Sorting by date added sorts by track #

[Oscarwho210]

V3-build-818-play (Full version)

Xiaomi mi5

Android 8.0.0

Stock rom

After i updated to the last build (818), Poweramp started to sort differently my songs and i noticed that it was because even though my list options were set to sort by date added, thay were sorting by track #. When this happened i reinstalled the app from google play, from the forums, and even tried older builds, but none of that seemed to work. I really don't know what to do, this has hapenned before but it fixed itself in a short period of time, now this problem is ocurring and i don't know what to do.

Thanks

[blaubär]

3 minutes ago, Oscarwho210 said:

V3-build-818-play (Full version)

Xiaomi mi5

Android 8.0.0

Stock rom

After i updated to the last build (818), Poweramp started to sort differently my songs and i noticed that it was because even though my list options were set to sort by date added, thay were sorting by track #. When this happened i reinstalled the app from google play, from the forums, and even tried older builds, but none of that seemed to work. I really don't know what to do, this has hapenned before but it fixed itself in a short period of time, now this problem is ocurring and i don't know what to do.

Thanks

Did you try a full rescan ?

[andrewilley]

You could try a Full Rescan.

Andre

[Oscarwho210]

If by full rescan you mean go to library->rescan, yes, i have already done it.

[andrewilley]

"Full Rescan" is at the bottom of Settings > Library, and it does a more thorough job than the one at the top of the Library page.

Andre

[Oscarwho210]

I did a full rescan and nothing changed. Any more options?

[blaubär]

11 minutes ago, Oscarwho210 said:

I did a full rescan and nothing changed. Any more options?

Does this happen in every category ? Albums, All Songs ?

[andrewilley]

Do you have the 'Date' option set to use the date added to PA's internal database (i.e. first time the song was picked up by the scanner) or to use the filesystem time/date stamp (i.e. the Last Modified timestamp of the actual files)? (See Settings > Library > Lists > Sort by Filesystem Date/Time). Filesystem sorting might look a bit like Track# if the files happen to have been created/copied in track number order.

Andre

[Oscarwho210]

49 minutes ago, blaubär said:

Does this happen in every category ? Albums, All Songs ?

It happens in all categories.

17 minutes ago, andrewilley said:

Do you have the 'Date' option set to use the date added to PA's internal database (i.e. first time the song was picked up by the scanner) or to use the filesystem time/date stamp (i.e. the Last Modified timestamp of the actual files)? (See Settings > Library > Lists > Sort by Filesystem Date/Time). Filesystem sorting might look a bit like Track# if the files happen to have been created/copied in track number order.

Andre

Switching back and forth this setting seems to change the order but doesn't truly sort by date added in the way it should.

[blaubär]

16 minutes ago, Oscarwho210 said:

Switching back and forth this setting seems to change the order but doesn't truly sort by date added in the way it should. 

Okay, could you add an album or a song, rescan and see if that works ? Meaning whether this is shown as the most recently added ?

If it does work, then let's declare this as an unexplainable historical occurence.

If not ... no idea yet 😀

[Oscarwho210]

1 hour ago, blaubär said:

Okay, could you add an album or a song, rescan and see if that works ? Meaning whether this is shown as the most recently added ?

If it does work, then let's declare this as an unexplainable historical occurence.

If not ... no idea yet 😀

Well now i am completely lost. I added a song to one folder and it fixed itself from the start even after i moved the file. I then tried with another folder and the new song was at the top, but nothing else changed even after a full rescan. So one folder now has the right order but another one doesn't.

[blaubär]

3 minutes ago, Oscarwho210 said:

Well now i am completely lost. I added a song to one folder and it fixed itself from the start even after i moved the file. I then tried with another folder and the new song was at the top, but nothing else changed even after a full rescan. So one folder now has the right order but another one doesn't. 

This could mean that the information about date added in the library has been compromised. If this happens more often then we could request to show this date in the song info, so that one had a chance to check for plausibility. The case of the self fixing folder is more problematic. Might be a corrupted filesystem.

[Oscarwho210]

1 hour ago, blaubär said:

This could mean that the information about date added in the library has been compromised. If this happens more often then we could request to show this date in the song info, so that one had a chance to check for plausibility. The case of the self fixing folder is more problematic. Might be a corrupted filesystem.

So what can i do now so they show up in order, any other idea?

[andrewilley]

27 minutes ago, Oscarwho210 said:

So what can i do now so they show up in order, any other idea?

What do you consider the "right order" ? There are lots of options, not sure what you are expecting to see.

