# Mp3tag breaking Hard-Links with cover art upgrade **URL:** \ **Category:** Support\ **Created:** [March 11, 2020, 8:33pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/mp3tag-breaking-hard-links-with-cover-art-upgrade/48137 "2020-03-11T20:33:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![stephenwelker1024](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/stephenwelker1024/32/7369_2.png) [@stephenwelker1024](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/stephenwelker1024)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2020, 8:33pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/mp3tag-breaking-hard-links-with-cover-art-upgrade/48137/1 "2020-03-11T20:33:25Z")
A lot of my music is hard-linked to multiple places on my drive, and very rarely when updating the cover art mp3tag will break the hard-link. I was wondering if anyone else has noticed or found a workaround. files are linked with [https://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/linkshellextension.html](https://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/linkshellextension.html). I would rather mp3tag fail to update the tag then break the link, because the broken links are hard to find and re-link. any insight would be appreciated. ---
**Author:** ![ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/ohrenkino/32/4843_2.png) [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2020, 8:55pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/mp3tag-breaking-hard-links-with-cover-art-upgrade/48137/2 "2020-03-11T20:55:01Z")
Could you elaborate why updating an internal cover should break something external in the file system? How should MP3tag which updates the actual file know that there are links somewhere else scattered across the file system? ---
**Author:** ![LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/c6cbf5/32.png) [@LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/LyricsLover)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2020, 9:49pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/mp3tag-breaking-hard-links-with-cover-art-upgrade/48137/3 "2020-03-11T21:49:49Z")
Maybe the cause for broken hard links is the same as for every changed MS Office file? If a windows software manipulates a hard linked file, it can do it with in two different ways: **a)** Open the file, change its content and save it back -\> this will not break a hard link or **b)** Do it like MS Office: Open a file, create a copy as temporary file, change the content in this temporary file until you manually save it. As soon as the save process is started, the original file will be deleted - breaks the hard link! - and the temporary file will be renamed back to the original file name. You can find a better description [here](https://serverfault.com/questions/362921/hardlink-of-ms-word-file-getting-hidden-and-not-updated). I have no idea how Mp3tag write the changes into the files. Using a) or b)? ---
**Author:** ![ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/ohrenkino/32/4843_2.png) [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2020, 5:41am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/mp3tag-breaking-hard-links-with-cover-art-upgrade/48137/4 "2020-03-12T05:41:16Z")
Case b) would explain why it occurs only when a cover is updated: the padding is not big enough, so the whole file has to be rewritten. I do not think that this can be avoided without a modification of the workflow (i.e. link the files after the tagging has been completed). ---
**Author:** ![stephenwelker1024](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/stephenwelker1024/32/7369_2.png) [@stephenwelker1024](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/stephenwelker1024)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2020, 1:58pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/mp3tag-breaking-hard-links-with-cover-art-upgrade/48137/5 "2020-03-12T13:58:38Z")
Well that sucks. I guess I will have to write a script to automatically backup and re-link updated files. Thanks ---
**Author:** ![system](https://community.mp3tag.de/uploads/default/original/2X/c/ce7035d426cb755a7916793326d23b465222a407.png) [@system](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/system)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2020, 1:58pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/mp3tag-breaking-hard-links-with-cover-art-upgrade/48137/6 "2020-04-11T13:58:40Z")
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