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

[andrewilley]

5 hours ago, Akanmu said:

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 ?

At its heart, a playlist is simply a sequential list of filenames, and where to find them. No other information is required or read - even though some playlist formats may include further optional data, it's not guaranteed and not used. The 'song' file could actually contain anything, the playlist is really just an index or pointer.

The original (complete) path as quoted is generally not useful once you've copied a file from one device to another, as the first part of the path (its "root" information) will vary. For example, Windows PC directory paths usually start with something like C:\Users\akanm\, while an Android path will more likely begin with /storage/emulated/0/, and Apple Mac paths will be different again. Trying to compare those parts of absolute paths is pointless as they'll never match, so that beginning section is discarded by Poweramp before trying to look for a matching file.

However it is still vital that at least the filename remains exactly the same - and as that could still be potentially ambiguous, Poweramp also checks for the name of the folder that it is stored within. For example, you could have a number of different soundtrack album folders all containing a (different) track called "End Credits.mp3", or you might want a song file called "My Way.mp3" but that could refer to the Frank Sinatra original or about 150 cover versions. That's why its also important to know what folder (which would usually be an album name) the file is stored within.
 

So, getting back to your specific example. You have a file on your Android device called:
/storage/emulated/0/Music/Abraham Laboriel/The Bass Walk/The Bass Walk.mp3.mp3

And you have a playlist entry which is looking for a file called:
Main Library/Abraham Laboriel/The Bass Walk.mp3.mp3

When Poweramp reads that playlist entry, it knows there should be a file called The Bass Walk.mp3.mp3 , and that file should be stored directly within a subfolder called /Abraham Laboriel/ .  But there is no such file path on your storage, as you have sat some point moved the song file into a new subfolder, called /The Bass Walk/

So you'll need to do three things:

1. Make sure the folder structure on your Android device's music collection is exactly the same as that on your PC (or wherever you created the playlists). Files must be located in the same subfolders that the playlist says they are in. Don't change the subfolder layout when you copy from one device to another.
2. Replace all instances of "%20" within your M3U files with a single space. %20 is an encoding technique used mostly for website URLs to replace certain special characters (including spaces) that are not permitted in web addresses (see https://www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_urlencode.ASP). What software did you use to create those playlist files, perhaps there is an option in there as that is certainly not common practice when creating M3U files.
3. Replace all instances of the vertical bar character "|" in your WPL files with a slash "/" or "\" (either type should work). I have no idea why the bars are in there, what software did you use to create those playlists as Windows Media Player (for example) correctly uses slashes as path separators.

Andre

[Akanmu]

Please, what does "Rescan/Resolve Playlists" do ?

[andrewilley]

4 hours ago, Akanmu said:

Please, what does "Rescan/Resolve Playlists" do ?

It forces Poweramp to go through all your playlists again, looking at them line-by-line in case any song files which were missing before have now appeared. It still requires the song files to have the expected filename and first containing folder name, but you might have changed something else in a root path (swapped SD Cards for example) which temporarily broke an otherwise good internal playlist.

Note: the Resolve process does not currently force a re-read of external playlist files (M3U etc) so if an entry has never been found, and thus has reverted to showing as filename-only in a list, it may not be recovered by the Resolve process. You'll need to do a Full Rescan instead to force a physical re-read of your M3U files. That limitation should be removed in the next beta build, which will hopefully be out sometime next week.

Andre

[Akanmu]

I did a batch replace on wpl playlist (example):

<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" />

replaced C:\Users\akanm\Music\Main Library with /storage/emulated/0/Music/  :

<media src="0/storage/emulated/0/Music/ 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" />

it made no difference, Poweramp still cannot play it.

Since the playlists are many with so many songs, my goal is to find a format that Poweramp can read correctly and then do a batch replace as that is way easier than manually recreating the playlists from inside Poweramp.

I'd appreciate if you can edit this specific example to show me what will work. Thanks

[andrewilley]

You have tried to replace all of the bar characters with valid slashes as I asked (either type will do) but you seem to have missed one (between "George Benson" and "Give Me the Night"):

<media src="0/storage/emulated/0/Music/ 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" />

[Edit: Hmm, the 'bar' thing could be a text-pasting/formatting issue here on the forum - the bold-italic that you are using is creating some confusing on-screen representations; the raw source code for your message shows a backslash, but your italicisation turns it into a bar. Just make sure the actual files contain no bar characters anyway - and maybe use a monospaced regular font like Courier when you quote paths here, as it's clearer than using bold/italic/etc]

Also there is a leading zero in that path, and also an extra space before "George Benson".

However as I said earlier, there is no need to change the root path details from Windows-style paths to specific Android paths, anyway - at least not for Poweramp's sake, as it ignores all path information apart from the actual filename and the first folder that it is contained within. All that Poweramp will be looking for is a file called "6 Dinorah, Dinorah.flac" which must be directly contained within a folder called "Give Me the Night 1980". Any higher level folder names or other paths/subfolders are irrelevant and ignored.

I've just done a test with creating both an M3U and a WPL file in Windows Media Player, and both of them work perfectly when simply copied to my phone "as-is" - as long as each referenced music file is stored in its quoted subfolder.

