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General => MusicBee Wishlist => Topic started by: Skinjob on August 06, 2016, 08:43:32 PM

Title: Portable sync issues with "folder per playlist" option
Post by: Skinjob on August 06, 2016, 08:43:32 PM
I originally posted this in the General forum in April 2015, but thought I should re-post it here to keep it on the radar to hopefully be fixed.

Original post: http://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=15518.msg92188#msg92188

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I've been using the portable sync features for a long time and have always found them to be excellent (the best I've seen).

My main library is all FLAC and I transcode to MP3 for portable use.  Normally I sync to an <AlbumArtist>\<Album>\<FileName> structure with M3U playlists as the primary way I use my portable devices, especially in the car.  And this has worked beautifully in the past.  However, I recently got a new car and unfortunately the USB support is shockingly bad: unusable navigation and no playlist support.  So, the only workable option is to use a folder per playlist structure.

I was very happy to see MusicBee had this option, but noticed a couple significant issues after using it:

1) When using the "folder per playlist" option, the encoding doesn't respect the number of threads option.  I have the encoding threads set to 4 to utilize all my cores, and with normal syncing this works as expected.  However, with the "folder per playlist" option it only encodes one file at a time.  I didn't think this was that big of a deal at first, as I only expected it to matter for the initial sync when I was loading 1000's of files.  However it exacerbates problem 2 on every subsequent sync.

2) Once you've synced the device, subsequent changes to the playlist in MusicBee can cause the entire playlist to have to be re-encoded the next time you sync.  I guess this is because the hard-coded file name format includes the playlist track sequence number.  So if you insert a track at the beginning of the playlist, all subsequent tracks get a new sequence number, which I guess causes MusicBee not to recognize that the files are already there, causing them all to be re-encoded and copied again on the next sync.  This is really a drag, especially when combined with problem 1, as it can take a very long time to re-encode long playlists.  It seems like it should be possible to recognize which files are already present on the device regardless of sequence, rename them with the correct sequence and then only encode new/changed tracks.
Title: Re: Portable sync issues with "folder per playlist" option
Post by: Steven on August 07, 2016, 08:21:26 AM
all you say is true and i will look at this for v3.1 to make some improvements but i see no bugs here ie. it should be in the wishlist
Title: Re: Portable sync issues with "folder per playlist" option
Post by: Skinjob on August 27, 2016, 01:09:08 AM
Thanks.  Sorry for such a delayed reply.  Been super busy at work and forgot to check back.

I wasn't sure where to post it.  I thought not respecting the number of threads option might count as a bug.  In any case I really appreciate you taking a look at it for the next version.

BTW - 3.0 is just awesome.  All the changes and improvements are amazing.  Thank you so much!

Would you like me to repost to the wishlist forum or is it on your todo list now?
Title: Re: Portable sync issues with "folder per playlist" option
Post by: Steven on August 29, 2016, 06:16:20 PM
i have made changes for v3.1 so that the encoding threads are used to maximum efficiency. Additionally when playlists have files that are re-ordered, the file is moved rather then copy/re-encoded.

While doing that i discovered that v3.0 actually doesnt use the encoding threads setting and was effectively set to 2. I have fixed that for the next v3 patch update

edit:
unzip and replace the files in the folder where MB is installed
http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V3_0/MusicBee3_Patched.zip
Title: Re: Portable sync issues with "folder per playlist" option
Post by: Skinjob on September 17, 2016, 12:19:00 AM
I just got the latest update and gave it a shot.  It does seem to only encode changed/new files now, which is awesome!  Thank you so much for looking into this.

However it still seems to only use one encoding thread, at least in folder per playlist mode.  I haven't tried the normal mode yet.  I had max threads set to 4, but it only encoded and copied one file at a time.

But honestly that's a very minor issue in the scheme of things.  Not having to re-encode the whole playlist if something near the beginning changed is a massive improvement.  Thanks again for all your work and such an amazing app!