Thread: Mythmusic - Command line scan for music?

Is it possible to scan for music from the command line? It's a bit of a pain to always have to go specifically and scan for music in the UI, which takes a long time.

that is a question I'm trying to find out myself and its strange that you don't see more requests for it...

Originally Posted by hitch

Is it possible to scan for music from the command line? It's a bit of a pain to always have to go specifically and scan for music in the UI, which takes a long time.

I know this is an old post, but it's the only mention I see of this question.
Does anyone know the answer?

I often add music remotely, and also like to use MythWeb to play my music, but there seems to be no way to update the DB remotely.

I haven't found a way to do it by command line yet - not sure if it's possible in the latest version. I did find in the latest version that there is now a "key" option - i.e. in the "Edit Keys" section there's a scan music option, which I've set to Ctrl-S - now anywhere in mythtv if I hit Ctrl-S it will scan. doesn't solve your problem, but makes it easier to scan than it used to be..

Thanks - this could be the solution.

If a key can be mapped then there should be a way to send a key command to mythfrontend, say using the telnet socket:
Telnet socket - MythTV
(but I don't think you can send the Ctrl key)

I think this could probably be automated into a script. I'll try to figure it out later today.
Then you could run the script every day at 4am, or similar. Or at least be able to run it remotely through ssh.

A crude script, seems to work:

Code:

bernie@shinym:~$ cat ./MusicScan
#!/bin/bash
#
# Script to send signal to mythfrontend to scan music files
# Change 'f6' to whatever key you've mapped
#
( sleep 2
  echo key f6
  sleep 2
  echo quit ) | telnet localhost 6546

And the result:

Code:

bernie@shinym:~$ ./MusicScan
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
MythFrontend Network Control
Type 'help' for usage information
---------------------------------
# OK
# Connection closed by foreign host.