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Playlist entries disappearing from files


Bracket

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Playlist entries have disappeared since update 823 and remain so after a full rescan.

This makes me sick. So much work goes into making these lists. All for nothing. Only a portion is retrievable from the latest backup.

The additions to the playlists were made from within PA.

Is there a way to stop updates from destroying my files?

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1 hour ago, Bracket said:

Playlist entries have disappeared since update 823 and remain so after a full rescan.

This makes me sick. So much work goes into making these lists. All for nothing. Only a portion is retrievable from the latest backup.

Are you talking about editing internal playlists (i.e. ones in Poweramp's own local database only) or using Poweramp to edit the contents of existing file-based .M3U playlists?

If the latter, there is a reported bug going back several versions not just 823, which unfortunately Max has still not been able to reproduce on his test systems. This seems to occasionally cause an individual .M3U playlist file to get wiped - the file still exists, but it becomes zero byes long. It could be related to making edits to playlists, but I've had it happen to me on multiple occasions and I rarely if ever re-edit my file-based playlists.

The difficulty is that you only notice this problem some time after it has happened when you return to use an old playlist. I generally maintain and save my playlists on my PC though, and copy them to my phone, so if it ever happens to me I just copy the file back again. That is not an answer I know, but if you can provide anything further which might help Max track this down I'm sure a lot of people would be very happy.

Andre

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Indeed it has happened before after an update. Some playlists gone entirely, others wiped (almost) clean. This time no lists have gone but a series of entries in at least one particular list have. This is definitely recent since I often play from this list. I created the list within PA and added to it from within PA. All my lists are .M3U. In the course of the existence of this list I have copied it back and forth to my laptop. Either to make a backup or to restore it after another destruction by a PA update. Not sure if anything changes during this process, don't think it does. In any case, this time round the playlist is still there, only curtailed.

Maybe there is something in the following: I also USB Audio Player PRO (UAPP). The reason for this, by the way, is the fact that Poweramp had never implemented HiRes for my Pioneer XDP-100R, though I have asked for it 3 years ago. Anyway, this player also has an issue with playlists on my DAP. It does not show them the regular way. I have to go to the root, tap on a list and watch a conversion/parsing process into something that can be read by the software. I cannot add to a playlist. This parsing has to happen every time. I noticed that one playlist has 250 songs in it in UAPP but only 69 in PA. More playlists have this discrepancy.

Looking into it further I also noticed that UAPP does show songs from SD card 1 as well as SD card 2 while PA only displays songs from SD card 2 in the PA playlists with this difference in number of songs. Could that be something? Though it does not explain why one particular playlist has lost a series

I have done a full rescan after the update. The cards have not left my player for a while.

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Do all of the 'missing' songs appear in Poweramp's main library views - e.g. All Songs, Folders, Albums. If not, then the problem could be in scanning permissions (check Settings > Library > Music Folders). No song can be shown in a Playlist in PA if that song is not present (scanned) in the main library database first.

When you said you created M3U playlists within Poweramp, do you mean you first created them as internal playlists (which is the only way you can do it in PA) and then used the 'Export Poweramp Playlists' feature to create .M3U8 versions? What do the files actually look like if you open them in a text editor, do the paths and filenames match your device's file system correctly? Are there any unusual characters in any of the filenames or paths (international characters, etc)? If so, try renaming any .M3U files to .M3U8.

Andre

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Those songs are only missing from the playlists, they exist.

Some of the remaining songs are from SD card 1 as well as 2. So it is not always just the songs from one card missing.

Having just created a new playlist in PA I am beginning to doubt whether I have done that with the playlist called 'set' that has entries missing. I know I have made a number of playlists in JRiver and copied them to the DAP (after editing to create the right pointers). This was before I made my DAP my main music center. So I delete songs in PA and create/modify playlists in PA on the DAP. A few times a year I copy the whole lot to my laptop as a backup. The JRiver playlists worked for a long time without a problem. In the past months, probably after a PA update, I lost several lists enterely. Some came back after a full rescan. But I think I have had to restore several lists from my backup. I didn't keep track of what I did in order to make it work again, being happy the problem seemed solved.

When I backed up the playlists from my DAP I did so my copying the lists in Windows Explorer. That seemed to be working. Songs added from within PA showed up in the playlists when I checked after copying/backing up. So restoring followed the same route. Copy paste. Not via import/export.

Working on this issue, since you asked, I opened a playlist in Notepad. This list, as all others (except for the new 'test' list I just made) are sitting in the root of the internal storage. It shows about a 100 songs, but only 13 show up in PA. All the missing ones are on SD card 1. Though that is selected in music folders and I have done a full rescan. In the other case I mentioned it was less clear cut, because it still contained songs from SD card 1. In settings-music folders I first unchecked the internal storage where the playlists are located. The automatic scan followed, rendering all playlists absent (except the 'test' one I just created). And then I selected the internal storage again. After the ensuing scan it brought back the missing songs in the playlist mentioned above. But not the ones missing from 'set'. In this case are was also no difference between the list in Notepad and in PA.

