Some unique M3u8 problems as usual with me

[Kloppstock]

Hello

I have in the past exported my Poweramp playlists to the internal phone memory.

One day i decided to manually delete this five playlist-files (3U8M) from the phone...but y doing so 2 of the playlists then unexpectedly also got removed from inside Poweramp libraby...while 3 of them remained in the library

after deleting their export-file copy (M3u8 )

1.  what was the differnce between these 5 files that made the whole difference?

2: Why did these 2 playlist vanish in libraty by removing theIr 3U8M-file? that should not have happen

3: Why are not 3U8M-files deleted to the recycle bin? (there must be a connection there...to the annoying fact that this files dont either allow to be copied from phone-memory to a windows 9 harddrive)

Beacuse of the perm delete of this file...i was instead forced to paste in some outdated safe-copys of their (M3u8 ) and the playlist automaticly re-appeared inside Poweramp libraby,....does that make sence?

[Kloppstock]

After updating Poweramp to latest version i conclude that my former issue remains...

Poweramp will not create any new (M3u8 ) files in the playlist folder in the internal memory of my phone after klicking export

until i first remove my SD-card where the music is located...that makes no sence...and it a risky business that i will have playlist-data-loss 

 

[andrewilley]

6 hours ago, Kloppstock said:

2: Why did these 2 playlist vanish in libraty by removing theIr 3U8M-file? that should not have happen

That is exactly what should happen, if you delete a playlist file which Poweramp has previously scanned, it will be removed from PA's library on the next background scan. That is as per design. So if you delete all of your external M3U / M3U8 files, only any remaining internal playlists (i.e. ones which were created within Poweramp, including any that were imported from the local Android music system) should remain.

The Export feature will only export Internal Playlists, obviously there's no point creating a new file for a playlist which is already in a file.

To see which type of playlists you have in your library, look in the Playlists folder and see if each entry has a .M3U or .M3U8 extender. If it does, it is a file-based playlist (which will disappear if you later delete that file). If it does not, then it's an internal (database) playlist - which can be export out to a file for backup purposes if you wish.

Andre

[Kloppstock]

8 hours ago, andrewilley said:

That is exactly what should happen, if you delete a playlist file which Poweramp has previously scanned, it will be removed from PA's library on the next background scan. That is as per design. So if you delete all of your external M3U / M3U8 files, only any remaining internal playlists (i.e. ones which were created within Poweramp, including any that were imported from the local Android music system) should remain.

The Export feature will only export Internal Playlists, obviously there's no point creating a new file for a playlist which is already in a file.

To see which type of playlists you have in your library, look in the Playlists folder and see if each entry has a .M3U or .M3U8 extender. If it does, it is a file-based playlist (which will disappear if you later delete that file). If it does not, then it's an internal (database) playlist - which can be export out to a file for backup purposes if you wish.

Andre

1: All of my playlist through out my history have been M3U8 (=External, if i understand you correct since my english understanding is a bit handicapped) and deleting them from playlist folder deleted  their internal counterpart in 3 of 5 cases only..if thats true then that should not happen right?

 

2:   How do i perform that backup?, in 50 % of the cases when i manually try to copy the M3U8 from playlist folder of to harddrive i will recieve an error ( its text message i cant give you right now)

 

3: And Here is a screendump that shows that my new extracted M3U8 refuse to show up where it should  until i will remove the SD-card (where the music that exported the M3U8 is located) that is dangerous  operation for playlists

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[maxmp]

1. Removing m3u file removes playlist from Poweramp playlists section.

2. I can’t help with copying playlists, but I can recommend checking sd card for errors (on computer) if you’re getting file operation errors with it.

3. From your screenshots/description it’s not clear what exactly fails to appear and where, but Poweramp recognizes m3u and other playlists located anywhere in checked Music Folders (Settings / Library).

[andrewilley]

Re: the red outlined box. PA v3 does not separate internal and file-based playlists, they are all shown as one long list sorted using the order you specific in List Options (usually alphabetically by name). This is different to the behaviour of v2, where internal playlists were shown in one group, and then file-based playlists afterwards.

The first instance "Men fascisterna var starka" looks like it is probably an internal (database) list as there is no extender, while the second version (with the "..." at the end) is probably an .M3U8 file-based version (but the name is truncated - try rotating to a horizontal display to see the full name). The internal version will not be removed when you delete an external file, only the external .M3U8 version will disappear.  

