Poweramp can't retrieve music files from Android 11 head unit.

[Akanmu]

Error message when I tried to select folder: the folder selection system component seems to be missing/disabled/frozen on your device. alternatively you can enable legacy mode

no activity found to handle intent {act=android.intent.action.OPEN_DOCUMENT_TREE (has extras)}

I have no SD card plugged in to the head unit and all my music and playlists are in one folder in the head unit internal storage:

                                                      Xtrons/Music

I can't get any music to play on Poweramp -Help !!

[andrewilley]

Sounds like the Android implementation on your device is incomplete and does not include the expected file management code. See if you can download and install it as per this FAQ:

Have you tried using legacy mode, which should be fine on an Android 11 device? PA Settings=>Misc>File Access Legacy Mode.

Andre

[Akanmu]

Thanks.

I changed to legacy mode and was able to get all my playlist and music files in to Poweramp libary.

The playlist files wont play, Poweramp can't find them, but when I go to Library-Artist or Album these music files are all there and I can play them.

Please help ! I don't want to have to recreate these playlists again in Poweramp -they are many and lengthy.

[MotleyG]

20 minutes ago, Akanmu said:

Thanks.

I changed to legacy mode and was able to get all my playlist and music files in to Poweramp libary.

The playlist files wont play, Poweramp can't find them, but when I go to Library-Artist or Album these music files are all there and I can play them.

Please help ! I don't want to have to recreate these playlists again in Poweramp -they are many and lengthy.

You may need to edit the playlist if their are any absolute paths referenced. Poweramp can work with relative paths, which means the filename and parent folders only are required.

C:/Music/Beatles/Abbey Road/01 Come Together.m4a is absolute. (The drive letter C:/ and possible the main folder Music/ may not be part of your structure on the actual internal or SD card path.

../Beatles/Abbey Road/01 Come Together.m4a is relative. If this folder/filename structure is consistent in your storage, then the playlist should be able to find the tracks.

[Akanmu]

I really appreciate your response, thanks.

To manually edit the playlist replacing music files with ones from the library is out of the question -they are just too many playlists and each playlists is like 70 songs or more. 

I created these playlists from Windows media player on my PC synced them to a usb stick. then used the usb stick to transfer the playlist and music files to the internal memory of my car android head unit.

The playlist music files sequence shows up correctly in Poweramp, but when I tried to play the playlist it failed to play the music files. All the music files in the playlist are found in Poweramp library, in fact I had to use queue to play them temporarily when the playlist failed.

The playlists are all safe on my PC hard drive, do you think if I re-sync them using a different playlist format like m3u8u or something it might get Poweramp to see the music files ?

Edited November 15, 2022 by Akanmu

[andrewilley]

When you say that the playlists are showing in Poweramp, do you see their contents with full song details (Titles, Albums, Artists, cover artwork, etc), or just raw filenames? If filenames only, that would mean the M3U playlist file has been found, but the songs it refers to don't match with Poweramp's music library database. 

To resolve a PC-sourced playlist (which would use PC paths such as C:\Users\name\etc) to its internal Library, Poweramp ignores all top-level path information except for the foldername that contains the song file and the song filename itself. Those must both match exactly with the way the song file is stored on your Android device. So for example, encountering a song file called Dancing Queen.mp3 inside a folder called Arrival would be all that PA needs to resolve a playlist entry such as C:\Users\yourname\music\Albums\ABBA\Arrival\Dancing Queen.mp3. It doesn't matter that the root path is different, that is ignored.

Could you load one of your M3U files into a text editor and compare some entries with the way your songs are stored on your Android device? If there are any special (non-ASCII) characters, you would be best to use M3U8 (Unicode) format.

Andre

[Akanmu]

Yes, all the songs show in Poweramp LIBRARY-ARTIST or ALBUM or SONGS with all the metadata complete, and they are all playable. However only the filenames show in playlists with no artwork and wont play.

I'm not android savvy but I have been using Poweramp since 2013 and have never had this problem. I sync these same playlists directly to my Note 20 ultra SD card with no problem. Pardon my ignorance could it be different on an android 11 car head unit ?

Here's an example loaded on to notepad: This particular playlist is WPL but Poweramp plays it on my phone but wont play in the car android headunit.