"Date Added" is a rather volatile concept for sorting by, as it only refers to when a file was first scanned and added to PA's database. If that database has to be rebuilt for any reason, or a file gets changed and thus re-added, you will lose the integrity of your list.

Andre

[Oscarwho210]

15 minutes ago, andrewilley said:

What do you consider the "right order" ? There are lots of options, not sure what you are expecting to see.

"Date Added" is a rather volatile concept for sorting by, as it only refers to when a file was first scanned and added to PA's database. If that database has to be rebuilt for any reason, or a file gets changed and thus re-added, you will lose the integrity of your list.

Andre

I know that if i change a file it will be re-added but i'm curious to why suddenly it has stopped working and if there is a change to reverse it just like what happened in that specific folder.

[blaubär]

A question : does a rescan change the date added information ? The warning that comes before says that "tag info" would be deleted, that wouldn't include the date added ? I just did a full rescan, and the order with list option date added didn't change.

[blaubär]

5 hours ago, Oscarwho210 said:

I know that if i change a file it will be re-added but i'm curious to why suddenly it has stopped working and if there is a change to reverse it just like what happened in that specific folder.

It seems the contents in Poweramp's database changed. Why this happened we'll probably never know.

It would help if the song info showed the value for date added, then you could check it.

I suggest you enter a feature request for this, if it's important to you.

Personally I don't use that ordering very much.

[andrewilley]

3 hours ago, blaubär said:

A question : does a rescan change the date added information ?

I would assume so, unless Max has added some logic to prevent that from happening. Of course if the files are still located in the same folder and subfolder structure as they were before, the scan process will pick them up in pretty much the same order as it did last time. But as @blaubär has said, it's not an ordering option that I find especially useful (I always use file-system time/date stamp ordering, as that is more predictable and not so potentially volatile).

Andre

[blaubär]

Another thought : it doesn't depend on the way you handle album artist tags, for example with the "Join Albums" setting ? Could it be that you changed this, Poweramp then re-evaluated what's an album and what not and then had other entry-dates ?

[Oscarwho210]

8 hours ago, blaubär said:

It seems the contents in Poweramp's database changed. Why this happened we'll probably never know.

It would help if the song info showed the value for date added, then you could check it.

I suggest you enter a feature request for this, if it's important to you.

Personally I don't use that ordering very much.

I might do this, i think it will help to understand better what is going on.

5 hours ago, andrewilley said:

I would assume so, unless Max has added some logic to prevent that from happening. Of course if the files are still located in the same folder and subfolder structure as they were before, the scan process will pick them up in pretty much the same order as it did last time. But as @blaubär has said, it's not an ordering option that I find especially useful (I always use file-system time/date stamp ordering, as that is more predictable and not so potentially volatile).

Andre

 Doing a full rescan does nothing at all, the folders kept in the same order and the one which organized itself after adding a file didn't change.

3 hours ago, blaubär said:

Another thought : it doesn't depend on the way you handle album artist tags, for example with the "Join Albums" setting ? Could it be that you changed this, Poweramp then re-evaluated what's an album and what not and then had other entry-dates ?

I didn't change any settings at all, just updated to the lastest build which is what i don't understand.

[blaubär]

25 minutes ago, Oscarwho210 said:

3 hours ago, blaubär said:

 

I didn't change any settings at all, just updated to the lastest build which is what i don't understand. 

Sometimes an update unexplainably changes settings. You wouldn't be the first user to experience that.

[maxmp]

21 hours ago, Oscarwho210 said:

V3-build-818-play (Full version)

Xiaomi mi5

Android 8.0.0

Stock rom

After i updated to the last build (818), Poweramp started to sort differently my songs and i noticed that it was because even though my list options were set to sort by date added, thay were sorting by track #. When this happened i reinstalled the app from google play, from the forums, and even tried older builds, but none of that seemed to work. I really don't know what to do, this has hapenned before but it fixed itself in a short period of time, now this problem is ocurring and i don't know what to do.

Thanks

Many  devices out there didn't support (don't report it to app/fail to recognize it completely/report bogus values - ROMs bugged on many levels) last changed attribute for files.
This required Poweramp to use "first seen" time instead of last changed timestamp by default - so that's why "Sort By Filesystem Date/Time" option was Off by default in v1/v2 and beta builds.

Most recent devices do support file system sorting correctly, this is shy "Sort By Filesystem Date/Time" option is now On by default. The change to On by default happened in build-804.

Now, what happens if this option is On and you still have bugged ROM or for some reason given storage driver doesn't support last modified attribute:
- if all tracks from the bugged storaged get last modified time==0
   - they are sorted by title
- if some weird values are in last modified time
   - they are sorted weirdly

 

[Shelanoir]

I would like to add what I'm experiencing with my phone to this topic.

