My FLAC files have disappeared!!!

I'm curious, (an understatement), how is it possible to delete over 100GB of FLAC files either accidentally or as a result of a bug. My MP3, pictures and data files are all intact. Another odd thing is that all the folders and directory structure is intact. It is only the tracks that have been deleted. Almost like selecting all of the tracks in iTunes and deleting them and removing the files.

The FLAC files were usually played using Rhythmbox under ubuntu or less frequently using the Squeezebox.

The files are backed up on another server so I should be able to restore them without much of an issue but it's still a nuisance and I'm also wondering how it could have happened. No one is owning up to being near my PC at the time the folder was last modified.

 

Sounds weird that the file structure is still there.

Thank god for back-ups.

 

Yup, every single artist/album folder is there but just the tracks are gone. That's why I don't think it can be an accidental (*.*) deletion. Manually deleting all the tracks from several hundred folders will take forever. So I suspect it somehow happened through Rhythmbox or Slimserver.

 

Never heard of anything like that from ss and IMHO its not likely as there are not routines in it for writing anything to the files. Not sure what the other one is, but someone hasn't runa a sync the wrong way or something?

 

Perhaps someone has selected all of the tracks in iTunes and deleted them and reMOved the files?

 

Possibly MO, but unlikely, at least not intentially, since they listen to music just as much as I do.

I've restored the music files from backup server and changed them all to read only.

 

it was a good disaster recovery exercise if anything...

 

It's happening again! :grrr: This time I noticed Rhythmbox was reporting the loss of over a thousand files, both FLAC and MP3. So I don't think Rhythmbox has deleted them. It's starting to piss me off!

Very confused.

 

Perhaps go with a professional operating system such as XP or OSX?

 

Try marking all the files 'Read Only'

 

I use them too. If only they were as reliable/user-friendly respectively.

I had done after the first restore, but the files still got deleted. Today I've changed the owner to root and made them read only for others. I've also reported it as a bug on ubuntu forms.

 

You can stop files being deleted from a directory by removing execute permission from the directory.

 

Won't that stop them being played?

 

No, you only need read permission to play them.

 

Guess again TB.

I tried it and neither Rhythmbox nor I could access them. On the bright side I got to practice chmod command again.

 

So did you track down the cause of the problem? (I'm currently converting 7000+ apple lossless to flac.)

 

I wasn't guessing. I looked it up

You need execute permission on a directory in order to delete files.

You also need execute permission on a directory in order to chdir() to it so that is probably what prevented playing the files.

There are tons of manuals and tutorials on the net about this. Just put 'unix directory permissions' into Google

 

Not yet. Certainly changing the owner to root and making them read only will prevent software such as Rhythmbox from deleting them. Slimserver cannot delete files, Rhythmbox and Amarok etc. can, just like iTunes. I'd strongly recommend keeping a backup.

I reported the issue on ubuntu forums and received a few suggestions and at someone's request changed the owner back to my user ID to try and recreate the problem and then check a few things. As you can guess, so far no files have been deleted. I'm wondring whether the issue arose becaue my daughter tried to include MP3 files into the same library. These have the same name but obviously different extension.

Yup.

 

Thanks for the update. I'm using Media Monkey 3.0, which certainly could mess things up if it wanted, but hasn't, so I have a backup anyway

 

I've had the same .....

reason ...death of hard drive - external in my case and was replaced by the vendor.