Thanks Steven for the providing debug version. With it, I believe I figured out what was the problem. Go to the end for a TL;DR version.
Errorlog.dat output during syncing:
https://ptpb.pw/F2u5As expected it seems that some autoplaylists sorted properly:
Artist:Ascending, Year (yyyy):Ascending, DateFilled:Ascending, Album:Ascending,
and others did not:
I believe that the error lies with the autoplaylist files themselves.
Here are two playlists that sort properly:
5 stars.xautopf:
https://ptpb.pw/NMdRStudy.xautopf:
https://ptpb.pw/hE7QHere are two that do not sort properly on synced devices:
4.5 stars.xautopf:
https://ptpb.pw/lxOqHarmonica.xautopf:
https://ptpb.pw/a6efThe properly syncing autoplaylists has a <DefinedSort Id="7" /> field whereas the other two improperly sorting autoplaylists do not despite the fact that the latter two have the same sorting scheme as the former two under "Album and Tracks > Sort By". I guess MusicBee defaults to sorting by <Album> when the <DefinedSort Id=# /> field is missing when syncing to another device. On the other hand, exporting any autoplaylist seems to export the list as displayed (WYSIWYG).
I operated under the assumption that sorting was dictated by the custom view set for the autoplaylist. The ones I posted here all have the same custom view "
AT Study":
https://ptpb.pw/BxiACorrect me if I'm wrong, but I was surprised to find the custom view not containing any sorting data. I figured that populating the affected autoplaylists with <DefinedSort Id=# /> would fix this issue and indeed it does. My desired sorting scheme is A and I see it selected for the autoplaylist "
4.5 stars". However,
4.5 stars.xautopf is missing <DefinedSort Id="7" /> (and other fields), so switching sorting schemes back and forth under "Album and Tracks > Sort By" (A to B then back to A) populates the xautopf file with the necessary info.
Syncing before switching up the sorting scheme:
5/3/2016 10:47:12 AM - D:\Music\MusicBee\Playlists\Devices\Samsung Galaxy S5\4.5 stars.xautopf,enab=True,shuffle=None,sort=Ascending,export=False
5/3/2016 10:47:12 AM - Album:Ascending,
After switching up the sorting scheme:
5/3/2016 11:40:21 AM - D:\Music\MusicBee\Playlists\Devices\Samsung Galaxy S5\4.5 stars.xautopf,enab=True,shuffle=None,sort=Ascending,export=False
5/3/2016 11:40:21 AM - Artist:Ascending, Year (yyyy):Ascending, DateFilled:Ascending, Album:Ascending,
What happened was that I created these autoplaylists en masse and I settled on a custom view I liked. After creating the playlist, I liked what I saw on screen and moved on to the next one without bothering to check if the xautopf contained fields for proper sorting, which seems to be crucial when syncing such playlists to external devices.
TL;DR version: When creating autoplaylists and selecting a custom view, the autoplaylist file (xautopf) does not contain a <DefinedSort Id="#" /> field (among other fields) despite the screen displaying the correct sort order and the correct sorting scheme selected under "Album and Tracks > Sort By". Without these fields, MB defaults to <Album> sorting when syncing the playlist to another device. A workaround is to select another sorting scheme and then go back to the originally selected scheme (A -> B -> A).
Moving forward, is it possible for MB to write sorting information in xautopf as displayed on screen following or upon creating autoplaylists?