First, why the date added sorting method is important to me : I have several artists that have released albums on the same year, but these albums names are not in alphabetical order. What this causes is wrong sorting for these albums (as what I would like to achieve is release date sorting, which is what makes the most sense for me). In previous version of Poweramp, I achieved this using the date added sorting method.

Since Poweramp does not support the full release time tag (which allows for full Year/Month/Day release date tagging), and that file-system sorting is not possible when using non folder-hierarchy views, the only way to achieve correct sorting is using date added sorting (when using music library views).

Now, coming into Poweramp V3, I am 300% sure this sorting method is currently broken, and this bug persists even on reinstalls and complete rescans (I have even completely purged all my music files three times from my SD card to try and fix this, to no avail).

To make sure of this, I have used a script to edit my last date modified info on all my music files. They currently are 100% in order in this regard (each song is marked as being last modified one hour apart each).

I have confirmed this using the SE Explorer app that does indeed achieve the correct sorting of music files when using the last date modified sorting in their app. This should prove that at least, in my case, my last date modified info is valid and not equal to null or such.

Now to the bug present in Poweramp. As stated by Oscarwho210, Poweramp seems to currently order using an unknown sorting method when using last date modified sorting. What I'm currently experiencing, is what would seemingly be alphabetical sorting in song list views, and what I would assume, be a broken/random sorting method when in album list views. In album view specifically, sometimes I get correct sorting, sometimes reversed sorting, and sometimes completely out of order sorting. It doesn't seem to follow alphabetical ordering.

What's more, disabling the option for using file system last date modified times (and using scanner first seen time) does not change ordering at all. Albums and songs will get ordered just the same as last time, even on full rescans, which makes me wonder what info is Poweramp currently using when using this sorting method, as it seems to be broken both when using scanner first seen times and file system last modified times.

And adding to this, using the reverse toggle when using date added sorting does absolutely nothing at all. If this is not a bug, it is very confusing as the toggle does not get disabled. Also, if it is intentional and not a bug, please enable this option again, as it is an useful option to have.

This issue has persisted for months, and is even present on two different phones (with the same sorting being displayed on both phones). For information, my phones are Oneplus 5 and Nokia 8.1.

I had already opened another topic on this issue but it apparently was ignored. So please, look into this issue. I am certain something is wrong.

 

[andrewilley]

Sorting by Date Added is never going to be an exactly predicable science for organising a music collection, it's more of a way to find recent stuff easily.

When PA scans for newly-found music (e.g. it finds a new folder for an album that you've just added) the tracks will be read in one-by-one from the Android file system in whatever order the system crawl decides to present them. That could be date order of course, or more likely (and I'm using an old MS-DOS analogy here) the raw ordering of the pointers stored in the underlying OS - which used to be called the Directory Table under DOS, but I'm not sure what it's called these days. Whatever though, that order will not change on a Full Rescan, the folders and files will still be crawled in the same order. Deleting some files and adding new ones may add the new entries at the end of the table, or more likely it will fill up the now-unused slots - although as I said, I don't know what order the OS will crawl the directory and present the results.

If you use the filesystem's time/date stamp instead, you could manually control the values yourself by updating the Last Modified timestamp for each file, but that's an awful lot of work unless you could make some sort of clever automated batch process that can read the full info from the ID3 tags. I use a PC program called Advanced Renamer, which can batch set each file's Last Modified flag based on EXIF 'photograph-taken' data for images, but not from music ID3 tags as far as I know.

The best and most reliable method would be the one that I use, which is to work with the tried-and-tested Folders category rather than any sort of fancy modern smart system (I'm an old-school luddite that way  ). That way you've got total control of the sorting order, set by whatever you name your folders. You can add year digits at the start of each folder name, with extra digits for the month if you find it necessary for a particular artist. It's simple, 100% reliable, and just works.

Andre

[Shelanoir]

I did use folder view before, but I still want to at least try to use library view (as it displays more relevant info)

As for the batch process I used, it's dead simple. Since all of my folders are in order, a recursive touch is enough.

My problem is more specifically with the album list view, since I don't know if how it works (if it works at all). Other solutions would be the possibility to manually set sorting order. In MusicBee, their library view has the possibility of sorting using file system order (Albums are sorted in the alphabetical order of their parent folders). I do not know if this would be possible in Poweramp.

Album sorting by date added may not be broken after all, but it is not intuitive. As I said, I made sure to set all of my songs in each album so that their last modified time is strictly superior of the last modified times of the preceding albums. Maybe for albums the file's last modified date is not used at all, maybe it's broken.