New SD card has broken all linked songs on playlists?

[David Townsend]

Hello! New here, apologies if I've put this topic in the wrong place. 

I recently bought a new SD card for my phone (went from 32gb to 256), and essentially copied/pasted the entire file structure from the old card to the new in the hopes that it would cause as few issues as possible for the various apps/files I had on there. 

Unfortunately Poweramp still sees this new SD card as a different path to the files, which is causing me two issues:

1. I used the rescan feature, so now I have two links for each file (1 dead and 1 active) - I could fix this by using the "full rescan" feature, but...
2. All of my playlists are using the old dead links. If I do a full rescan, it think it deletes any dead links, which means all my playlists would be blank?

Is there any way for me to update the link path to the new file location en masse so I don't have to rebuild my playlists from scratch?

[andrewilley]

The files ARE 'new' files in the sense that they are files found at a new root address - even though they may just happen to have the same filenames. Android creates a new path for a new or reformatted SD Card, and thus every folder and file at that location is 'new' too. A Full Rescan will remove the obsolete entries left over from the old filesystem though. PA won't bulk remove entries during a simple rescan, just in case they all come back - maybe their SD Card was only temporarily removed?

Are your playlists file-based, in which case they will fix themselves during the rescan (Poweramp will update each song by checking the full filename and the first-level containing folder, which should be enough to match to the new filesystem). You can also use Library > Playlists > (menu) > Rescan/Resolve Playlists to do the same thing. If you are still concerned, first do a Library > Playlists > (menu) > Export to output any internally created playlists as backup .M3U8 files, so you've still got copies in the event of any problems.

Andre

[David Townsend]

I'm not sure how to tell if my playlists are file based, but I've done the "Library > Playlists > (menu) > Rescan/Resolve Playlists" thing and the files didn't update in my playlists. 

I have now exported my playlists so I do have a backup. 

Playlists are m3u files. If I open one in notepad, I see the paths to the files and they still look valid, so I guess it just needs to know the "source" path?

I'm able to play the "new" linked files, so PA does have access to the sd card, and it knows where the files are.

[David Townsend]

I just opened one of the m3u8 files I exported, and it shows a more "traditional" path to the file, like this: 

#EXTM3U
#EXT-X-RATING:0
/storage/6435-3438/Music/Kid Rock/Rock N' Roll Jesus/kid rock - all summer long.mp3
#EXT-X-RATING:0
/storage/6435-3438/Music/Fall Out Boy/Promo Only Modern Rock Radio December/04-fall_out_boy-alpha_dog.mp3
#EXT-X-RATING:0
/storage/6435-3438/Music/Sir Mix a Lot/Mack Daddy/sir mix-a-lot - baby got back.mp3

I'm guessing the number after storage is the old sd card name? If I can change that, will these files work? 

[maxmp]

@David Townsend Poweramp uses only the last folder/filename part of the paths in playlists (though it still writes the full path for other players to be able to read playlist). Also, Poweramp won’t look outside selected (settings / Library / Music folders) folders when reading the playlist. 

[andrewilley]

By 'file based' I meant that the playlist originated as a file in your storage - such as the .M3U file you describe. It is also possible to create playlists directly within Poweramp by using the '+Playlist' feature, but unless you later Export them they don't have any physical file to fall back on, and are just stored in Poweramp's internal database. However what you are describing is definitely a file.

The .M3U file that you showed in the editor screen uses relative paths (i.e. it doesn't start with any root level path details such as Android's /storage/6435-3438/ or Windows' C:\Users\etc\ ) . When PA exported that same list back to a new .M3U8 file, it exported what it knew to be the absolute paths used on the current device (so they start as /storage/6435-3438/Music/etc ). But it refers to the same content, and I can't see any reason not to stick with your original .M3U versions.

As Max said, PA's song linking process does not look at full paths anyway - because something like C:\Users\ would immediately break when used on Android. Instead PA looks through your whole scanned Library to find a song with a matching filename that is contained within a matching folder name. Anywhere in your collection, it ignores the rest of the storage path.

Note: PA also cannot look outside of its own music library (as defined in PA Settings > Library > Music Folders) so make sure that any songs that are referenced in your playlists are already showing within the Library. What you need to check is that a file called kid rock - all summer long.mp3 contained inside a folder called Kid Rock is showing in the Folders view. And 04-fall_out_boy-alpha_dog.mp3 in a folder called Promo Only Modern Rock Radio December , etc.

If all that matches, make sure the .M3U playlist file is stored somewhere within your defined Music Folders locations so PA can find it, and do a Full Rescan in PA Settings > Library. 

Andre

[David Townsend]

Hello all! Thank you to everyone that took the time to respond. 

I did a full rescan of my library, and it solved by problem - my playlists work again!