I am doing a fresh install of Kubuntu on a new machine and would like to import statistics (mainly ratings, but playcounts etc. would be cool too) from my previous installation, which had Amarok version 2.5.0. I've spent the last hour searching this and found all sorts of info but as far as I can tell there is no easy way to do this. It seems like there are three possible ways to do this, and I have questions about each:

• If I copy my ~/.kde/share/apps/amarok/mysqle/ folder to the same place on my new installation, will that work? People have reported problems trying this.
• Should I, instead, use an external MySQL database? If I turn on that setting on my old computer, will Amarok copy the existing statistics into that external database? If so, when I copy that DB to my new computer and have Amarok use it, will it overwrite the DB with the new installation's blank statistics, or accept the old statistics?
• All the statistics I care about are written to the file's ID3 tags, making me think that I don't need to transfer the database. However, Amarok doesn't seem to actually display those statistics - I noticed that if I change a song's rating in the ID3 tags, the rating is not updated in Amarok.
• Is there really no way for the average user (e.g. one that doesn't know anything about databases) to do this?

I'd appreciate any help with this. Thanks!

Also, some kind of simple "import/export statistics" functionality seems like a much-needed feature to me, and I'd love to implement it, but someone would have to point me in the right direction, since I have zero familiarity with the Amarok codebase.

You talk about migrating a database from which version to which?

I'd like to migrate the database from version 2.5.0 to whichever the latest version is that will be installed when I install the daily build of 13.04 Kubuntu - I assume version 2.7! Thanks.

That might be rather tricky, as you are jumping versions here. Why not upgrading to 2.6 and then 2.7 and let the updater do the database changes that are necessary to get this done right?

I am pretty sure that jumping versions is not going to go well here, there were database changes from 2.5 to 2.6 and from 2.6 to 2.7 that are handled automatically on upgrade, but it will not work if you skip one step.

Alright - I have successfully updated to version 2.7 on my old computer via the backports repository (it seemed to handle going straight from 2.5 to 2.7 on its own). Now, in order to migrate to 2.7 on the fresh install on my new computer, can I just copy over the ~/.kde/share/apps/amarok/mysqle/ folder, or is there another recommended method?

Thanks for your help!

Yes, that should be OK, make sure you copy the complete $HOME/.kde/share/apps/amarok/ folder, so you don't loose your podcast subscriptions and scripts either. Of course you will have to reselect the music folders correctly on first start, but then it should just work.

That worked perfectly, thanks!