As music folders I have, as always, selected the entire internal storage, the entire SD card 1 and the entire SD card 2.

One playlist shows yet another issue. Opening it in Notepad gives 19 songs. In PA however I count 23 songs! The difference are 4 songs at the bottom of the list in PA, all recent additions. But where are they stored? So there is a difference between what was imported/copied and what was added from within PA? But why do the recently added songs show up in one list and not in another ?

Yet another playlist shows the following: I recently added 14 songs to it, from within PA. I see them on my DAP screen. When I look at the playlist in Notepad however I see only 2 recently added songs. After that there is a partial reference only:

 

/storage/sdcard1/Hanne Hukkelberg/Rykestrasse 68/07 Break my Body.mp3

/storage/sdcard1/Hanne Hukkelberg/Rykestrasse 68/09 Pynt.mp3

/storage/sdcard2/Lonely-Drifter-Karen/Grass-Is-Singing/1_9_Lonely-Drifter-Karen_Carousel-Horses_6.flac

/storage/sdcard2/Lonely-Drifter-Karen/Grass-Is-Singing/1_6_Lonely-Drifter-Karen_Casablanca_6.flac

/storage


 

The only irregular symbols in the playlists are underscores in stead of a space.

In the internal storage I also have folders from Neutron and from UAPP. Could they interfere?

Only 5 gb used of the 25 available on the internal storage, so that can't be it.

The playlists I have are a mix of .M3U and .M3U8. Though the content seems the same to me.

Could the fact that I have 2 SD cards of 400 gb play a role?


 

Hopefully this brings you a bit further.


 

George


 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

It's a bit hard to follow as this has hijacked someone else's thread, which can get responses mixed up. It has even diverted from your initial post. I will separate this into a new thread to make it easier to read.

First, it's generally not a good idea to have the whole of your device scanable in PA, that could slow things down. Better to have just the folders which actually contain music (or playlists) ticked in the Music Folders list - unless a whole SD Card contains nothing at all but music, but in most cases that's pretty unlikely. Similarly, storing playlists (or indeed anything) in the root level of internal memory is not ideal either, I would suggest creating a folder just for playlists and have that ticked as scanable in PA, not include the entire internal storage. Same goes for SD Cards (I'm assuming you have a device that allows you to mount two SD Cards at the same time, but as I'm sure you are aware that is not at all common in Android devices).

As you know from earlier replies, there is a known bug (still untraced) which seems to relate to trying to edit external (file-based) playlists within PA. It is possible for playlist files to end up wiped (becoming zero bytes long) in which case you need to copy them back in from their original source again. Until this is resolved, I would suggest NOT trying to add or remove songs from file-based playlists, and stick to using internal (i.e. local PA database) lists if you want to change them on the fly. This could be why you see extra songs within some playlists in PA which are not in the physical M3U/8 file.  

There is a new feature in recent PA builds - Settings > Library > Playlists > Resolve Playlist Entries - which might be worth a try too (this is also accessible by Library > Playlists > [menu icon] > Rescan/Resolve Playlists).

Otherwise, I think a clean start might help you. First export any internal playlists you may have created inside the app to M3U8 files (using Settings > Library > Playlist > Export Poweramp Playlists) and save your settings. Then start from fresh with a Full Rescan. Or even uninstall/reinstall the entire app, set the PA Settings > Library > Music Folders ticked items to a more limited selection of top-level folders, and then see if you get the same issues.

Andre

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Thanks for your reaction Andre.

Using Build 826 now.

In answer to that:

I said I had put the playlists in the root of the internal storage. To be precise: all the individual playlists are on the same level as the folders ANDROID, DCIM and so forth. The path is /storage/emulated/0/Playlists. Maybe that is not the same as the root, I'm no expert. The reason I did that is because I could not put them in a folder, using File Explorer on a Win10 laptop. No idea why. I can copy an mp3 to it, but no m3u8. The fact that all playlists were floating around folderless is also the reason why I had to designate the entire Internal Storage as a music folder. Whatever I try, this problems persists. Maybe it is a Windows thing, or Android.

Following your warning about file based playlists, I made new playlists from within PA, copying all entries from the file based ones. Exported them. So that will be new the method.

I have done a full rescan. And only recently I reinstalled V3.

Other than you expect perhaps, I do have 2 micro sd cards working in tandem, containing only music, and that works fine. Pioneer XDP-100R.

Since I mention the brand of my DAP... Years ago (April 2016) I asked PA to facilitate HiRes output for this device and I sent the relevant files (audio-policy, build-prop). Never to hear from it again. Despite repeating the question. Could you look into it again please? It really is so disappointing to see the message FAILED: Hi-Res OUTPUT. Every single time I start Poweramp. Especially since I know it is possible of course. Neutron as well as USB Audio Player PRO provide it. I switch over to the latter regularly because of the better sound quality, but they have other issues, so I stick to PA for now. You would do all users of this DAP a big favor I'm sure!

George

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