"List Position"/"Per Track Progress" settings: Folders vs Albums

[Citizen Snips]

I'm not sure if this is a bug or a feature, but here is behavior I've encountered that I'd like a way to change:

I have a multi-track audiobook for which I have the "List Position" and "Per Track Progress" boxes checked under the folder's "List Options: Folder Songs" menu.

If I open Poweramp and click "Folders", then choose the audiobook folder and press play, play resumes from the track and position I left off with as intended, with the exception of the case described in the second paragraph.

If after playing and pausing the audiobook with the "List Position" and "Per Track Progress" boxes checked under the folder's "List Options: Folder Songs" menu as described, I then go to the audiobook in Poweramp's "Albums" list and press the play button, play starts from the beginning instead of resuming from the track and position I left off with.  If I then go back to "Folders", select the audiobook's folder and press the play button, play either starts from the beginning or from the last point reached when I played the audiobook from its "Album" entry, but not from the position saved the last time I played the audiobook from its "Folders" entry, which is now lost forever.  Is this a bug or am I missing an option somewhere?  I've lost my place in long audiobooks several times now because I accidentally play the audiobook from the "Albums" list rather than the "Folders" list.

 

 

[andrewilley]

I wonder if what you are seeing is a conflict between the two Per-Track Progress features?

First there is a global setting which is used to always save the playback position of any track that is longer than a certain duration, no matter what category that track is played from.

Then there is a separate feature which allows you to do the same sort of thing for the List Position and Per Track Progress for each individual folder regardless of each track's length (it is a per-folder List Option selection, and only triggers when listening in one of the Folders modes).

If you have both options enabled, and in the circumstances that you describe, I suspect one setting could be overriding the other.

Andre

[Citizen Snips]

9 hours ago, andrewilley said:

I wonder if what you are seeing is a conflict between the two Per-Track Progress features?

First there is a global setting which is used to always save the playback position of any track that is longer than a certain duration, no matter what category that track is played from.

Then there is a separate feature which allows you to do the same sort of thing for the List Position and Per Track Progress for each individual folder regardless of each track's length (it is a per-folder List Option selection, and only triggers when listening in one of the Folders modes).

If you have both options enabled, and in the circumstances that you describe, I suspect one setting could be overriding the other.

Andre

 

Are you referring to the Settings->Library->Store/Restore Per Track Progress setting?  I have that setting enabled, and the "Track Duration For Per Track Progress and -10/+10 buttons" is set to 60 minutes.  None of the individual tracks in my audiobooks are over 15 minutes or so, so I wouldn't think that option would be relevant here.

 

Quote

Then there is a separate feature which allows you to do the same sort of thing for the List Position and Per Track Progress for each individual folder regardless of each track's length (it is a per-folder List Option selection, and only triggers when listening in one of the Folders modes).

 

This confirms my observation that playing tracks from the "Albums" list does not honor the saved "List Position" and "Per Track Progress" values, but why then when I go back to the "Folders" list and play the album again is my original saved "List Position" and "Per Track Progress" not restored?

 

Edited October 3, 2020 by Citizen Snips

[andrewilley]

What seems to be happening is that the last playback position is always saved somewhere inside PA's database, and this occurs every time any song is played - even if you are playing in Albums mode, or other categories. However it is only restored when you use a category that supports Per-Track Progress, and only if you have enabled the feature there.

So for example, let's say you play a song in an album to half-way through, PA will save that position even though it doesn't currently plan to do anything with the information. If you then go to the Folder that contains the track, and enable Per-Track Progress for that folder in its List Options, then when you play the song within the folder it will pick up from where it was last left off (i.e. from the saved from Albums mode location). So the feature is really a restore function rather than a save one (as saving actually happens everywhere).

Andre

[Citizen Snips]

4 hours ago, andrewilley said:

What seems to be happening is that the last playback position is always saved somewhere inside PA's database, and this occurs every time any song is played - even if you are playing in Albums mode, or other categories. However it is only restored when you use a category that supports Per-Track Progress, and only if you have enabled the feature there.

So for example, let's say you play a song in an album to half-way through, PA will save that position even though it doesn't currently plan to do anything with the information. If you then go to the Folder that contains the track, and enable Per-Track Progress for that folder in its List Options, then when you play the song within the folder it will pick up from where it was last left off (i.e. from the saved from Albums mode location). So the feature is really a restore function rather than a save one (as saving actually happens everywhere).

Andre

OK, then could this be changed to either:

1. restore when playing the album from either the "Folders" or "Albums"?

