Winamp deleting my music files?

[Atta]

hi!

so I've been having this issue for a WHILE now and always thought it was just my fault or whatever.

Since I started using winamp more than a decade ago, I've always kept a folder with all my songs, where I would just copy new songs to and just clear playlist/add folder the thing to winamp. However, as I added more and more songs, it was just logical that at some point I hear some less often. But when after ages I remembered a song and tried to find it: gone!

Not in the playlist, not in the folder on my computer. Just GONE. I find that inexplicable. I couldn't have deleted them by accident from the playlist, because I just recently found out how you could do that. So I always removed undesired songs from the playlist first, then manually deleted them from the folder. And you know, I'd remember if I went in and INTENTIONALLY deleted my favorite songs. So not an option.

- It can't be a virus or anything since I've changed multiple PC-s since then and hat this problem on all of them. Also I once built up a complete new folder by hand so it can't be a virus latched on to one of the songs.

- no one uses this computer except me

Long post, but one more: the damnedest thing is that I wanted to have all the songs of an artist (he has like 3 so no prob). Had two, got the third less than a month ago. Fun fact: only have the third. Where are the other two??

Does winamp have a max song limit or something like that? I have no idea why these issues appear..

Thanks!

A.

[MrSinatra]

winamp is not deleting your songs, unless you are directing it to.

the explanation is likely user error, but if not that then maybe some 3rd party plugin doing something bad, HD failure, etc. but i've never had winamp just spontaneously delete anything of mine, and i have 55k plus songs.

[Atta]

as i said, i have also chalked it up to user error, just that it kept happening so often to songs i really liked, that it can't be a coincidence. also, as already stated: i literally removed songs from the playlist and then went to find (file names are usually a mess) and delete every unwanted song manually. so it can't be that after a month or two I have absolutely no clue as to where those songs went...

[lostinsound]

Is your music folder being synced to either a device or another folder at any point? The only way I've lost songs in the past has been when I was syncing folders and had the sync settings wrong. I was usually able to recover them from the recycle bin so I didn't lose them completely. Just throwing that out there as a possibility.

[Sabine Klare]

Instead of USB- or WIFI-Sync I prefer to use Windows Explorer to copy and paste my files and folders / subfolders onto my micro SDHC card in my portable player, and for You I recommend to use the same method, then You cannot accidently delete Your files. But make sure, that You have Your Winamp on Your PC closed at first, before You connect Your device via USB (I have read, that otherwise Winamp will crash, especially if You connect HTC devices via USB). Then You can copy and paste Your files or folders / subfolders onto Your micro SDHC card in Your device.
Look into Your recycle bin, maybe You will find the deleted files there and then You can recover them. Good luck for You.
PS, all my Winamps (the latest PC versions) don't know about my archos 43 internet tablet...
I have to go outside now, have a nice day...
Greetings from Sabine Klare Aka Sternenmaschinebine

[Atta]

thank you for the replies. i checked the bin but there are no songs in there.

no I am not syncing anything currently.

just can't wrap my head around it. it's just that up until now I kept saying: it was probably a mistake I made; probably some data error; etc etc

but now, one of my favorite songs disappeared and an entire album I tried to track down as well. I would have never deleted them.

is there some way to delete files in winamp except for syncing and explicitly telling winamp to delete?

thanks! A.

[Sabine Klare]

Do You have also iTunes on Your PC (not only Winamp)? Maybe Your files have been moved to another location on Your PC by iTunes and they have NOT been deleted:
http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=344944
If this is not the case, then I hope, that other people can help You...
Greetings again

[Atta]

thanks for the reply (sorry for my late one). no I have no other music player. does VLC count ?

[MrSinatra]

maybe you are deleting things from the playlist but are in actuality deleting from the HD?