<?wpl version="1.0"?>
<smil>
  <head>
    <author />
    <guid>{4FDE7886-8508-4FDF-82CB-F27C7E2189F3}</guid>
    <meta name="totalDuration" content="18129297" />
    <meta name="ItemCount" content="55" />
    <meta name="Generator" content="Entertainment Platform -- 10.22031.1009.0" />
    <title>JazzMix</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <seq>
      <media src="C:\Users\akanm\Music\Main Library\George Benson\Give Me the Night 1980\6 Dinorah, Dinorah.flac" albumTitle="Give Me the Night" albumArtist="George Benson" trackTitle="Dinorah, Dinorah" trackArtist="George Benson" duration="220000" />
      <media src="C:\Users\akanm\Music\Main Library\Stanley Clarke\Hideaway (1986)\1 Hideaway.flac" albumTitle="Hideaway" albumArtist="Stanley Clarke" trackTitle="Hideaway" trackArtist="Stanley Clarke" duration="261000" />
      <media src="C:\Users\akanm\Music\Main Library\Jeffery Smith\2014 Smooth Creations the Album, Pt. 1\5 Keep Pushing.mp3" albumTitle="Smooth Creations the Album, Pt. 1" albumArtist="Jeffrey Smith" trackTitle="Keep Pushing" trackArtist="Jeffery Smith" duration="342073" />
      <media src="C:\Users\akanm\Music\Main Library\Rufus &amp; Chaka Khan\Street Player (1978)\08. Take Time.flac" albumTitle="Street Player" albumArtist="Rufus &amp; Chaka Khan" trackTitle="Take Time (Instrumental)" trackArtist="Rufus &amp; Chaka Khan" duration="257000" />
      <media src="C:\Users\akanm\Music\Main Library\Abraham Laboriel\The Bass Walk.mp3.mp3" albumTitle="The Bass Walk" albumArtist="Abraham Laboriel" trackTitle="The Bass Walk" trackArtist="Abraham Laboriel" duration="370272" />
      <media src="C:\Users\akanm\Music\Main Library\Jeffery Smith\2014 Smooth Creations the Album, Pt. 1\1 Thumpin'.mp3" albumTitle="Smooth Creations the Album, Pt. 1" albumArtist="Jeffrey Smith" trackTitle="Thumpin'" trackArtist="Jeffery Smith" duration="304065" />
      <media src="C:\Users\akanm\Music\Main Library\Miles Davis\1985 - You're Under Arrest\6 - Katia.mp3" albumTitle="You're Under Arrest" albumArtist="Miles Davis" trackTitle="Katia" trackArtist="Miles Davis" duration="459102" />
      <media src="C:\Users\akanm\Music\Main Library\Stanley Clarke\Time Exposure 1984\05 - Time Exposure.mp3" albumTitle="Time Exposure" albumArtist="Stanley Clarke" trackTitle="Time Exposure" trackArtist="Stanley Clarke" duration="288025" />
      <media src="C:\Users\akanm\Music\Main Library\The Reddings\The Awakening 1980\10 - The Awakening (Part 1 &amp; Part 2).1.flac" albumTitle="The Awakening" albumArtist="The Reddings" trackTitle="The Awakening (Part 1 &amp; Part 2)" trackArtist="The  Reddings" duration="212000" />
      <media src="C:\Users\akanm\Music\Main Library\Abraham Laboriel\Rumble Shuffle.mp3.mp3" albumTitle="Shuffle" albumArtist="Peewee &amp; Michiko" trackTitle="Rumble Shuffle" trackArtist="Peewee &amp; Michiko" duration="263712" />
      .......................
      .......................
      <media src="C:\Users\akanm\Music\Main Library\Miles Davis\Amandla 1989\02 Cobra.wav" albumTitle="Amandla" albumArtist="Unknown artist" trackTitle="Cobra" trackArtist="Unknown artist" duration="316333" />
      <media src="C:\Users\akanm\Music\Main Library\Norman Connors\Eternity 2000\03 - Cobra.mp3" albumTitle="Eternity" albumArtist="Norman Connors" trackTitle="Cobra" trackArtist="Norman Connors" duration="304444" />
      <media src="C:\Users\akanm\Music\Main Library\George Howard\Asphalt Gardens 1982\05 The Preacher.mp3" albumTitle="Asphalt Gardens" albumArtist="George Howard" trackTitle="The Preacher" trackArtist="George Howard" duration="258560" />
    </seq>
  </body>
</smil>

[Akanmu]

I could re-save these playlists as m3u8 if that's what it will take.