2. not save anything when playing from "Albums" if it's not going to restore when playing from "Albums"?

Personally I think option 2 would be better.  It doesn't seem like there is any advantage to the current method (saving when played from either "Albums" or "Folders", but only restoring when played from "Folders"), yet the downside is obvious, i.e. losing a track and position that was saved when playing from "Folders" when that same album is played from "Albums".

I'm not sure how everyone organizes their music but I always put each album/audiobook in its own folder anyway, so for me the terms "Album" and "Folder" are more or less interchangeable.

Edited October 3, 2020 by Citizen Snips

[andrewilley]

2 hours ago, Citizen Snips said:

I'm not sure how everyone organizes their music but I always but each album/audiobook in its own folder anyway

That's mostly what I do too, but then I would never play an audiobook or podcast from anywhere else but the Folders list. Albums or other music yes, but not spoken word.

Andre

[Citizen Snips]

17 hours ago, andrewilley said:

That's mostly what I do too, but then I would never play an audiobook or podcast from anywhere else but the Folders list. Albums or other music yes, but not spoken word.

Andre

I guess in my head I equate a multi-track audiobook or podcast to an "Album" in terms of how an audio player would organize the files, given that the files would all have incremental track numbers, the same Author, Title, etc. contained in their ID3 tag info just like a music album would.

In any case, could Poweramp be modified (or an option added) to never save track and position when playing from "Albums" if its not going to restore track and position when playing from "Albums"?  I've lost my spot in long, multi-track audiobooks and podcasts more than once due to this and while I now know to never play from the "Albums" folder if I have a saved track and position, it seems this quirk of how Poweramp works is creating a potential pitfall while providing no benefit.

Edited October 4, 2020 by Citizen Snips

[andrewilley]

I suspect the issue is one of terminology vs. usage. The List Options feature in Folders (and it is PER folder, not for all folders) is actually a "restore last playback position" rather than just a Save feature - and it is taking it very literally and will restore playback for you from wherever it was last played. I'm guessing it does it this way so that if you enable the Restore feature it will be still able to resume tracks that you had listened to prior to enabling the option. I think the simplest solution would be to only store the last-played location when the track is played in a category that supports resuming.

The reason I always use Folders by the way is I find that podcasts and other spoken word material (radio show recordings for example) are often quite poorly tagged - if at all - so they don't always show up tidily in Album-style views. And as this sort of thing is somewhat transient and I delete them from my phone after listening, it doesn't seem worth re-tagging each one every time a new show downloads, I just sort them by folder/filename.

Andre

[Citizen Snips]

56 minutes ago, andrewilley said:

I think the simplest solution would be to only store the last-played location when the track is played in a category that supports resuming.

Agreed.

[Citizen Snips]

On 10/4/2020 at 11:45 AM, andrewilley said:

I think the simplest solution would be to only store the last-played location when the track is played in a category that supports resuming.

Has this been addressed in any updates since I originally posted this? I just tested using build 933 and the behavior still seems to be as described in my first post.

 

 

 

[andrewilley]

9 hours ago, Citizen Snips said:

Has this been addressed in any updates since I originally posted this? I just tested using build 933 and the behavior still seems to be as described in my first post.

No, it is still working as designed. The last-played position is always recorded when you finish playing a song and move on to something else, however you play the song. That saved location is only later used for resuming if you turn on the "Per Track Progress" feature though. 

Andre

[maxmp]

Right, the track stats (such as last played position) are always updated per track playback no matter what category.

[Citizen Snips]

15 hours ago, andrewilley said:

No, it is still working as designed. The last-played position is always recorded when you finish playing a song and move on to something else, however you play the song. That saved location is only later used for resuming if you turn on the "Per Track Progress" feature though. 

Andre

Right, but per your previous comment:

Quote

I think the simplest solution would be to only store the last-played location when the track is played in a category that supports resuming.

I agree with that statement, otherwise you end up with the situation described in my post, where I can play a track from a folder in which "List Position" and "Per Track Progress" are enabled, have my position saved, and then lose my position because I accidentally played the same album from the "Albums" menu rather than from the "Folders" menu. Playing from the Albums menu starts from the first track rather than from the location saved by the "List Position" and "Per Track Progress" setting, yet it then saves its own "last played" location that overwrites the one saved from the last time that album was played from its folder, such that when I then go back to the folder and resume play, it resumes from where it last played when I selected the album rather than the folder.

Per your quote above it seems like the most consistent behavior would be to only store the last played location when a track is played from a category that supports resuming (i.e. Folder and not Album).