Andre

[Kloppstock]

14 hours ago, maxmp said:

1. Removing m3u file removes playlist from Poweramp playlists section.

2. I can’t help with copying playlists, but I can recommend checking sd card for errors (on computer) if you’re getting file operation errors with it.

3. From your screenshots/description it’s not clear what exactly fails to appear and where, but Poweramp recognizes m3u and other playlists located anywhere in checked Music Folders (Settings / Library).

1:. How do you do do to get an external "M3u" file located in playlistg folder....instead of a M3U8, i claim that i have never encounter any M3u, it would be nice to have 

2: But are you guys not doing any safe-copys on your playlists?

The playlist folder is located at internal phone memory so SD-card should not be able to block me from copy/paste a playlist to harddrive, but yeah the list itself is created from probably a faulty SD-card...i recal now

that andrewilley gave me the same answer some years ago to check this SD card, i guess im gonna have to replace it finally..and take the operation risk one last time..hopefully

 

9 hours ago, andrewilley said:

Re: the red outlined box. PA v3 does not separate internal and file-based playlists, they are all shown as one long list sorted using the order you specific in List Options (usually alphabetically by name). This is different to the behaviour of v2, where internal playlists were shown in one group, and then file-based playlists afterwards.

The first instance "Men fascisterna var starka" looks like it is probably an internal (database) list as there is no extender, while the second version (with the "..." at the end) is probably an .M3U8 file-based version (but the name is truncated - try rotating to a horizontal display to see the full name). The internal version will not be removed when you delete an external file, only the external .M3U8 version will disappear.  

Andre

I have made a clarification attachment

All i have done is deleting some external M3U8 and it deleted the playlit as in my screenshot (internal) in some of the cases  

I wanna copy your way in doing backups of your playlist,,,,and if you get M3U files as outputs  i wanna know how to get that also

 

[andrewilley]

1) M3U and M3U8 are basically the same thing, they are both playlist files which just consists of a series of lines of text containing your music filenames (optionally with path details). The only difference is that M3U8 is supports using UTF-8 Unicode characters, which gives a wider character set than plain ASCII (handy if you happen to have any international characters in your filenames).

2) Not sure what you mean by "are you guys not doing any safe-copys on your playlists"? They are your playlists, not ours, so it's entirely up to you how you want to handle them or back them up. An Export option is included in the app though, which allows you to make safer file-based copies of your internally created playlists (either for backup purposes, or if you want to transfer them to another device or different app).

If you have done a Full Rescan and you can still see some .M3U8 names in the library for which you have already deleted the master file, then a copy of that file must exist somewhere else on your device (could be in any location that PA is configured to scan). Unfortunately PA does not provide accessible path info for each playlist file, so you'll have to hunt around your device in a File Explorer app to track them down.

You might want to take a look at a third-party app called New Playlist Manager (written by @flyingdutchman here in the forums) as that might tell you more about the contents and locations of your lists.

Andre

[Kloppstock]

8 hours ago, andrewilley said:

 

2) Not sure what you mean by "are you guys not doing any safe-copys on your playlists"? They are your playlists, not ours, so it's entirely up to you how you want to handle them or back them up. An Export option is included in the app though, which allows you to make safer file-based copies of your internally created playlists (either for backup purposes, or if you want to transfer them to another device or different app).

 

What i mean is...i told you that i cant handle my playlists since i only know one way ..,to use your export-function and then copy the M3U8 playlist to hardrive and it rarely works for me cause of the copu error i mentioned,

so im just doing a comparison if you are using same tecnhique  or if ther are alterantive ways i have not tested...

 

 

[andrewilley]

Still not sure what your question is. If you use the 'Export Playlists' feature then any internal playlists that you may have created within Poweramp will be saved (backed up) to similarly named .M3U8 files in the /Playlists/ folder on your device's storage. You can then use a File Explorer app to move them to other places or other devices, or a text editor to edit them. They are just text files at this point.

If you copy or move those files to a location that Poweramp is set to scan (or if the /Playlists/ folder is already set as a scannable folder of course) then PA will scan them into its library, where they will be shown in the Playlists category. (Note: if you still have the internal library versions too, you will see the file-based versions as duplicates once they have been scanned) 

Andre

[Kloppstock]

On 4/29/2019 at 1:18 AM, andrewilley said:

Still not sure what your question is. If you use the 'Export Playlists' feature then any internal playlists that you may have created within Poweramp will be saved (backed up) to similarly named .M3U8 files in the /Playlists/ folder on your device's storage. You can then use a File Explorer app to move them to other places or other devices, or a text editor to edit them. They are just text files at this point.

