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Topic: Quick Question about "Rescan on startup" & "Monitor for changes while running" (Read 2166 times) previous topic - next topic
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Quick Question about "Rescan on startup" & "Monitor for changes while running"

Hi, so in an attempt to try and get some extra performance out of foobar, as I feel with a large library of music, startup times can start to suffer and lose some of that snappiness, I'm going to try and disable these two options, only I'm not exactly sure what they do as in what should I expect in change of my "workflow" or whatever.

"Rescan on startup" I assume this just indexes your entire collection every time you startup foobar2000 (which is always brutal on a fresh boot), so now that it's not checked, I'm guessing now when I add or delete music, it will not reflect properly until I manually do a scan with "Rescan now"?

"Monitor for changes while running" I'm not sure what this one does, does it just check my music for metadata changes? Or does it also index my music (similar to the above option) while music is being played?

Re: Quick Question about "Rescan on startup" & "Monitor for changes while running"

Reply #1
As I understand it, 're-scan on startup' only checks for changes made to the library folder since the previous scan. On my system the process usually takes a few seconds at most.

 

Re: Quick Question about "Rescan on startup" & "Monitor for changes while running"

Reply #2
Regarding "Rescan on startup" - if you don't modify your collection outside of foobar or at least outside of its running time, you can safely disable it. However, if you tend to rip music via EAC while not having foobar opened, then foobar will not get that new rip into account unless you use "Rescan now" option. Same applies to downloading music from Beatport, Juno or iTunes while foobar is not running - such files will be missing in library, if added when foobar was not running and "Rescan on startup" is disabled - manual rescan will be necessary to see them in foobar's library, or adding them to manual playlist. Properly organizing your library (splitting it to more than just 1 main folder) may help you - some folders will not require rescan due to their content not changing over time, others will do - thus you will limit amount of files to be scanned. Disabling it requires serious analyze of how you do with your files when foobar is not running and how you should organize your library (splitting into separate entries some folders inside your music dir, etc.). There is NO simple guidance like "do it" or "don't do it".

"Monitor for changes while running"  is simply self explanatory. When foobar is running it will take into account any changes done in the background - tagging with Mp3Tag, moving in Explorer, downloading from Firefox, ripping from EAC etc. The truth is that this one is VERY useful and doesn't consume much resources. Disabling it is a bad idea.

Disabling both features will render your foobar library simply useless, as it will not reflect current state of your music collection. Unless you will click "Rescan now" on every ripped/downloaded track.

Re: Quick Question about "Rescan on startup" & "Monitor for changes while running"

Reply #3
I switched off the "Rescan On Startup" option because I used to keep my music on a WiFi mapped network drive, and it would take awhile for foobar looking for items - slowing down loading of cover art and such, even when I knew there was nothing new to find. So my conclusions: 1) If you keep track of when adding new music yourself, you can just use the "Rescan Now" option instead when restarting foobar. And 2) I'd say it also depends on where your music is stored - a WiFi media server, 5400rpm HDD or SD Card for example might slow things down after restarts for no usefulness.

(Nowadays I keep my music on an SSD and predictably everything is lightning fast. :D )

As already mentioned above, the "Monitor For Changes" option should be kept on always. Then you can add new music, edit tags, use file operations, etc, with changes updated. It makes no noticeable dent in performance - even over slow WiFi, far as I can tell.

Re: Quick Question about "Rescan on startup" & "Monitor for changes while running"

Reply #4
Thanks for all the answers, it's more clear now what those options do. Just by disabling "Rescan on startup" makes a world of difference for me, I'll leave "Monitor for changes" checked for now as it seems useful, and if impact is low, there's not much downside.

About "Monitor for changes" though, if foobar2000 is closed and I use a 3rd party tagger like MP3Tag, will foobar2000 pick these changes later when it runs, or is a manual scan needed for changes to take effect, because when I touch my music I like to close foobar2000 to avoid conflicts, like file operations getting stopped because it's "in use" Ooops.

And does it monitor "everything" at all times while running or just select things like an album you are currently listening to, or a playlist you have loaded. (I realize I can just test this stuff out but... /effort, so thanks for all the answer!)

@EpicForever Disabling both features will render your foobar library simply useless.

Not necessary, my collection is pretty modest at around 2TBs but it's been evolving for almost 10 years, in other words it doesn't change radically nor needs updating on a constant daily basis, heck a month can go by before I add a new album. But like you said it depends on your usage and needs, everyone's different.

Re: Quick Question about "Rescan on startup" & "Monitor for changes while running"

Reply #5
About "Monitor for changes" though, if foobar2000 is closed and I use a 3rd party tagger like MP3Tag, will foobar2000 pick these changes later when it runs, or is a manual scan needed
No, manual rescan needed. This is what "Rescan On Startup" option is for - changes outside foobar.

If you leave it off, just remember to rescan it yourself every so often after you update files (or leave foobar running to monitor changes)

Quote
And does it monitor "everything" at all times while running [...]
Everything. Any changes made in the library folder - taggings, renamings, movings, etc.

Re: Quick Question about "Rescan on startup" & "Monitor for changes while running"

Reply #6
Okay last question (but no promises). How does "Refresh All" play into all of this;



Is that like a mini "Rescan on startup" but only for a single album or whatever song is highlighted, will that update the index/database? Because I think most people can just do a right click > Refresh All, for newly added albums, then just keep the other options checked off.

Re: Quick Question about "Rescan on startup" & "Monitor for changes while running"

Reply #7
Okay last question (but no promises). How does "Refresh All" play into all of this;
I do not have a "Refresh All" on the right-click menu so no idea. It might be part of the playlist viewer you are using? I guess it does a rescan just the same, or refreshes tag info. (?)