The history (Recently Added + Recently Played) was not transferred to the new PC

[ziwiman]

Hi Friends!

I have switched to a new PC, upgrading from Windows 10 to Windows 11. The transition worked fine for the most part. All settings, plugins, and even the music library were copied with all their configurations. Unfortunately, the history entries were not (Recently Added, Recently Played, and therefore also the 'Played Last' column). Manually copying the AppData directories or the two files history.dat and history.idx did not help, nor did a backup/restore using the backup tool.

And all the folders on both computers have the same names, including the username, so the AppData directories and paths are identical. Only the computer names are different, since they are, in fact, different computers.

Does anyone have any advice on how to transfer these entries to the new PC?
Thank you very much.

[dro]

Which WACUP build type & version are you doing this with?

Those views / column values are related to the local library plug-in which uses library.dat/.idx or may be pulled in from the older main.dat/.idx if importing a legacy instance (e.g. from 5.666 or old wacup builds when ml_local was still used).

The history.dat/.idx (or the older recent.dat/.idx if pulled in like with the main.dat/.idx files) only relate to the history root node in the media library window. Moving the whole settings folder from the old machine to the new one should just be loading things without having to do anything as long as that information was correctly populated into the local library db.

The backup tool doesn't know about some of the changes I've made over the past few years including the library.dat/.idx files & I probably should finish off the self back-up / restore mode to simplify how all of that then works. Am now wondering since you've mentioned about using the backup / restore if that's caused it to use an older main.dat/.idx files which'd then have created a new library.dat/.idx which wouldn't necessarily have any of that playback information (if so hopefully the original copies are still on the old setup & can be used & have that information in them). If it's not that then I'm not sure why it'd disappear unless the file paths of the media are deemed to have been changed & at that point any non-file based metadata like playcounts, ratings can be lost.

[ziwiman]

WACUP v199.38.22626, dated Sep. 8.2025
Thanks for the quick response. I apologize, I forgot to mention the WACUP version and just installed the latest update.

I think I'm getting closer to the problem. It seems to be related to Windows 10/11 and the English/German language settings. I am German, and my Windows system language is German.

On my Windows 10 computer, the Documents directory with the Music subfolder is on drive D. Both directories are displayed in German (Dokumente\Musik) in Windows Explorer and various file managers. However, in WACUP's Folder Monitor settings, it shows the path as Documents\Music in English. When I copied all the AppData settings to my new Windows 11 PC, this path was transferred exactly the same way.

On the Windows 11 PC, the directories on drive D are also in German, displayed as Dokumente and Musik in Explorer and file managers. But in the WACUP options, it again shows Documents and Music.
After copying all settings to the Windows 11 PC and starting WACUP for the first time, everything was actually there, including the history, just as it should be. But after the library was rescanned, no more entries were displayed anywhere. The library was now empty. When I selected the Documents\Music entry under the Folder Monitor, went to "Edit," and re-selected the same directory (which, of course, shows as Dokumente\Musik in German in the Explorer), the library was rescanned. Afterward, everything else was present, but unfortunately, the history was not.

I hope there's still a solution to transfer the history.

[dro]

I don't have a quick fix for you as the batch changing of paths is something I've still to get around to implementing for the local library along with the folder / treeview mode for things. The playcount information against the old paths is still there as the missing items are soft-deleted (unlike winamp's ml_local which hard-deleted everything & then it was definitely lost) but as the folder paths are deemed to be different that's caused the folder monitor to refresh things in the manner seen.

Having things know it's from one of the pre-defined OS folders to smooth out moving the folder contents has been mentioned before but I'd need to improve other areas of wacup to be able to recognise & deal with that without screwing up compatibility with plug-ins, etc that can't cope with the condensed down paths which tbh has put me off doing it even if it'd avoid problems like this happening.

The options for now are either use the OS handling to rename the folder to the same name from the prior OS install & copy back the original files or do a new folder re-scan with the changed path. Otherwise you'll need to send me copies of the original library.dat/.idx & I'll have to modify them for you before the end of the week to have the correct folder path for the new OS install.

[ziwiman]

Hi,

Thank you very much for the detailed explanation. I had also considered renaming the folder to English but discarded the idea, as both folders on the Windows 10 and Windows 11 PCs are identically named in German (Dokumente/Musik). Furthermore, many other programs access these folders and would have problems if the paths were no longer correct.

Thank you for the offer to edit the library.dat and .idx files. That would be no problem and of course, would be great. But I wonder if it wouldn't be too much effort for you. While it would be nice to have the history, it wouldn't be a catastrophe if it wasn't there. Everything else was copied perfectly. I use the history to display the "Played Last" column and play songs that I haven't listened to in a long time. This makes listening to music with large libraries more fun. Otherwise, I'd have to use the "Shuffle" function more and would also hear songs that have already been played very often. Not great, but as I said, I can live with that too.

It's not necessary to do this work just for me. But if the work is also useful for you, I'll be happy to send the files. There's no rush either; it can also take longer.

[dro]

It would be useful which is why I asked & also if you're actively using it for deciding on things then having that existing information is better sooner rather than later vs contending with how to merge the different custom metadata differences later on when I eventually provide something that's user facing.