I’ve got half a terrabyte worth of videos on my hub. After switching out the hard drive into another hub some of the videos stopped showing up. I turned off media library and they showed back up.
I was told to be able to use the media library again I should try “clear media library” and they might show back up.
So, two questions:
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What exactly does “media library” do? As in what’s the difference between having it on or off
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Will there be any negative effects to clearing it? As in, will I lose any of the pics that I put on the movies, xml data, etc.
Thanks everyone.
1> It erases the Media Library Database.
It’s important to understand how this database is created so you know what happens when it’s deleted.
For ALL MEDIA, it stores information such as the FILE NAME and PATH, and a few other pieces of unimporant information.
When you do GET CONTENT INFO, it goes out to the internet and fetches extensive metadata. It stores that metadata into the database, and also separately stores it in XML files.
That metadata “overrides” file names when displayed, and other aspects, too.
This Metadata is used during sorting and searching, as well.
The information in the database controls what and where the media are displayed.
If you CLEAR the media library, it has to rebuild it.
All of the data collected during GET CONTENT INFO is DISCARDED.
The fact that it also created XML from that same information is irrelevent; the XML is NOT used to reconstruct the media library.
2> It does NOT delete *ANY* media from the drive. Only the DATABASE is purged. Your Thumbnails, movies, JPGs, cover-art, XML, etc. all remain intact.
