Sign In:     

Forum: VirtualDJ Technical Support

Topic: Mac issues: Editing folder properties and content
I'm quite new to MacOS and am having issues in VDJ. Seqouia 15.7. VDJ 2026-m b950 and b958

I can't delete .mp3s/4s from within the VDJ browser to clean up duplicates.

Folders I assign a color to in the VDJ browser go back to default white the next time I run VDJ.

Steps I've taken: I've clicked the lock icon in Finder to Open the lock, both the desktop HD icon as well as my specific .mp3 folder. Are there more settings or permissions I need to toggle?
 
Posted 3 days ago @ 10:23 pm
1) The most important thing (since you come from Windows)
Are you using an external drive, and if yes, what's it's filesystem ?

2) You need to go on MAC settings, and under Security give VirtualDJ full access on all disks.

3) If you downloaded VirtualDJ from the appstore, delete it, and re-download and install from here.
 
Thank you PhantomDJ! I didn't consider format type in my troubleshooting.

Just tested and my EXFAT drive works as intended, but my NTFS does not. Is there a best file system to use if the drive will be used between MacBook, iPad, and Windows? (The NTFS is 2tb and the exfat is 500gb)

Unfortunately, I've done a ton of ratings and user comments on the NTFS drive while on my Mac, and those ratings/comments don't show when it's plugged into a Windows machine.

Is my thinking correct in a way to preserve the work I've done when transferring:

Connect a 2nd external HD > direct VDJ to copy the music folders (inside of VDJ browser to preserve database) from NTFS drive to 2nd external > check that the files still work in VDJ from 2nd HD > reformat the 1st external > copy it all back via VDJ browser

 
To be able to write to ntfs you can use Paragon ntfs, otherwise exfat is probably the best supported by both Windows and mac
 
Tbh (unpopular opinion), if not using Paragon NTFS and you have a backup, it's best you reformat as HFS+, copy everything back and install Paragon or MacDrive on Windows if you use a Windows machine. HFs+ ans APFS are MUCH better supported on MacOS than ExFAT, especially for large drives (you'll see how terrible it is when you inevitably eject the disk unsafely, and next connection you're waiting for many minutes for fsck to complete its validation for MacOS to even list the disk as available for use).
 
I would not use ExFAT unless it was the ONLY supported filesystem left on computer world.
I had nothing but many, many, many, many issues with it.

I was using Paragon NTFS for many years without any issue, but recently I also tried to go the APFS way on a brand new SSD external drive.
After Apple decided that my entire drive was considered "unreadable" just because it was pulled out of the USB by mistake without being Ejected first (while no file operations were occurring either) I went back to using Paragon NTFS with NTFS formatted drive.

At this point, I would recommend Paragon with NTFS drives even to users that only use MACs and never plan to use Windows again.
Still I find it more safe and stable (for external drives at least) than Apple's own APFS
 
Thank you both, I'm trialing Tuxera NTFS and it works... But now a new issue.

I rated and commented on almost 500 files recently while connected to the Mac. The problem is with the NTFS extension those ratings and comments don't show on the Mac or PC.

Am I able to merge or import or reinstate the ratings/colors/user comments that I made PRE Mac NTFS?

Or, can I turn off the Mac NTFS extension, collect and save my work on the Mac side, then import those ratings to the upgraded NTFS side?
 
I'm assuming you are using filetype(s) that support metadata, that all the related files are writeable, and that the NTFS implementation you installed does give write access to files (I have no experience with the Tuxera implementation, probably @PhantomDeejay does).
If any of these are false, backup and make sure they all are true.

All metadata related operations would be saved either to the file metadata itself (using a 3rd party tagger), and/or the VirtualDJ database.xml file itself on the external drive (if done using VirtualDJ's tag editor, would = and), and that should not depend on the filesystem implementation. If you did those updates outside of VirtualDJ, you need to go into VirtualDJ and right-click > Reload Tags on the files you changed for VirtualDJ to see the changes + update the database.xml on the drive with those changes (this would be the same if you were running things on Windows).
 
Thank you for the suggestion, but unfortunately the Relaod Tags function didn't load the metadata.

Just to clarify (because you asked some good questions in your post):

All files were 320kbps .mp3, and located on an external Windows NTFS drive. The metadata was written within VDJ's tag editor prior to me realizing an NTFS Mac extension was needed.

If I were to remove the extension and (assuming) I could see the Mac VDJ data, is there a way to export it so I could then reapply the Mac NTFS extension? Or am I thinking about this all wrong and there is an easier way?
 
The "extension" (like Paragon and others) just enables your MAC to write on NTFS drives.
It doesn't directly make a difference on the files data.

Now VirtualDJ will use the database of your primary drive (master database inside VrtualDJ "home" directory) for any media located on read only file.

By using Paragon (or similar) the drive is no longer read-only and therefore uses it's own database.

For what it worth's it, I would just repeat the task of rating those 500 files again.

However, you can try to take a backup of the database (without the external drive attached) and then restore it (with the drive attached)
It may work and copy the info of the master db to the one on the external or it may not.