I have lost some Karaoke songs

[Ramblin]

I have a desk top computer in my office that I have an older version of Hoster on. I use it to rip my CDG's into Hoster. Then I take them and copy them to an external hard drive, like I always have, and use it with my laptop to do my show. My laptop has the updated version of Hoster. When I put them in my external hard drive for my laptop and updated my data base, I lost a huge amount of songs. About 500 songs came up missing. And just recently, I ripped new CDG's and I can't even get my laptop to find them.
Is this caused by having 2 different versions of Hoster? Will it find them and fix the problem if I update my desktop Hoster?
Also, when I update Hoster on my laptop, will I lose the songs that go with my singers in the lists? Or will the new version just pick them up and keep them? I'm nervous about that. It has taken a long time to get my lists where I need them.

[Roy Dennis]

The newer version has changed the way it adds songs to the database.

Goto Tools/Songs Database from the window that opens choose Build database.
In the next window, in the bottom left panel you should see a list of folders containing your music, if you can't see the one that matches what you are looking for use the ADD Folder button and navigate to it, make sure you see all the files listed then press select.

If it is already listed, click on it to highlight it and you should see all the files appear in the right hand panel then press "Rescan folder" This should add any new files in that folder to your database.
I think this will find your lost songs.

I think in this version the Rebuild database doesn't add the new files to the list unless they were added on the same computer.

You may find that these files are not then backward compatible with your old version, meaning you can copy older version files to the updated version but not the other way around.

What version is your older one ?

[Ramblin]

My old one is Version 4.09d.

I use my own file numbers. The CD's are numbered 1 through over 2000. I am missing a group of those in the new version now. I am missing CD numbers 1092 through 1101. And now the ones I just ripped last week aren't being found by the newer version. I am planning to update my desktop to the newer Hoster version since it is my second computer with Hoster. However, will it find all those CD's and will the lost ones transfer to my laptop then?

[Roy Dennis]

4.09 should not present you with any problems updating it.
Follow my instructions above first then report back if you still can't list these missing songs.
Your singers database should still show with the upgrade if they were on that computer previously.
If they were not on this particular computer, then you will have to copy the Singers.mdb file from the other computer and paste it in the C/MTU/Hoster folder on the new computer.

[Ramblin]

I just upgraded Hoster on my office desktop computer. Now, I will not recognize any of the karaoke songs. I rebuilt my database as I always do, but it only found about 300 of my 20,000 songs. I know they are there and not lost, but how do I make Hoster find them. This is getting to be a huge problem for me.

[Roy Dennis]

Did you follow my instructions in post #2 ?

Rebuilding will not find your files if they are not showing in the list of folders.

[Ramblin]

I have gone through everything. I upgraded my office desktop computer to the newer version of Hoster and now, it won't find all the CDG's I have put into it. I took both computers and did the complete rebuild of the database. Of course it takes over twice as long now with the new version because it has to find all the files first. It took over 30 minutes just to scan the folder. Then another 20 minutes or more to rebuild the database. This is just stupid. And now, I have lost a huge number of CDG's that I ripped into it and I am looking at having to rip them into Hoster again. And I wonder if I have to rip them into both computers to have them recognize them. I am seriously considering going to a different program. I am not happy with Hoster. I have used it for years, but this new version is "CRAP". I don't have the time to play with all this to try to make it work, when it should work just fine. So, how do I fix it?

[Roy Dennis]

Have you put in a support ticket ? As no one else has aswered this and I can't think what you are doing wrong, that may be the best option. Mention this thread so they can refer to your problem in your notes.

[Roy Dennis]

It may help if you can answer these questions to understand what you are doing.
1) When you copied these files from your desktop to your external hard drive, were these files copied to a single folder on the hard drive or a number of folders?
2)When you you look in the list of folders from the Build database dialog, Do you see your external drives directory letter listed ? Not the "C:\Folder Name" but Probably something like "E:\Folder Name" or whatever your external drive letter is and folder names.

3) if you select one in the list, do you see all the songs contained in that folder in the panel on the right.?

4) Are there any folders missing in the left panel that contain your music ?

5) Another thing you can check, press the excluded folders button and see if any of the folders containing your music are listed here, if so press the button to remove folder from list and go back to the Indexed folders list dialog and use the Add folder button to put them into that list.

When doing this if the files you are trying to import are .kma or other types that already have their kmh headers with them, leave all the song type buttons unselected.

[Ramblin]

Hey Roy
I guess you saw the problem they had with 5.03? Here is what they wrote me.

Did you install version 5.03 first? If you did this version had a bug that we found that caused this. If this was the version that did it, then you need to copy all your good files back over and delete these that are now changed. Then once you do that, let it build the database from the 5.04 version where this was fixed.

Steve

[Roy Dennis]

Steve,
I do know they found a bug in 5.03. Have you installed 5.04 and run it yet or are you still having a problem ?

If you are still having a problem have you still got a copy of your original 4.09 installation file ?

[Ramblin]

Yes, I did install 5.04 and I am still missing files. I wrote them this in response.

Okay, I have 3 hard drives with my Karaoke songs on them. Thank God. Two of them have had the database rebuilt by 5.03 and have lost a lot of songs. I have one hard drive that doesn't have all the updated songs on it, but has not been rebuilt. Are you saying that I need to make sure that I have version 5.04 on my computer and delete all the Karaoke songs out of my hard drives and put the ones from the untouched hard drive in the empty hard drives and rebuild the database again. That should work?

I am waiting to hear back from them before I do anything else.

[Roy Dennis]

Just try this first with one of the 2 previous hard drive you used in 5.03 not your 3rd hard drive that has all the good files on, keep that as your backup.

Navigate to your C:/MTU/Hoster folder, find your Songs.mdb file and delete it. Now with 1 of the 2 previous hard drives that you used for 5.03 start Hoster 5.04 up. You should see a message stating that it is going to rebuild your database or words to that effect with an estimated time that it will take, agree to this and let it complete, then check and see if it has resolved the problem. If you are still having the same problem then do as you say, Copy all the files from your 3rd good drive to one of the bad ones then repeat my previous instructions again including the deleting the songs.mdb before restarting Hoster 5.04.

Don't actually use your 3rd hard drive to run Hoster untill you get it running correct.