Database corruption questions/rant

I don’t get why the databases on the Denons get corrupted so easily. Sure, you should always dismount your drives before ejecting them, but I’m not sure this is normal. I work with sql databases every day and this does not feel statistical normal to me.

Indeed, I don’t know if a database that Denon recognises as “corrupted” is corrupted at all. I have tried to open “corrupted” databases in SQL browser programs, and they are simply OK.

Also, the message of “Database corrupted, reformat your drive” is misleading to say the least. One thing is the databases files in the Engine Library (there are more than one, what a strange design) are faulty, another is the drive partition to be faulty. Formatting (rebuilding the drive partition) makes sense when the disk is corrupted, but not when the database is corrupted. Indeed, disks with databases that Denon flags as corrupted can perfectly be mounted in a laptop and are operable, hence, there is simply no need to reformat the disk (indeed, as said before even the database looks healthy).

If it helps, it the decks says that the db is corrupted by you can still read the drive in the laptop, I’d recommend to simply delete the “Engine Library” directory, run Engine, and drag all the songs in the drive to Engine, so the Library is built out of the songs in the drive and that way at least you save the time transferring the files from the laptop to the drive (process that Denon calls “packaging”).

To me, the management of the drives in the Prime system looks very unstable and not robust at all. Transferring files to the drive or adding new songs in Engine takes ages for no reason. Search and navigation with big libraries is slower than is should be, databases get corrupted way more that it would look reasonable to me, searching libraries sometimes simply hangs indefinitely, my linked SC5000 sometimes crashes when searching in a linked database…

I suspect the code handling the db stuff and disk access is not as robust as it should be. The rest is fine, but everything related to drive access is not stable enough in my opinion.

1 Like

I would recomment denon just save a copy of its database on the drive (yea it doubles the amount of space but its saver!) - If the loaded database find any corruptions, it could load the faulty data from its backup and repair itself. so we dont need to reformat the drive. but safety first - backup your library to a second external hdd.

2 Likes

Hi @jalderwood, thanks for posting. I’m sorry to hear about this corruption issue you are having, typically ejecting without ‘ejecting’ shouldn’t have caused this problem. We definitely want to help you out, and we’d like to do so by investigating this corruption on our own. If possible, can you send us all of the database files (not your music folder, but everything else in the Engine Library folder on your hard drive) so that we can run tests on our end?

1 Like

@Nekoro_DenonDJ Unfortunately I already formatted. Doubt this helps but p.db was just over 2gb. Are there any cached copies stored locally?

After formatting I dragged my collection back onto it in EP. Half a day later I received a message about not being able to pack some files, which also happened previously when the drive got corrupted. There are a little over 100 tracks in the ‘Packing Job’ list and there is no obvious reason for why the files failed. They do exist on disk. Can you tell us what a packing list is and what can cause EP to choke on files? (These same files did not fail the first time I put my library on this drive.)

Tobes - there’s nothing wrong with the disk, it’s a Samsung SSD that I’ve had no problems with. I initially put the library onto it back in June and had updated it at least once prior to this without issue.

That’s a bummer on the files, no worries. Let me talk to the Dev Team and see what they can do with the addition info you gave us, @jalderwood. Stand by.

Ok, Dev team needs more info on those 100 tracks that fail to pack, @jalderwood. Can you manually drag and drop each of those files from their original source directly into your storage device via ‘Devices’ in Engine PRIME? In other words, import those songs into your HD via Engine PRIME without importing those songs into the software’s library and making crates first.

I’m not going to go through this exercise of searching for 100+ individual tracks and individually putting them on a drive just to have a similar thing happen again next time I try to update music. You still haven’t given me any information about why this happens.

I did about 10 tracks. I dragged them on the drive, they are searchable and they load from the drive. The same tracks still appear in red in the main library. What would be the process to have those restored?

In the interests of helping the situation why don’t you put 50 of the hundred files in a folder “A” and the other 50 of the hundred files in folder B and see which folder won’t work. This way, if there’s only one unliked file then you narrow it down quickly.

