Importing System Playlists

[Si64]

Last week I imported my system playlists into PA: Settings > Library > Playlists > Import System Library Playlists.

I've just tried doing it this evening, after the update yesterday, and it doesn't seem to work any more.  I'm just getting Playlists Imported: 0.

Nothing else has changed.  My playlists are where they've always been, and other music apps are still seeing them.  

Is there a problem?

[andrewilley]

Importing system playlists is pretty-much a one-time task. Once you've done, it they become Poweramp internal playlists and will not need to be imported again.

I believe that System Playlists are effectively obsolete now though, and Android will no longer be providing further support for them in future. https://developer.android.com/reference/android/provider/MediaStore.Audio.Playlists

Andre

[Si64]

Hi Andre,

But last week I could import system playlists and now I can't.  I even renamed all the current playlists and it still failed to import the system playlists.

The problem is, when adding to existing playlists, the tracks are not sorted (they appear at the top or the end), and there isn't an option to sort albums in playlists by track number.  Therefore, every now and then I need to import the correctly sorted system playlists to get things 'straight' again.

As I said, I did this only last week, and this issue has only appeared since the update yesterday.

I've found a way round it.  By clicking on the playlist .m3u file I can then open it with PA and it imports that way.  But something has changed since last week.

[andrewilley]

I just checked by creating an Android System Playlist. I hadn't done it before, but YT Music seems to still handle them fine (at least on my Android 11 device). I then used the Settings=>Library=>Playlists=>Import feature in PA, and I was able to import the same system playlist multiple times. PA just appends an incrementing number to each new imported name rather than removing the old one. This is with the latest 967 build of Poweramp.

To your update edit: An M3U file is not an Android System Playlist - although as a valid playlist file it can of course be read by other apps as well as Poweramp, which may then make it available as a system playlist. For files though, better to just put the M3U file somewhere within PA's Music Folders storage locations, and it then will be detected automatically during the next scan, and updated by rescans if the file ever gets changed externally. 

Andre

[Si64]

29 minutes ago, andrewilley said:

I just checked by creating an Android System Playlist. I hadn't done it before, but YT Music seems to still handle them fine (at least on my Android 11 device). I then used the Settings=>Library=>Playlists=>Import feature in PA, and I was able to import the same system playlist multiple times. PA just appends an incrementing number to each new imported name rather than removing the old one. This is with the latest 967 build of Poweramp.

Yes, that's exactly how it used to work, and how it worked last week.  I've no idea what's changed to stop it working now.

31 minutes ago, andrewilley said:

To your update edit: An M3U file is not an Android System Playlist - although as a valid playlist file it can of course be read by other apps as well as Poweramp, which may then make it available as a system playlist. For files though, better to just put the M3U file somewhere within PA's Music Folders storage locations, and it then will be detected automatically during the next scan, and updated by rescans if the file ever gets changed externally. 

I think I've tried that before, and the problem is that other music player apps then tend to find duplicate playlists. 

I'll experiment with some new playlists, but as I said, it was all working OK last week and nothing has changed except for the PA update.  

[andrewilley]

@Si64 What version of Android are you using by the way, could this be related to system playlists becoming depreciated? Although as I said, M3U files are not system playlists in themselves.

Andre

[Si64]

@andrewilley It's Android 13.

The playlists are stored in a Playlists folder in the Internal Storage (no SD card), and all appear to be .m3u file formats.  

I have to admit, I don't really know if you would call these 'system playlists', as they've been generated externally and moved from phone to phone.  

With the playlists placed in this folder, I can import them into other music apps (Samsung Music, Black Player, etc), and other apps 'see' them automatically.  When I add to them, I sort them using Black Player, as it sorts Albums by track numbers, then Export the updated .m3u files into the Playlist folder.   Some apps then see the updated playlists automatically, but PA doesn't, and that's when I use to Import them using the method you described above.  That Import process now seems to be no longer working, and coincidentally or not, the change coincides with the recent PA update.

