For a month now, both Studio and Fusion have been failing to scan my files.

On a recent review, I've discovered that they both do it when the plot files directory contains 16,383 files - which happens to be the exact limit of the number of database entries a microsoft excel database can contain.

If I delete 5 plot files from my plot files directory, then the program successfully scans the next 5 tracks added to the library, then goes back to failing to scan tracks.

I'm looking for a workaround on this problem without having to trim my library - in all I have 42,000 files to scan.

Has anyone noticed this error previously? Is there a way to have the software maintain plot files in two folders? Or do I have to switch to storing the plot files in the folders with the tracks themselves (something I don't want to do), or will that not work either?

Anyone?

It's interesting that you say Excel has a limit of 16,383 entries because MixMeister uses a Microsoft Access database to store information relating to the tracks in the library. So it looks like Access has the same limit.

If you're running Windows then the plot folder capacity isn't an issue, an NTFS folder can store a total of 4,294,967,295 files.

You're best bet is tech support, the problem may not be with the database.

Ah, I'm not so sure about that 16,383 number w/r/t the upper limit in Excel ... maybe you mean Works spreadsheet?

I say that because I have in the past exported my catalog to Excel, and then I printed it out. I'm looking at it now, and the last line of the print out is numbered 31,401.

I believe I looked up the max item limit in Excel before I did this, because I had run into the limit in Works ... it wasn't easy to find the info in the Excel help file (which is another way of saying I don't remember how I found it) but it was in there and it was large.

I agree with Jez ... the problem is likely not with the database in MixMeister.

It's the limiter for an excel database, not an excel worksheet. It's detailed on the Microsoft site if you google for "16383".

So, you have more than 16,383 files in your MXM catalogue - do you store them in one directory, or do you store the MXM files in the same folder as the music files?

Your distinction bet. the db and the worksheet is duly noted ...

I store the mxm's with the music files ... given that you can sort a directory by file type and essentially see just your music tracks grouped together, I don't find any drawback to storing the mxm's with the mp3s ... plus I think it makes for faster response time esp. when tracks are stored in a number of different drives....

Just done some googling and the max records in an Access database is 32,768. But Access can link to tables in other Access databases, so when a database is full a new database will be created and linked to. So it seems that the max amount of tunes MM can handle is limited only by hard disk space.

I believe that this is a an issue that you should pose directly to tech support, as Jez is correct--information related to your library is stored in an .mdb file.

However, I don't think that this is an issue we've ever seen here in the forums, due to the diversity of how users utilize the MM library.

For example, I don't utilize the library at all to sort my files. I rely entirely on the filesystem (and in my case, that's EXT3 on Linux via Samba) to keep my files sorted, preferring instead to import files to new MM libraries and move my files to other local disk drives on the fly from central server repositories, based on the studio project or gig I'm preparing. So, MM libraries never hit any sort of limit even close to this size.

You should have a discussion with tech support regarding this, to determine what, if any, limitations there are to library sizes.