M3U:

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:0,A Thousand Years (Radio Edit) - Christina Perri.mp3
\\diskstation\music\TV, Films & Shows\(Film Music)\A Thousand Years (Radio Edit) - Christina Perri.mp3

#EXTINF:0,(Everything I Do) I Do It For You - Bryan Adams.mp3
\\diskstation\music\TV, Films & Shows\(Film Music)\(Everything I Do) I Do It For You - Bryan Adams.mp3

#EXTINF:0,Take My Breath Away - Berlin.mp3
\\diskstation\music\TV, Films & Shows\(Film Music)\Take My Breath Away - Berlin.mp3

#EXTINF:0,10 - Together In Electric Dreams - Giorgio Moroder ; Phil Oakey.mp3
\\diskstation\music\TV, Films & Shows\Electric Dreams\10 - Together In Electric Dreams - Giorgio Moroder ; Phil Oakey.mp3

#EXTINF:0,01 - Love Is All Around - Wet Wet Wet.mp3
\\diskstation\music\TV, Films & Shows\Four Weddings and a Funeral\01 - Love Is All Around - Wet Wet Wet.mp3

WPL:

<?wpl version="1.0"?>
<smil>
    <head>
        <meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Windows Media Player -- 12.0.22621.1"/>
        <meta name="ItemCount" content="0"/>
        <author/>
        <title>New Test</title>
    </head>
    <body>
        <seq>
            <media src="\\diskstation\music\TV, Films & Shows\(Film Music)\A Thousand Years (Radio Edit) - Christina Perri.mp3"/>
            <media src="\\diskstation\music\TV, Films & Shows\(Film Music)\(Everything I Do) I Do It For You - Bryan Adams.mp3"/>
            <media src="\\diskstation\music\TV, Films & Shows\(Film Music)\Take My Breath Away - Berlin.mp3"/>
            <media src="\\diskstation\music\TV, Films & Shows\Electric Dreams\10 - Together In Electric Dreams - Giorgio Moroder ; Phil Oakey.mp3"/>
            <media src="\\diskstation\music\TV, Films & Shows\Four Weddings and a Funeral\01 - Love Is All Around - Wet Wet Wet.mp3"/>
        </seq>
    </body>
</smil>

And for what it's worth, the paths on my Android device for those five files are as follows (D0D8-84ED is the name of my SD Card):
D0D8-84ED/Audio/(40) Films/(Film Music)/A Thousand Years (Radio Edit) - Christina Perri.mp3
D0D8-84ED/Audio/(40) Films/(Film Music)/(Everything I Do) I Do It For You - Bryan Adams.mp3
D0D8-84ED/Audio/(40) Films/(Film Music)/Take My Breath Away - Berlin.mp3
D0D8-84ED/Audio/(40) Films/Electric Dreams/10 - Together In Electric Dreams - Giorgio Moroder ; Phil Oakey.mp3
D0D8-84ED/Audio/(40) Films/Four Weddings and a Funeral/01 - Love Is All Around - Wet Wet Wet.mp3

The fact that both of the playlist files quote Windows style paths to a LAN storage location doesn't matter though, as Poweramp ignores all of that and only cares about the final two elements:
A Thousand Years (Radio Edit) - Christina Perri.mp3 must be directly inside a folder called (Film Music)
(Everything I Do) I Do It For You - Bryan Adams.mp3 must be directly inside a folder called (Film Music)
Take My Breath Away - Berlin.mp3 must be directly inside a folder called (Film Music)
10 - Together In Electric Dreams - Giorgio Moroder ; Phil Oakey.mp3  must be directly inside a folder called Electric Dreams
01 - Love Is All Around - Wet Wet Wet.mp3  must be directly inside a folder called Four Weddings and a Funeral

Andre

[Akanmu]

Please bear with me, I am a slow poke at this -I'm almost computer illiterate.

I think I may have located the problem though. On my PC my music is catalogued this way Artist name /Album name and year/song files. however when transferred to head unit the year is removed for some reason so it's Artist name /Album name/song files. so Album folders do not match.

The challenge for me now is how do I batch remove the year using notepad ?. Since they were all either 19something or 20something (4 digits) I tried 19** and 20** find and replace with blank -it didn't work.

 

Edited November 22, 2022 by Akanmu

[andrewilley]

@Akanmu I did say exactly that a few posts ago...

On 11/19/2022 at 10:33 AM, andrewilley said:

So, getting back to your specific example. You have a file on your Android device called:
/storage/emulated/0/Music/Abraham Laboriel/The Bass Walk/The Bass Walk.mp3.mp3

And you have a playlist entry which is looking for a file called:
Main Library/Abraham Laboriel/The Bass Walk.mp3.mp3

1. Make sure the folder structure on your Android device's music collection is exactly the same as that on your PC (or wherever you created the playlists). Files must be located in the same subfolders that the playlist says they are in. Don't change the subfolder layout when you copy from one device to another.

I would not even think about trying to edit the playlists - far too much work, as you'd need to do it line-by-line typing in each extra album folder name, and then re-do it whenever you create a new playlist on the PC.

Instead, just delete and re-copy all your music files correctly from your PC, using an identical subfolder layout. Then any future playlists you create should work too.

Basically you need to ensure that the contents of the 'Music' folder on your Android device follows the same overall structure as 'Main Library' on your PC. Otherwise, your playlists can never be portable between the two setups. 

Andre