Hello,
If I turn on 'watch folders' Amarok perpetually scans. It runs to 100% and then immediately starts again. I don't think there's a file system time-modification problem. For example, rsync correctly detects files which have been updated when I run it. Any suggestions as to what the problem could be?
Thanks, B.

Amarok 2.3.1 (but this problem existed in previous versions)
Slackware 13.1

It doesn't do that here at all, but of course you can also turn it off and use the Update Collection option in the Tools menu. Amarok only searches for folders with a changed mtime.

Turning it *on* is what I would like. The 'watch folders' option is much more efficient then rescanning the entire music collection, since it only (re)scans the updated or added music.

I will submit a bug report if needed but I don't have any information to add beyond what I just gave now. The file system is ext3 so nothing strange there.

Does anyone else have any suggestions?

I think you misunderstood what Mamarok wrote. You don't need to do a full rescan. You can do a scan of only the changed folders, using Tools > Update Collection.

Give it a try, and see if that does what you want.

Valorie

valoriez wrote:I think you misunderstood what Mamarok wrote. You don't need to do a full rescan. You can do a scan of only the changed folders, using Tools > Update Collection.

Give it a try, and see if that does what you want.

Valorie

In that case, the problem that is causing the continuous rescan also causes "Update Collection" to rescan my entire collection!

Is your collection on a regular local partition or on an external hard disk or server? If you use NTFS then we have identified the problem, since NTFS doesn't handle mtime correctly. You have no other choice than disable the option then.

No, it's a standard local ext3 with this fstab entry:
/dev/sda3 /mnt/data ext3 defaults 1 2

As I mentioned above, rsync works correctly on this partition, so checks based on update time do work.

Also, I looked at the scan logs in my .kde/.../amarok/amarokcollectionscanner_batchincrementalinput.data folder and they seem correct, meaning that the file check times were accurate.

Finally, I ran amarok with the --debug option but didn't notice anything that would explain why it was constantly rescanning. Is there something in particular I should look for?

Well, you can disable the "Watch folders for change" option in the settings, that should help. To update the collection after a change you can still use the "Update Collection" entry in the Tools menu, it will do an incremental scan.

The "Update Collection" also does a complete scan of my entire collection.

There is a problem, but I can't say for certain whether it is with Amarok or my set up somehow. I would like to solve the problem, but I'm having trouble knowing what to look for.

Is your music in one single folder without subfolders?

No, there are subfolders and sub-subfolders (and maybe even one more level!).

Hm, very strange. I have roughly 10.000 tracks and even with the "Watch folders for change" option activated, it scans only rarely. Is something else running that is changing the mtime of these folders?

Since rsync works correctly, it doesn't seem to be a problem with the file system.

Also, right now no file or directory in my music collection has a modification time (according to ls -l) which is after yesterday.

Just to be sure, I disabled all scripts but I have the same problem. If I cancel the scan, it starts again in a couple of seconds.

If you have an rsync instance running on these folders, that might well be what triggers the continuous rescan. Make sure nothing but Amarok accesses these folders.

I don't have rsync running, I do backup my data occasionally but it has been a couple of weeks since I have backed up my music collection.

In any case, accessing the data would not affect the modification time, only the access time, so this wouldn't cause Amarok to rescan.