Take the folder than won’t work and split its 50 files into two folders and try loading those folders to see which won’t work - now you’re down to 25 files … then 12 or 13 then 6 or 7

Sometimes it’s a case of helping people to help yourself

1 Like

I right click > removed one of the broken files from the main collection.

Restarted EP just in case.

Imported same file back into collection. Says it’s analyzing, then takes a little more time to finish the job (update the db I assume)

File is not searchable.

@DJ_Didi I am not sure what you mean about splitting files in half. They are all over my library in artist folders (itunes). Ah, iTunes, that was how I initially imported. Maybe that helps.

Out of curiosity… And as far as I can see, its not mentioned anywhere (maybe I have missed it)…

The 100 files - which format are they? Mp3, wave etc etc?

all of the files are mp3

It seems like engine is susceptible to corrupting easily… I turned the sc5000 power on this past sunday… and remembered I hadnt added new tunes to the USB, so at the “load profile screen” I just removed the usb… and then had to spend the next hour formatting and re importing everything…its a pain!

it doesnt, ive just had the same issue… windows says its fine but engine says still corrupt. Only a 32gb USB drive in my case so not too bad,

Hi All,

Sorry to see the issues with database corruption. This is something we take very seriously but need to collect as much detail as possible to help us better understand what could be causing the behavior.

For those experiencing this issue please help to answer the following. We appreciate all of your help!

What version of Engine Prime are you using?

Did you experience similar issues with previous versions of Engine Prime?

Are you able to consistently reproduce the behavior with specific workflow steps? If so, please outline the exact steps to reproduce.

Is this happening with the internal HDD or external media devices or both?

What brand media device and capacity?

If internal, what OS are you running on your computer?

What is you eject process on computer?

  1. Safely eject in Engine Prime.
  2. Close Engine Prime then safely eject from Finder/Explorer.

What is your eject process for media devices on Prime hardware?

  1. Power off hardware without ejecting, remove drive.
  2. Safely eject on hardware, remove drive power off.
  3. Remove the drive while hardware is on without ejecting.
  4. Internal HDD.

Are you using DECU software to import your 3rd party collections?

Lastly, if you see the database corrupt message, it would be very helpful if you could zip all of the files in the Engine Library folder from your computer or media device (which ever collection is corrupt). Just zip everything in the Engine Library folder except the Music folder and its’ contents. This will be very beneficial in helping us understand and identifying the root cause.

It may be worth trying to run the Library Optimization Cleanup in the Preferences of Engine Prime preferences. Be sure your problematic media device is connected when running the optimization.

where does one submit a corrupt library zip?

Hi @jalderwood,

Please contact our Engine DJ Technical Support team for further assistance with this matter. A member of the team will help you identify the needed files and provide a link for upload.

Support | Engine DJ

I just had the same thing happen because I knocked the usb plug of the drive I’ve got plugged into my desktop and it ejected. I had Engine Prime open at the time and had just finished adding some music.

It’s a Samsung MZ-76E1T0B/EU 1 TB 860 EVO Sata III 64L V NAND Solid State Drive. I was planning on filling it and putting it inside the Prime so it’s got around 300gb on it now. The files are all displaying still in Engine Library/Music and I can still see one out of the 10 or so Crates I had built but inside Engine Prime and the Prime 4 it’s saying it’s corrupted.

This took me -weeks-… I am super bummed.

  • Ten
1 Like

@tenrohle if you read the last few messages in this thread you’ll see that denon is requesting specific information and files to be submitted to help them troubleshoot the issue.

i would not rely on ep for library management. if ep gets corrupted you can always delete the whole thing and reimport from itunes or serato.

I skimmed thru and saw that just now. Half of me is too angry to even go through the motions of zipping up the files as they’re over 3gb in size. Perhaps I’ll get to that tomorrow once I’ve cooled down a bit.

Hi, the problem is the engine library that is corrupt, my solution is to create a copy of the library, so in the event of a malfunction it is sufficient to replace the library with the backup library.