[Atta]

nope. when I delete from the playlist I use the delete button. when I also want to delete files directly from winamp I have to go through several menus and also confirm that I want to delete the file. I guess they do that to make sure it won't be deleted by accident

I'm not sure what's going on... with some songs I kinda wish winamp would automatically delete them, then I wouldn't need to bother

[MrSinatra]

in winamp prefs under general prefs make sure "recycle perm deleted items" is checked.

if things disappear and aren't in recycle bin after that, its either a really bad plugin, or something other than winamp doing it.

[Aminifu]

Hi Atta,

Do I understand you to say you use 1 folder to put songs in (for years now)? How many are in it?

[Atta]

Originally Posted by MrSinatra

in winamp prefs under general prefs make sure "recycle perm deleted items" is checked.

if things disappear and aren't in recycle bin after that, its either a really bad plugin, or something other than winamp doing it.

thanks for the hint!

Originally Posted by Aminifu

Hi Atta,

Do I understand you to say you use 1 folder to put songs in (for years now)? How many are in it?

yes. one folder. but i often delete songs I'm sick of and keep (have kept) most of my library in separate folders, with my favorite songs just being that one folder. so yeah, not that many songs actually. just gotten up to 225. about 2 gigs. i'm not looking to make a huge library, because then I'd actually never notice something going missing

alright. thanks for the help guys. I'm gonna keep an eye on this problem and maybe find a solution some day!

A.

[Aminifu]

Originally Posted by Atta

yes. one folder. but i often delete songs I'm sick of and keep (have kept) most of my library in separate folders, with my favorite songs just being that one folder. so yeah, not that many songs actually. just gotten up to 225. about 2 gigs. i'm not looking to make a huge library, because then I'd actually never notice something going missing

Ok, I was thinking you may have had thousands of files in 1 folder. That would lead to trouble. I hope you do find out what's causing your files to go missing. WA kinda makes it hard to delete a file by accident.

Do you have more than 1 hard drive that you store your songs on and when you move them around do you use 'drag and drop'? Sometimes this will copy a file and sometimes it will move it, depending on whether the 2 folders are on the same drive or not. Could this be what's happening? You think you're copying from your favorites folder and you are actually moving stuff.

[Aminifu]

Hi Atta,

User iestars makes a good point. Where are you getting from songs from? Its rare but possible for a song file to have a hidden component that runs when you play the file, does its dirty work, then deletes or moves and renames the file.

But you do run virus and malware scans regularly, right?

If you think this may be a concern, Win 7 monitors and logs a great deal of computer activity by default and other free and/or commercial monitor/loggers can be added to help target specific activity. Most users can't tell normal from abnormal activity reported in these logs. There are web sites that can help in this process, but you have to seek them out. Be careful if you do this, bad guys run websites too.

[tmad]

I am also having the exact problem he is describing. I have 40k+ songs in on location organized in one folder under sub folders. I have artists that I haven't listened to in 6 months that disappear all the time. I even have a library backup and the songs are there but not where they are supposed to be.

[CJ_Man]

Originally Posted by Aminifu

Ok, I was thinking you may have had thousands of files in 1 folder. That would lead to trouble.

I've only ever used a single (top-level) folder for all my music. There are about 4,000 tracks in it currently, not as many files as some have I'm sure, but it's never been a problem.

[Aminifu]

Originally Posted by CJ_Man

I've only ever used a single (top-level) folder for all my music.

A top-level folder with sub-folders is not the same thing as 1 folder.

[CJ_Man]

Originally Posted by Aminifu

A top-level folder with sub-folders is not the same thing as 1 folder.

Sorry for my confusing terminology. By "top-level" I simply meant first level under the root drive.

All the tracks are in that one folder along with the album art JPGs. It's the only way I've ever done it.

[Aminifu]

Originally Posted by CJ_Man

Sorry for my confusing terminology. By "top-level" I simply meant first level under the root drive.

All the tracks are in that one folder along with the album art JPGs. It's the only way I've ever done it.

Congratulations! I can only assume you are diligent in keeping your 'basic' music files' tags correct and the album art has the exact same filenames as the titles of each of the files' album tags.