Here's another list loaded on to notepad -this one is m3u:

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:0,07 Up On Soul Train.flac
..\The Whispers\Imagination (1980)\07 Up On Soul Train.flac

#EXTINF:0,01 Ain't We Funkin' Now.flac
..\The Brothers Johnson\Blam!! 1978\01 Ain't We Funkin' Now.flac

#EXTINF:0,02 I Just Want To Be   05-21.mp3
..\Cameo\Secret Omen 1979\02 I Just Want To Be   05-21.mp3

#EXTINF:0,3 I Don't Believe You Want To Get Up And Dance (Oops Up Side Your Head).flac
..\The Gap Band\The Gap Band II (1979)\3 I Don't Believe You Want To Get Up And Dance (Oops Up Side Your Head).flac

#EXTINF:0,01 It's Time To Party Now.flac
..\Ray Parker Jr. & Raydio\Two Places at the Same Time 1980\01 It's Time To Party Now.flac

#EXTINF:0,05  It's Been Cool.mp3
..\Dexter Wansel\Time Is Slipping Away 1979\05  It's Been Cool.mp3

#EXTINF:0,1 Steppin' Out.flac
..\The Gap Band\The Gap Band II (1979)\1 Steppin' Out.flac

#EXTINF:0,04 - I Love To Dance.flac
..\Kleeer\I Love To Dance 1979\04 - I Love To Dance.flac

#EXTINF:0,1 Shake.flac
..\The Gap Band\The Gap Band (1979)\1 Shake.flac

#EXTINF:0,01 Stuff Like That.flac
..\Quincy Jones\Sounds ... And Stuff Like That!! 1978\01 Stuff Like That.flac

#EXTINF:0,9 Miss Thing (7'' Version) (Bonus Track).flac
..\Melba Moore\Burn (1979)\9 Miss Thing (7'' Version) (Bonus Track).flac

#EXTINF:0,01 - We Got The Funk.flac
..\Positive Force\We Got The Funk 1980\01 - We Got The Funk.flac

#EXTINF:0,06. Deliver The Funk.mp3
..\Patti Labelle\It's Alright With Me 1979\06. Deliver The Funk.mp3

#EXTINF:0,07 - Call Me Up.flac
..\Rick James\Street Songs\07 - Call Me Up.flac

#EXTINF:0,04 - (Do The) Boogie Woogie.flac
..\Fatback\Brite Lites Big City  (1979)\04 - (Do The) Boogie Woogie.flac

#EXTINF:0,03  Funk Attack.mp3
..\Dexter Wansel\Time Is Slipping Away 1979\03  Funk Attack.mp3

[andrewilley]

Long-press on one of the songs within the Library (e.g. in All Songs or Albums lists) and use Info/Tags to see the path details that were found on your Android device. Does that filename and first containing folder match with the playlist's src entry?

e.g. you are looking for a file called 6 Dinorah, Dinorah.flac inside a folder called Give Me the Night 1980. The rest of the path is ignored. Or in your second example, the folder would be Imagination (1980) and the contained song file would be 07 Up On Soul Train.flac

Try a Full Rescan (in PA Settings=>Library).

Andre

[Fitzian]

Aren't the numbers following

#EXTINF:

supposed to be the track length in seconds? They appear in the above m3u playlist to show possibly disc (as 0?) followed by a number identical to the track number in the filename.

[andrewilley]

#EXTINF parameters are normally the runtime in seconds, then a comma separator, then the title of the song. In this case, the runtimes are all zero and the title fields are showing as simply the filenames, which tends to indicate the M3U generator software didn't actually read any of the file metadata.

Poweramp ignores all of that anyway, preferring to use the song information that should already be present in its own library database (which has been read directly from each audio file's metadata). All PA needs is a unique folder/filename within the playlist in order to match each entry with a corresponding database song. It doesn't care about relative or absolute paths as it doesn't use them at all.

Andre

[andrewilley]

As this is an Android headunit rather than a phone, I wonder if we're seeing a startup delay in initially mounting storage here?

There is a known issue which Max and I have been looking into that might be triggered by the above possibility. For file-based playlists only, if an existing fully resolved and working playlist loses access to some its song files during a rescan (due to issues such as folder or filename changes or storage becoming unmounted) the originally working path information is not retained in the database. So even if the storage loss was only temporary, PA will no longer be able to resolve the old path/filename pairings again once access is restored. Internal playlists seem to retain the expected path info even after a file has been mislaid though, so later restoring storage access and rescanning should fix internal playlist issues.

This means that unless something happens to force a re-read from the original M3U files, once any file-based playlists have lost some or all of their song file availability (indicated by seeing the filename only in the lists) the list contents cannot be recovered by a simple background rescan or a Resolve/Rescan Playlists. You would need to do something to force the M3U files to be read again - such as doing a FULL Rescan in Settings=>Library, or editing / changing the last-modified date of the M3U file.

However if the same storage problem occurs again - such as if a storage is not yet correctly mounted when PA does its first rescan - you could be back to square one and seeing filenames only, with no way to recover short of doing a Full Rescan.

