I have to create a new folder without the "."s at the beginning of the name? Thanks.
In Windows, a folder or file is caused to be hidden if it has a dot/period as first character of folder/file name. If you go into Win File Explorer to look into the music album names you can see the ones with the dot and rename them by removing the dot.
NOTE:, the default of Windows is to not display hidden items. If you don’t see any hidden items you need to go into settings of windows to :show hidden files. Google to find specifics for doing this.
I suggest you only do the first few to check the results, and if OK do the rest of them.
Mike,
I have no problems viewing the folder with Windows File Explorer either on one of my hard drives or the MyCloudMirror. When I view it on the MyCloudMirror with File Explorer, the folder is a faded yellow instead of the normal yellow. I do have Windows configured to display hidden folders and files.
I failed to mention that the albums were not displaying with my music player software, Foobar2000.
I tired to rename the folder by removing the dots, but it keeps the Hidden attribute. I’ve done some more research and found that Linux treats all folders and files as hidden if the name begins with a dot. I believe Linux is the operating system for the MyCloudMirror, so Linux is probably turning on the hidden attribute, which causes Foobar2000 to skip the folders.
Because renaming the folder didn’t work I created a new folder without dots at the start of the name and moved the tracks(files) from the dotted folder to the new folder. This allowed Foobar2000 to display the album. I had hoped there was another way to display the folder without having to create a new one.
I have found a couple of solutions.
The easiest solution is when ripping the CD or vinyl album change the album folder name in the ripping software to either exclude the dots or include the year of the album before the album name. If you don’t want to do a rerip, you can create a new folder without the dots and copy the files/tracks into it.
I found another solution at the QNAP NAS site and there are some references on this forum for using the same tools for other uses. You need to get Putty and activate SSH on the MyCloud device. Use Putty to access the folders/files on your device. A chmod -R -X folder command will unhide files, and a chmod -R +X folder command will hide files. I haven’t tried this solution, so I don’t know how accurate it is.
My solution is all my ripped CDs and legit digital downloads are cataloged in my iTunes program on PC, and all is in the iTunes Media folder of program. I have no issues with hidden files and the music I listen to is in a COPY of my iTunes Media folder placed on my NAS.
Maybe your problem is caused by the program you use to create and store your digital music files.
I saw the same issue with someone who has his music on a Mac. It turned out that both MacOS and Linux treat files and folders whose names begin with dots as hidden files by default.
I tired to add the folder to iTunes, but it won’t add it. No error messages. It disappears from the Automatically Add to iTunes folder, and the Add Folder to Library doesn’t add it either. I saw a thread on the Apple forum where a person was trying to add a hidden folder and iTunes wouldn’t add it. No one had a solution.
I agree that the ripping programs create the issue because they don’t prevent folder and filenames that begin with dots when they know that MacOS and Linux treat them as hidden folders and files.
My master music library is FLAC and I compared it to my ALAC library. The FLAC library is on an external hard drive, so no Linux or MacOS involved. I found two albums whose names begin with dots that display in the FLAC library but not in the ALAC library when using Foobar2000. Both are from vinyl rips. I created new folders without the dots in the names in the ALAC library, and copied the tracks to the new folders from the hidden folders. Everything is fine now. In the future when ripping if there are any dots in the album name, I’ll delete them from the album folder name.
Well, yea, Gary, and Windows does the same. Duh. So WHY do you have any dots before a folder or file name. Get rrd of the dots.
I did not say to put your music folder into iTunes, I said the database I use is iTunes program.so when new music is add it is automatically stored with my other music by iTunes in the default iTunes Media folder. All naming of folders and files is done by iTunes.
I did not say to add your defective music files to iTunes, I simply pointed out that iTunes treats my music well when it is cataloged.
