Ghosts in the Machine

[John Treble]

I have a Naim NDX and Unitiqute streaming from an AssetNAS.
The AssetNAS search tree is set up with Genre as the first node. It splits into 6 branches: Classical, Jazz, etc. This works fine except that I have not always remembered to edit the metadata for new downloads, so that some albums have been copied to the NAS with a genre tag that is not one of my 6, or indeed with no genre tag at all. Even though I have edited the metadata to give correct genre tags, this sequence of events seems to have created a permanent and non-variable change in the way that n-stream displays my collection. Specifically, the genre tags (including the null tag) still appear in the list of genres, and will still give access to the tracks to which they used to relate, even though they (the tags) no longer exist on the NAS.
My question is: how do I get rid of these unwanted genres in the displayed list? A bit of detective work has tracked them down to a folder on my PC called 'This PC\Asset UPnP: ASSETNAS\Genre'. It seems impossible to edit this folder in any way. If I could delete it (or the relevant subfolders), I think the problem would be solved, but I have yet to find a way to delete the ghosts from my machine.
I should add that I have rescanned and restarted the NAS from the Home Server. That didn't help. Neither did switching the whole system off and on again.
Any ideas?

[Spoon]

Re: Ghosts in the Machine

From the Asset configuration page you have to do a 'Rescan (Refresh All)'

[John Treble]

Re: Ghosts in the Machine

Well, I've tried that once more, and it still hasn't helped.

[dbfan]

Re: Ghosts in the Machine

In the testing section of this forum is Asset Control, this will enable you to be certain the the naim control point is not caching these values, install it on a windows PC and it will show what asset is giving out.

Also if they are still there, then it is almost certain that these genres still exist in the files.

[John Treble]

Re: Ghosts in the Machine

Done that. Yes, they appear in Asset Control (which looks rather jolly on first acquaintance), but I still cannot see them in the metadata.

[Spoon]

Re: Ghosts in the Machine

Which tagging program are you using? if you have dBpoweramp, right click on one of the files >> Edit ID Tag

[John Treble]

Re: Ghosts in the Machine

That's exactly what I do. Here's an example: I have a disc of CPE Bach Organ Concertos and Sonatas. It has 8 tracks. This appears only once on the Windows Explorer listing of folders on the AssetNAS, and the 8 tracks are shown correctly. The genre for each track shows as Classical in dBpoweramp. However, tracks with the same content (which may or may not be the same tracks. I don't know.) can be accessed in two different ways through n-stream or Asset Control. Choosing Unknown Genre gets access to tracks 2-8 of 8 tracks. Choosing Classical gets to tracks 1-8 with track 1 repeated. As I said in my original post, I have tried looking for the same tracks elsewhere on AssetNAS without success. It seems that they appear only once. The only positive indication I have as to what might be going on is the folder on my PC, which contains the list of genres exactly as it appears on the control pages. I can't find them anywhere else at all, and I can't get rid of them from the folder either.

[Spoon]

Re: Ghosts in the Machine

In Asset advanced settings (under General) is 'output debug log'. Enable this, restart Asset, then play the file which is duplicated. Then click the 'View Debug Log' button, the filenames of the files just played will be towards the end of the log (remember to switch off logging).

[John Treble]

Re: Ghosts in the Machine

This is what I get:

===========ProcessFileRequest================

http://192.168.11.6:26125/content/c2/b16/f44100/d15957-co564.flac

=============================================

Content Range: 0 to -1

Serving File as is: d:\Shares\Music\Classical\Bach, J.S\Organ Concertos & Sonatas\01 Ensemble Parlando - Rainer Oster - Concerto in G major for Orgel und Streicher, G-Dur Wq 34 (H444) - Allegro Di Molto.flac

Serve Entity Set to: audio/x-flac

I've found the files using Search in File Explorer. They are somewhere on my PC that isn't normally listed on File Explorer. I am in the middle of deleting all the offending ones. Do you have any idea what these files are doing there? There are 18,295 items, which is c3,000 more than the tracks in my AssetNAS library, but they include folders, booklet pdf's and suchlike. Is there any reason why I shouldn't delete the whole lot?

I have tried searching for this file 'Everywhere', and Windows 8 consistently fails to complete the search.

[Spoon]

Re: Ghosts in the Machine

These files are on the AssetNAS,

d:\Shares\

is a path on the Windows Home Server, if you can remote desktop connect into the AssetNAS, or browse the Asset NAS Music Share from your PC. That log entry is just for 1 file played, if you play the 2 duplicate files, you should have 2 entries in the debug log.

[John Treble]

Re: Ghosts in the Machine

OK. It's all sorted now.
I still don't really understand what went wrong, why this happened, or what I can do to avoid having it happen again. Is the folder in d:\Shares a different one from the one called Network\AssetNAS that one can browse using File Explorer? If so, why does AssetNAS store two versions of what normally would be the same thing? Do you have any idea how the problem might have arisen in the first place?
Thank you very much for your help.

[Spoon]

Re: Ghosts in the Machine

Network\AssetNAS is how you access it from a different computer.

d:\shares is the local path on the AssetNAS, it is a computer without a screen.