@Akanmu if you are able to get your playlists to work at all using Full Rescan when you know the storage is correctly mounted, try turning off the Auto-scan features in Settings=>Library=>Scanner and see if that allows your playlists to survive a restart.    

Andre

[Akanmu]

Thanks for all the responses.

I changed all the playlists to m3u8 format, did full scan, Poweramp still couldn't play them -very frustrating. Here's the m3u8 sample.

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:220,George Benson - Dinorah, Dinorah
Main%20Library/George%20Benson/Give%20Me%20the%20Night%201980/6%20Dinorah%2C%20Dinorah.flac

Contrast that to the wpl I posted earlier

<media src="C:\Users\akanm\Music\Main Library\George Benson\Give Me the Night 1980\6 Dinorah, Dinorah.flac" albumTitle="Give Me the Night" albumArtist="George Benson" trackTitle="Dinorah, Dinorah" trackArtist="George Benson" duration="220000" />

All my music is in a folder MUSIC on the internal storage of the head unit, I'm wondering if I create a folder called Main Library and move all the music files there so the path will now be Music/Main Library/George Benson\Give Me the Night 1980\6 Dinorah, Dinorah.flac  Poweramp might be able to read the wpl playlist. If as you said Poweramp ignores the rest, then the paths will almost be exact ?

Edited November 16, 2022 by Akanmu

[andrewilley]

Ditch all the %20s - that's an escaped ASCII space, and won't work.

All an .M3U or .M3U8 playlist needs for Poweramp to recognise it is a simple list of folder/files lines. All the # lines are ignored. So this should be sufficient:

C:\Users\akanm\Music\Main Library\George Benson\Give Me the Night 1980\6 Dinorah, Dinorah.flac
C:\Users\akanm\Music\Main Library\Stanley Clarke\Hideaway (1986)\1 Hideaway.flac
C:\Users\akanm\Music\Main Library\Jeffery Smith\2014 Smooth Creations the Album, Pt. 1\5 Keep Pushing.mp3
C:\Users\akanm\Music\Main Library\Rufus & Chaka Khan\Street Player (1978)\08. Take Time.flac
C:\Users\akanm\Music\Main Library\Abraham Laboriel\The Bass Walk.mp3.mp3

That should match the following songs, as long as they have the exact same filename and the same first level containing folder name. Any path levels above this level are irrelevant and ignored:

6 Dinorah, Dinorah.flac inside any folder called Give Me the Night 1980
1 Hideaway.flac inside any folder called Hideaway (1986)
5 Keep Pushing.mp3 inside any folder called 2014 Smooth Creations the Album, Pt. 1
08. Take Time.flac inside any folder called Street Player (1978)
The Bass Walk.mp3.mp3 inside any folder called Abraham Laboriel

(oops on that last filename extender by the way, but it'll still work)

 

Personally I tend to avoid using the system's predefined 'Music' folder, and create my own audio folder - less for Android to interfere with that way. Try creating a new top-level folder called something like 'My Music' and move all your audio subfolders and files into there. Then point Poweramp to the 'My Music' folder (and grant permission) via the Music Folders list.

Andre

[MotleyG]

Without trying to hijack this thread, but relevant here - I find it necessary on my device to change all of the windows playlist files with the backslash "\" to a forward slash "/" for my Android device and any of the music players, being Linux-based. I'm not sure if Poweramp specifically can work with either of these, but I have been using playlists for a long time on Android and have always needed to make this edit before having any success with other players before I moved to Poweramp. That and removing the Absolute path reference using a text editor prior to moving them to my device.

In your example I would use the editor to Find "C:\Users\akanm\Music\Main Library" and Replace All with nothing "", then another Find "\" and Replace All "/" to get my playlists working.

[Akanmu]

Thanks.

The editing is going too be tedious for me -33 playlists with 70 plus files. I need a simpler way out. I'll try creating my own folder on the head unit internal storage with exact path of the wpl and see how it'd works.

I'll update tomorrow, again thanks.

[andrewilley]

@MotleyG Poweramp doesn't care which type of slash is used, / or \ are treated as the same.

Andre

[andrewilley]

@Akanmu as I keep saying, exact paths are irrelevant, they will be ignored.

Andre

[MotleyG]

6 minutes ago, andrewilley said:

@MotleyG Poweramp doesn't care which type of slash is used, / or \ are treated as the same.

This is great news, going to try it tonight. If this works it can save me a couple of steps!