[MotleyG]

19 minutes ago, Si64 said:

Some apps then see the updated playlists automatically, but PA doesn't, and that's when I use to Import them using the method you described above.

Have you added this folder to Poweramp’s scanned folders? These standard m3u playlists should be added during any normal scan.

[Si64]

I have, but then you get .m3u appended to the name, so I then copy them into new playlists in PA as they can't be renamed without the file name appendage.  

I know I'm probably being difficult and trying to do something that isn't the 'correct' way to do it, but the point is, it worked up till the other day!

[andrewilley]

34 minutes ago, Si64 said:

I have to admit, I don't really know if you would call these 'system playlists', as they've been generated externally and moved from phone to phone.  

No, they are just regular file-based M3U playlist which Poweramp should be allowed to scan directly. Make sure your 'Playlists' folder is included within the list of allowed locations in PA Settings=>Library=>Music Folders. To confirm that they are file-based, and thus changes will be reflected back to/from the file, you will see the full filename of the Playlist file in the list (e.g. "playlistname.m3u")

When you make a change to an M3U file outside of Poweramp, the update might be recognised during the next background rescan - but if not, just do a 'Rescan/Resolve Playlists' in PA (in the menu of the Playlists Category) to force it. If you make any changes within Poweramp, they will be written back to the physical .M3U file in storage, so other apps can see the changes too.

Andre

[Si64]

Update: actually, I've just found that Player Pro is also no longer seeing the Playlists in the Playlist folder, so I'm not sure what's going on.  Maybe this isn't an issue with PA, in which case, apologies. 

Second update: The playlists had been deleted from the Playlists folder.  I think this was when I allowed PA to see the folder, then deleted the Playlists with the .m3u appended to the file name in PA.  I've restore them and all other apps now see them.

I think this is probably just something I will have to live with as I clearly manage my playlists differently to the 'norm', and I think if this was an issue more people would have posted about it.  

[andrewilley]

Yes, if you delete an M3U playlist within Poweramp then it will do exactly what it says on the tin: i.e. delete the M3U playlist file. The same goes for making song changes within PA, they will be written back to the M3U file too - which of course is presumably what you want.

If you work with Poweramp's internal playlists though - which is what you get when you use the one-shot 'Import from Android System' command - they are contained within Poweramp's music database and completely isolated from whatever source they may have originally come from. The playlists used within PA will neither change when the original source content gets changed elsewhere, nor will anything that you do in Poweramp effect the original source version. Which from what you've indicated about syncing with other apps, is NOT what you want.

The visibility of an .m3u extender in the category list is your indication that you are dealing with an external file rather than an internal (database only) one. There is a feature request to replace the .m3u/.pls/.wpl extenders with some sort of icon to do the same job in a slightly tidier way, but that's not been implemented as yet.

Andre

[Si64]

@andrewilley Thanks for the full explanation.  I'm still not sure why PA isn't importing the playlists like it did last week (which it did without any file name appendages), but I can work with things as they are.

As an observation, the playlists PA deleted were those stored in the Playlists folder in the Internal storage.  I believe the actual *system* playlists are stored somewhere inaccessible within the murky depths of Android. 

[andrewilley]

@Si64 I'm not sure why Importing system playlists multiple times is no longer working for you, but as it's working fine for me I'm guessing it's related to Android 13.

But yes, actual system playlists are stored within an Android database that is accessed via an API - just like Poweramp stores its own playlists within its own database.  Poweramp can't delete Android system playlists, it can only remove content from its own music database - or delete file-based M3U playlists of course.

If you want to interchange playlists between different apps, it would definitely be best to use a file and allow each media app to access that file. Clashes could still occur if another app has re-written the M3U file and PA wants to write back to it before the external changes have been synced though.

But otherwise, every time you re-import from Android system playlists you're going to be creating duplicates.

Andre