If you copy or move those files to a location that Poweramp is set to scan (or if the /Playlists/ folder is already set as a scannable folder of course) then PA will scan them into its library, where they will be shown in the Playlists category. (Note: if you still have the internal library versions too, you will see the file-based versions as duplicates once they have been scanned) 

Andre

Hey i noticed you guys added a function "target folder" recently....where you can choose to export the playlists  to either internal "storage" or "SD-card"  and then you are supposed to press "grant access"( i dont know what a hamburger menu is)

i however  was manage thar way to secure 3 of 5 playlist through it..i think i mentioned it in previous post that 2 playlists (MpU8)) however refuse to be exported...that is stil thecase, what do you do then?

 

[andrewilley]

Naturally any playlists that are already labelled as .M3U8 will not be exported, as they are already files. The feature is called "Export Poweramp Playlists", and is only for exporting or backing up playlists that were created within the app.

Writing to the SD Card always requires access permission, which you need to grant before PA can write to your card for any purpose (for example deleting files, editing tags, etc). This is true of any app, it is an Android security limitation.

Andre

[Kloppstock]

On 5/11/2019 at 8:08 PM, andrewilley said:

Naturally any playlists that are already labelled as .M3U8 will not be exported, as they are already files. The feature is called "Export Poweramp Playlists", and is only for exporting or backing up playlists that were created within the app.

Writing to the SD Card always requires access permission, which you need to grant before PA can write to your card for any purpose (for example deleting files, editing tags, etc). This is true of any app, it is an Android security limitation.

Andre

Okay...i realize now thar we cant match what have happen with my files in the past, so i have moved on finally, one last thing before i close the thread

I instead swapped to a new SD-card today  and copied over same music files from the former SD-card and they all play in "all songs"

however they cant link with the former playlists  "failed to play file! Missing entry, to many failed files"

What have i missed now?

[andrewilley]

There is no point importing system playlists as all of your existing playlists are from files in the first place, so if you import the ones that Android has already imported, you'll just end up with more duplicates again.

Looks like your system keeps the individual names of its SD Cards when you change to a new card (modern Android systems rename each new card as a totally different storage device) so as long as your playlist M3U8 files point to the same physical locations in storage where your files are now stored, they ought to work.

Andre

[Kloppstock]

14 hours ago, andrewilley said:

There is no point importing system playlists as all of your existing playlists are from files in the first place, so if you import the ones that Android has already imported, you'll just end up with more duplicates again.

Looks like your system keeps the individual names of its SD Cards when you change to a new card (modern Android systems rename each new card as a totally different storage device) so as long as your playlist M3U8 files point to the same physical locations in storage where your files are now stored, they ought to work.

Andre

Yes i figured import wont work now, however i recall now how i succeded in the past with previous version of PA to make a playlist transplantation.  

What i did back then was to first  create a new playlist like this, and then it existed some kind of local import-function inside the new created playlist (this pic is my failed attempt to re-create the operatiion)

it was a button somewhere here...that seem to be lost now....where you could import an existing internal M3U playlist onto the new internal playlist,  and it imported alls songs live in just a click, and after that i could remove the failed playlist. 

Do you remember this fucntion also? 

 

 

 

[andrewilley]

You can't "import an existing internal M3U playlist", they are fetched automatically via Poweramp's music scanner system (as long as you save your playlist files in a location that Powermap has been allowed to scan, but you already know that bit). The only "import" feature is used to copy existing Android system playlists (created in another app on the same phone for example) into Poweramp's own internal (database ) playlists store.

Andre

[Kloppstock]

7 hours ago, andrewilley said:

You can't "import an existing internal M3U playlist", they are fetched automatically via Poweramp's music scanner system (as long as you save your playlist files in a location that Powermap has been allowed to scan, but you already know that bit). The only "import" feature is used to copy existing Android system playlists (created in another app on the same phone for example) into Poweramp's own internal (database ) playlists store.

Andre

You are describing the possibilities in this version now right?.  Cause know i hade this problem before and i could do that in previous version of PA (i just dont know if i manged to describe it to you correct) in any case i can show you how i did and what i mean, so if you have nu further suggestion what i can test here,  i see anyway no other choice  than to rollback to PA v.2 and try it...since i wanna have my  2043 track long playlist back at every cost

I think i should reinstall version 3 and test to import playlist again, but i doubt it will make the difference

In case you recognise my description how to transplant files between internal playlist in version 2, is there any chanse you could implement back that feature in an update of version 3? 

