I’m experiencing a confusing issue with djay’s file management. When I add a file from my file system to the library, it sometimes allows me to add the exact same file again, resulting in two identical entries in the library. However, attempting to add the same file a third time doesn’t work. It goes without saying that I would have expected to be able to not add one file more than one time.
To make it even more confusing: this doesn’t happen with all files. Some files behave as expected and can’t be added more than once. But for others, I somehow end up with duplicates – which leads to a cluttered and inconsistent library that’s difficult to manage.
I’ve recorded a short video demonstrating this behavior, which I’ll attach here. I’d really appreciate any insights into why this might be happening – whether it’s a bug or a misunderstanding on my end – and what I can do to prevent duplicate entries in the future.
I’ve had the similar problem (on macbook pro) but it’s dragging songs from My Collection or a Playlist to another playlist, 50% of the time there will be a warning pop-up saying file already exist you want to add or skip but other times the menu doesn’t show and I end up with duplicates or more.
hmmm indeed similar. Either way maybe it’s the same root cause. I hope this gets fixed or somebody can tell my this happens so that I can prevent this going forward.
Hey @trebbis, I’ve experienced the exact same thing — and honestly, I think everyone else is running into this too, even if they haven’t noticed it yet. It really seems like a flaw in the current file handling system.
Being able to add the same file twice from the same location shouldn’t be possible at all. It clutters the library and makes managing tracks a mess, especially for larger collections.
Thanks for sharing and for reporting this. Hopefully the team can look into this and implement a fix soon!
Hi @trebbis, @Donn and @DJ_Big_Blender, thanks for sharing this. I have passed on your comments to the engineering team for further review. I’ll get back to you soon!
EDIT:@trebbis in your video, was that track originally imported directly from finder or another source?
thanks for your question too. I didn’t mention this but indeed the file was imported via the automated import feature via settings. Where a folder can be selected from which Djay imports files automatically when there is new file added to that specific folder.
Please take into consideration that this bug doesn’t occur with all files imported automatically via the described way.
Hi again @trebbis, can you please share a couple of the actual audio files that triggered the duplicates? If so, please upload them to your Google Drive/Dropbox, enable sharing permissions, then share a link to the files here of in a DM to me. Thanks!
Update on Duplicate Files Issue – Possible Root Cause Identified
Hey everyone,
following up on my earlier post regarding the issue where djay allows the same audio file to be added twice from the same location – I’ve done some deeper testing and I think I’ve found what’s triggering this behavior.
Observation:
It seems that editing the file’s metadata tags (specifically Title or Artist) after it has already been added to the djay library causes the software to treat the edited file as a new entry. So if I:
Add a track to the djay library
Edit the Title or Artist tag in djay
Re-import the file into djay
…the app doesn’t recognize it as a file that already exist. Instead, I end up with two seemingly identical entries pointing to the same file path, but with different metadata.
Important to note:
This behavior only occurs when modifying Title or Artist.
Editing other tags (e.g. Genre) does not produce the same issue.
Attempting to add the same file a third time still fails – so there seems to be a two-entry limit under these conditions.
Current workaround:
To resolve this, I:
Delete both instances of the file from the library
Re-import the edited version fresh
Alternatively, to prevent this issue entirely, I now make sure to finish all metadata editing before importing any files into djay.
I hope this helps others who may be experiencing the same confusion. I’d also be very curious to hear from the devs if this behavior is intended or if it could be improved in future updates.
Hi again @trebbis, our engineering team would like to look at you djay Media Library database file.
Can you please upload to your Google Drive/Dropbox, enable sharing permissions, then share a link to here or send it to me in a DM? On macOS it can be found in ~/Music>djay.
Could you also share the full drive path to one of the files in your library that has this duplicate import issue?
