Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting USB drives and exports

Solco doesn't see the USB drive The bottom of the sidebar says No USB drive connected. 1. Check that the drive is mounted: it should show in Finder, File Explorer or your file manager. 2. Click the refresh button beside No USB drive connected to look again. 3. If you unplugged and plugged the drive back in, or Windows gave it a different letter, refresh and choose it again. If Solco sees the drive but won't export to it: - "CDJs need this drive formatted as FAT32." Back up the drive, then choose Erase and prepare drive… from its menu in the sidebar. This erases it. - "This drive is read-only, so nothing can be added to it." Check the drive's write-protect switch, or repair it with your system's disk tool. You can still use Import from USB. - "This drive is set to write slowly" (Linux). Click Speed it up… before a large export, and follow the steps it shows. rekordbox has the drive open If Solco says The OneLibrary database on this drive is still open, probably in rekordbox, so nothing will be changed, quit rekordbox and try again. If the message stays, open the drive in rekordbox once and quit it. Solco changes nothing on the drive until then. Importing your rekordbox library is different: rekordbox can stay open. If Solco says rekordbox kept changing its library while Solco copied it, try again in a moment, or quit rekordbox first. The update stopped because the drive changed If rekordbox or another app added tracks or playlists to a drive Solco made, or changed its library, the update stops and changes nothing, and says what changed. You can: - click Import from USB to bring those changes into your library, then export to an empty drive; or - choose Restore Solco’s library… in the review. The Ready card's button then reads Restore Solco’s library. Solco keeps a copy of the drive's library files on your computer first. If an update would remove a track that one of your played sets uses, it stops too. Keep those tracks, use an ordinary export, or save the sets first with Import histories only under Import from USB. rekordbox or a player using a Solco drive is normal: rekordbox adds its profile and My Tags, and players record played sets and play counts. Solco keeps all of it. An export was interrupted If an export was stopped or interrupted, export again with the same choice. Solco checks the files it already copied and reuses the good ones. The drive keeps the library it had until an export finishes. Solco's unfinished files stay on the drive until you export again; to remove them, click Saved work… on the Export page and review the list before discarding. Checking a drive before a gig - Keep Check every copied file before finishing on, so every copied file is read back. - Turn on Re-read the whole drive afterwards for the drive you take to the gig. - From a terminal, solco verify /path/to/drive checks a Solco drive without opening your library. Then eject safely, load a few tracks on a player, and check the grid, cues, playlist order, waveform and level. Still stuck? In Activity, click Tell us beside the problem. It opens Feedback with the error filled in. See "Contacting the Solco team".

Backing up and restoring your Solco library

Solco keeps your playlists, cues, grids, ratings, analysis and settings for each track in one library file. Your music files are not in it: back them up separately, as you always should. Save a backup 1. Open Settings › Maintenance. 2. Under Library backup, click Save backup…. 3. Choose a new file name. Solco never replaces an existing file. You can keep working while it copies. Show progress opens Activity, where copying, checking and flushing show separately. Backups work even after an alpha build expires. Save one before you install a new alpha, and close every Solco window before switching builds. Cover images Solco downloaded for tag matches are kept beside the library in a folder named catalogue-covers. Back it up too if you move your library to another computer. From a terminal: solco backup --output /path/to/backup.sqlite3. Backups Solco makes by itself - Before upgrading your library. When a new version needs to upgrade the library, Solco first saves and checks a copy in the library.sqlite3.backups folder beside it. If the backup fails, the upgrade doesn't happen. - Before changing a rekordbox drive. Before Solco adds to, restores or replaces the library on a USB drive, it keeps a copy of the drive's library files (never music) in usb-backups beside your library. Each drive keeps its last three copies for 30 days. Where the library is - Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/com.getsolco.Solco/library.sqlite3 - Windows: %APPDATA%\getsolco\Solco\data\library.sqlite3 - Linux: ~/.local/share/solco/library.sqlite3 (or $XDG_DATA_HOME/solco if you set XDG_DATA_HOME) Running the solco command Some steps here use Solco from a terminal: - Mac: /Applications/Solco.app/Contents/MacOS/solco - Windows: solco.com in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Solco (or in your portable folder) - Linux: solco, or ./solco in a portable folder Going back to a backup Solco never overwrites your library with a backup. To open one instead: 1. Quit Solco. 2. Make a copy of the backup, so the original stays untouched. Solco works in the copy, and upgrades it first if the backup came from an older version. 3. Start Solco on the copy from a terminal: solco --database /path/to/copy.sqlite3. Solco uses the copy only for as long as it was started that way. Started the usual way, it opens your usual library again. To keep working in the backup, start it with --database each time. Changes made after the backup are not in it, and cover images in catalogue-covers are found only beside the library Solco opens. Keep your current library file too, in case you need it. Don't copy library.sqlite3 while Solco is open, and never delete the -wal or journal files beside it to make it open: they can hold your latest changes. If the library won't open Solco shows the reason with Try again and Open another library…. The … menu beside them has Save a backup…, Copy details and Quit. Nothing is replaced. If it says This library requires a newer Solco build, your library was upgraded by a newer version: install that version again. To use an older version, open a backup made before the upgrade instead. If Solco can't start at all, run solco diagnostics in a terminal and send us the report: see "Contacting the Solco team".