[andrewilley]

I repeat what I said before, the playlist "Import" feature in Poweramp DOES NOT do anything at all with any playlist files on your device's storage (M3U, M3U8, etc files). All it does is copy any playlists which may already exist in the main Android music system (wherever those came from, such as other music apps, other files, etc) into Poweramp's own internal playlist database. This has always been the case, in all versions of PA, both v2 and v3. It does not read any files from storage at all.

The "Export Poweramp Playlists" feature also does nothing with any existing file-based (M3U, M3U8, etc files) playlists. All it exports are copies of PA's own internal database-stored playlists (such as ones created directly within PA, or imported from Android during the above-mentioned process). These are exported to M3U8 files, saved by default in the /Playlists/ folder.

Once exported to M3U8 files, if you copy those files from the /Playlists/ folder to somewhere else on your device (somewhere that is ticked in PA's Music Folders list) those playlist files will be automatically picked up during the next music scan.

Andre

[田小江]

thanks,I import my backup playlist with 8.20

[Kloppstock]

On 5/14/2019 at 1:30 AM, andrewilley said:

I repeat what I said before, the playlist "Import" feature in Poweramp DOES NOT do anything at all with any playlist files on your device's storage (M3U, M3U8, etc files). All it does is copy any playlists which may already exist in the main Android music system (wherever those came from, such as other music apps, other files, etc) into Poweramp's own internal playlist database. This has always been the case, in all versions of PA, both v2 and v3. It does not read any files from storage at all.

The "Export Poweramp Playlists" feature also does nothing with any existing file-based (M3U, M3U8, etc files) playlists. All it exports are copies of PA's own internal database-stored playlists (such as ones created directly within PA, or imported from Android during the above-mentioned process). These are exported to M3U8 files, saved by default in the /Playlists/ folder.

Once exported to M3U8 files, if you copy those files from the /Playlists/ folder to somewhere else on your device (somewhere that is ticked in PA's Music Folders list) those playlist files will be automatically picked up during the next music scan.

Andre

My poor mind have started to work now,  it was not as i described above i did when i transplanted files in the past. But what i did  was rather to select the playlist/hold/+playlist/and then exported its contennt

onto the selected playlist

Do you understand now what i ment?. However its to late now to do that anyway since i rollbacked to version 2 and that killed the broken list, and re-produced an empty list instead

 

I realize now however why this will continue to fail, cause of the fact that the M3u(-files is build on exact reading directory-texts like

/storage/sdcard1/Lotsen från Gädda/Music/aladdin - en vän som jag.mp3

And when i exported all my Mp3s of the former SD-card to compiuter as individual files with a software this folder structure became broken

And then i splitted the files over several new folders with new names, and then copied them to the new SD-card, so there is the broken link, even though i can have highe hope..that PA would have some sophisticated scanning system that would work-around the obvious problem, but thats not the case right?

What i have left is the possibility to open the filelist in text-editor and atleast see what tracks that belongs in my manual reconstruction of this list...ore do you have anything left for me to test?

 

 

 

 

 

[andrewilley]

8 hours ago, Kloppstock said:

I realize now however why this will continue to fail, cause of the fact that the M3u(-files is build on exact reading directory-texts like

/storage/sdcard1/Lotsen från Gädda/Music/aladdin - en vän som jag.mp3

i can have highe hope..that PA would have some sophisticated scanning system that would work-around the obvious problem, but thats not the case right?

The point of a playlist is that it contains pointers telling any music player exactly where it can find particular songs. It does this by giving either an absolute path to each song file, or a relative path which starts from the current folder location.

Poweramp v2 is fairly literal (and completely correct) in the way it interprets Playlist contents. If a Playlist says a file should be in a certain specific folder and that file is not present, then that song will not be shown in the playlist. You can edit your .M3U8 files in any text editor to adjust the paths to match with your new device (including making them relative to the current folder, rather than absolute to the device's file system). However Android does not always help you, as its naming of SD Cards can be utterly bizarre; you are lucky in that your device still uses a static 'sdcard1' or 'sdcard2' reference, most modern Androids create absurd random references like 5ADE-5962.