[Akanmu]

I erased all music files from the head unit, created my own folder in the head unit's internal memory, then add music files and playlists afresh. Turn on Poweramp, did full rescan. Same problem, playlist can't play files even though they show in the library with their metadata and playable.

There's however a curious thing happening -in a playlist of about 70 songs, there's one or two songs with metadata intact and playable. I don't know what else to do.

[andrewilley]

So to clarify:

• All of your songs show correctly in the Library views (All Songs, Folders, Artists, Albums, etc). You can see 'metadata' such as Title, Album, Artist, cover art, etc, and the of those songs are playable. Viewing Info/Tags shows the proper filename and path details that you would expected.
• Your M3U playlists are viewable in Poweramp's Playlists category, but the exact same songs within those lists (i.e. where the M3U file entries refer to precisely the same filename and same containing folder that you saw in Info/Tags) just show as raw filenames with no other information or artwork.
• Doing a FULL Rescan in Settings=>Library (after the device has finished powering up and its storage is mounted and stable) makes no difference.

Note: use the M3U versions of your playlists rather than WPL files, as WPL is really a Windows format and while it should work it introduces more XML-format complexity into the test.

So if that still fails, let's try a different test:

• In the Folders or Albums list, long-press on an album (or a folder) which you know contains some songs that are in one of your playlists. You can tick several folders/albums at this point if you want.
• Use the '+Playlist' button to put those items into a new internally created playlist.
• Does that new playlist now show the expected details for each song, and are they playable from that playlist?
• If that works, does that new playlist survive intact and playable after you shutdown and restart the car headunit? 

If that test works, in the Playlists category use (menu)=>Export to save that new playlist to a physical .M3U8 file (no need to tick the 'also export file-based lists' option). Now use a text editor on your device to compare the contents of that new file with your existing  M3U files (compare the copies on your device or copied back from your device, not the original master copies from your PC) and paste some text extracts here for reference. As you now know, you only need to compare the filename and the first folder that it's saved within, ignore the rest of the paths and any lines starting with #.

Hopefully we can get to the bottom of this one for you! There is a new beta build of Poweramp due fairly soon (possibly next week) which may help, but let's see if we can track down the problem here first.

Andre

 

[Akanmu]

Ok thanks. I did as you suggested here are the results:

Song from Poweramp playlist exported: #EXTM3U
                                                #EXT-X-RATING:0
/storage/emulated/0/Music/Abraham Laboriel/The Bass Walk/The Bass Walk.mp3.mp3

Same song in a m3u8 playlist: #EXTINF:370,Abraham Laboriel - The Bass Walk
Main%20Library/Abraham%20Laboriel/The%20Bass%20Walk.mp3.mp3

Same song in a wpl playlist: <media src="C:\Users\akanm\Music\Main Library\Abraham Laboriel\The Bass Walk.mp3.mp3" albumTitle="The Bass Walk" albumArtist="Abraham Laboriel" trackTitle="The Bass Walk" trackArtist="Abraham Laboriel" duration="370272" />

The song plays with metadata and all in the Poweramp playlist but will not play (or show metadata) in either wpl or m3u8 playlists. Like I said before it'd be tedious to recreate the playlists in Poweramp -there are 33 playlists (with at least 60 songs) made over many years. Hope a solution surfaces.

[andrewilley]

The path details in both of those playlist files don't match with the actual storage layout. In your storage, the song file is contained inside an album folder called 'The Bass Walk', which isn't mentioned in the playlist entries, so they won't ever be matched.

/storage/emulated/0/Music/Abraham Laboriel/The Bass Walk/The Bass Walk.mp3.mp3

Versus your playlist entires:

Main%20Library/Abraham%20Laboriel/The%20Bass%20Walk.mp3.mp3
C:\Users\akanm\Music\Main Library\Abraham Laboriel\The Bass Walk.mp3.mp3

I'm not sure why the WPL file is using bar characters "|" to separate paths, rather than Windows' normal  backslash "\" symbol. Is that now in the Windows Media Player playlist spec, as I can't see it in any test WPL files that I've created. Also, you should replace each of the instances of the percent-encoded '%20' in your M3U8 file with a single space. Global search and replace in a text editor will deal with both of those issues anyway, and allow you to test again once you've corrected the folder path.

Andre

[Akanmu]

Sorry to bother you can you please show me with the example what the edited path detail (either the M3u8 or wpl) should look like and I will try to see if I can do a batch replace. Thanks

[Akanmu]

I hope I don't sound too dumb but I am no tech expert by any shot but just wondering -if Poweramp is able to get the song and artist name from wpl or m3u8 playlist but not the location of the song file, why not ask it to search through its own library and replace ?