Poweramp v3 is a bit more clever, largely to get around the above card-naming mess and to take account of people who copy a PC-created playlist (containing absolute path references) and expect it to work on a differently-named Android root directory structure). PA v3 will first try to correctly match the entire specified path, and if it finds the song file there then that's great. If not, it will go through its entire library of songs to see if it can match just the filename AND the first containing folder. For example, if you have a PC-created playlist which refers to a song as C:\Users\your_username\Music\Bands\ABBA\Arrival\Dancing_Queen.mp3, then Poweramp will look through its database to see if it can match any filename Dancing_Queen.mp3 that is located inside a folder called Arrival (regardless of the rest of the path that the Arrival folder sits in).

Andre

[Kloppstock]

2 hours ago, andrewilley said:

The point of a playlist is that it contains pointers telling any music player exactly where it can find particular songs. It does this by giving either an absolute path to each song file, or a relative path which starts from the current folder location.

Poweramp v2 is fairly literal (and completely correct) in the way it interprets Playlist contents. If a Playlist says a file should be in a certain specific folder and that file is not present, then that song will not be shown in the playlist. You can edit your .M3U8 files in any text editor to adjust the paths to match with your new device (including making them relative to the current folder, rather than absolute to the device's file system). However Android does not always help you, as its naming of SD Cards can be utterly bizarre; you are lucky in that your device still uses a static 'sdcard1' or 'sdcard2' reference, most modern Androids create absurd random references like 5ADE-5962.

Poweramp v3 is a bit more clever, largely to get around the above card-naming mess and to take account of people who copy a PC-created playlist (containing absolute path references) and expect it to work on a differently-named Android root directory structure). PA v3 will first try to correctly match the entire specified path, and if it finds the song file there then that's great. If not, it will go through its entire library of songs to see if it can match just the filename AND the first containing folder. For example, if you have a PC-created playlist which refers to a song as C:\Users\your_username\Music\Bands\ABBA\Arrival\Dancing_Queen.mp3, then Poweramp will look through its database to see if it can match any filename Dancing_Queen.mp3 that is located inside a folder called Arrival (regardless of the rest of the path that the Arrival folder sits in).

Andre

Yes, but the problem is that since my playlist is 2000+ items large, its imposible  to multiply the new edits command lines, withoutg going down to individual edits

I offered a compromise that i think PA 3.0 scanner will not accept, to exclude the acctual songs att the end  just one line with the "main folder"

/storage/sdcard1/Lotsen från Gädda

I will be forced to redo this list

 

[andrewilley]

4 hours ago, Kloppstock said:

Yes, but the problem is that since my playlist is 2000+ items large, its imposible  to multiply the new edits command lines, withoutg going down to individual edits

As long as you haven't altered the folder structure within your music storage folder, even a 2,000+ item playlist should be easy to fix, just batch search&replace the old root path info with the new info.

There's no point in having a playlist "without the actual songs at the end", the song filenames are the most important bit.

Andre

[Kloppstock]

7 hours ago, andrewilley said:

As long as you haven't altered the folder structure within your music storage folder, even a 2,000+ item playlist should be easy to fix, just batch search&replace the old root path info with the new info.

There's no point in having a playlist "without the actual songs at the end", the song filenames are the most important bit.

Andre

I have no idea what  batch search&replace mean in english, and  i know that im gonna need somekind of screenshot to understand what you mean how this could be easy

In fact im going to  atleast offer you to download my rared.playlist here "original path.rar" and you can please edit it for me and send it back, and i will look and learn and then i can do it myself on my other 4 playlists

The lowest common denominator between my 2 SD cards is that the main folder is named identical   /storage/sdcard1/Lotsen från Gädda

All we can do is to truncate the today inaccurate sub-folders

original path.rar

[andrewilley]

I'm not sure what you want me to do with that? As you say, the M3U8 file shows that all of your music files are stored inside a folder called /storage/sdcard1/Lotsen från Gädda/ . If you let me know where they have been moved to, it should just be a case of replacing that initial path with your new starting path.

As I said before, this does assume that you have not changed the actual filenames or subfolder names within your base music folder though - e.g. the following overall structure of folders/files must still exist in your new music folder:

Music 9/Jaki Graham - Love me tonight.mp3
Rick Astley/The Very Best/Rick Astley -Sleeping.mp3
Music/Hoola Bandoola Band - Juanita.mp3
Gloria Estefan/betcha say that (12'' version).mp3
Music 9/The Jones girls - All i want.mp3
Music/aladdin - en vän som jag.mp3
Musik 6/05 Lover's Paradise.mp3

Andre