Author Topic: Enhancements to device synching  (Read 60446 times)

frankz

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I'm using Neutron. It shouldn't matter to MB on synch what player you're using on your phone, though. I'm seeing in ES File Explorer and Windows Explorer that these are the old versions which have survived two subsequent synch attempts untouched, nothing to do with the player at all.


As shown in my settings screenshot above, I have a dedicated folder for playlists and am using M3U.

phred

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I'm using Neutron. It shouldn't matter to MB on synch what player you're using on your phone, though. I'm seeing in ES File Explorer and Windows Explorer that these are the old versions which have survived two subsequent synch attempts untouched, nothing to do with the player at all.
I only ask because if we were both using the same player app and had different results, it would be odd. But yes, the player shouldn't matter.

How about deleting all the playlists off the phone via a file manager and then syncing? Then as an experiment, change one playlist by adding, deleting, or tag editing a track or two. Then resync and see if the playlist updates properly.
Last Edit: January 14, 2019, 01:05:19 PM by phred
Download the latest MusicBee v3.5 patch from here.
Unzip into your MusicBee directory and overwrite existing files.

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frankz

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How about deleting all the playlists off the phone via a file manager and then syncing? Then as an experiment, change one playlist by adding, deleting, or tag editing a track or two. Then resync and see if the playlist updates properly.
On it.  I'll report back.

frankz

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OK.  All is apparently well.  I deleted the playlists and did a sync, and all the playlists got sent to the card along with the files and no errors in sight. Then I added a song to one of the playlists.  Because one of the (other) playlists is an auto playlist with high turnover, doing another sync at this point would result in another 2000 deleted and/or copied files which I didn't have time for, so I just did a preview, and MB indicated it would have resent the changed playlist, which is good enough evidence for me that it's working fine.  Must have been some glitch with the previous playlists.  Who knows.

Worst case I delete the existing playlists from the card before syncing, which isn't optimal but wouldn't be the end of the world. But it seems fine.

Nice update right at the right time for me having just started using MB to sync (one more nail in the MediaMonkey coffin - now I need to get myself off of my iPod so I can uninstall MM for good).  Thanks.

phred

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Using 3.3.6952

This is really odd, and quite frankly I can't understand how it is happening. I'm syncing to two Android-based devices - a Samsung Galaxy S8 and a FiiO X5-iii. I'm using the same player on both (GoneMad Music Player although this should matter.)

The playlists sync to the FiiO just fine, but not to the Samsung. Both use M3U playlists. After the sync, looking at the Playlists directory with a file manager, the FiiO has all the M3U playlists. The Samsung not only has the M3U playlists, but also PLA playlists, which contain zero bytes. The M3U playlists are missing the first letter of each line, making them unplayable. I'm trying to sync two playlists to the Samsung and I'm only getting one of the M3Us (containing data minus the first letter.) And I get both of the PLAs, which are a)empty, and b)not set up to sync.

The MB's device settings for playlist are both the same with one exception: The FiiO has a field for "path prefix for tracks" while the Samsung doesn't offer that field. Both devices have a Playlists directory and both have a Music directory. Neither use relative file paths.

@frankz- did you actually play any playlists on your Samsung since you did the sync yesterday? If not, please do so. And look to see if the first letter is missing from each line in the M3U.
Download the latest MusicBee v3.5 patch from here.
Unzip into your MusicBee directory and overwrite existing files.

----------
The FAQ
The Wiki
Posting screenshots is here
Searching the forum with Google is  here

frankz

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@frankz- did you actually play any playlists on your Samsung since you did the sync yesterday? If not, please do so. And look to see if the first letter is missing from each line in the M3U.
Hi,

I have been playing from the playlists that I sent to the Galaxy S8 yesterday and they appear to be working correctly as far as being able to be played.  However, the phone is not reading all of the songs that are on the actual playlist.  My main playlist had over 7100 tracks when synched to the phone and when I open it from the phone in Notepad++ they're all there, but every single player (I've tried them all in the last couple days trying to get them to work flawlessly with my new Android Auto car) sees ~6900.  I haven't gotten down to comparing what's missing, but I'm wondering if M3U8 wouldn't be a better option.  Just spitballing because I'm thinking it's a character conversion issue. Bands love to put non ASCII characters in their names and song titles.

I don't see the issue with the PLA playlists that you're seeing.  Not to say it won't show up tomorrow.

phred

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@frankz-

I'm working with a much smaller sample size on the S8 - only 205 tracks. But they're all being transferred.

As for the playlist issue, let's just call it lack of attention by the user.

Somewhere along the line the "use relative paths" option became unticked. Once I enabled it no PLA playlists were transferred. And the M3U playlists transferred and were not missing the first letter of each line. And they were/are playable.

Good night World.
Download the latest MusicBee v3.5 patch from here.
Unzip into your MusicBee directory and overwrite existing files.

----------
The FAQ
The Wiki
Posting screenshots is here
Searching the forum with Google is  here

frankz

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I'm working with a much smaller sample size on the S8 - only 205 tracks. But they're all being transferred.
Glad to hear it worked out for you.

For sure MB did what it was supposed to for me - the playlist is there fine and I don't doubt that the files are there where they're supposed to be, too.  I just have to figure out why the S8 isn't registering all of its tracks.

I see the latest patch addresses the issue of auto-playlists not making it over, which was my problem a few posts back I guess. I'll give that a go on my next sync.

Using my phone for music is a new world for me.  I was locked into my iPod by my old car's interface.  No more.

Steven

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Just regarding the couple of minutes blocking that occurs on the device after files have been deleted, just to make sure it really wasnt something MB is doing wrong, I tried with another player and had exactly the same behaviour.
What i will look to do is add a message if the condition is detected so at least users will know whats going on

Steven

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https://getmusicbee.com/patches/MusicBee33_Patched.zip

- tweaked handling for detecting when playlists and files need to be synched
- informational message for when stalled synchronisation is detected
- optimised folder cleanup after synch

klint

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Excellent change, thank you. I can't wait to translate it ;)

frankz

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I'm still having the problem where some file are not making it to the phone although the sync status says everything was copied and reports no errors and there are no errors in the log.  I've got a 267 song playlist with only 222 songs on the phone, for example.  I thought I had it licked, but no dice.

There's no rhyme or reason about which songs aren't making it as far as file name, and they seem to all be playable in and accessible to MB.  They're no different than the files that do make it - all VBR MP3.

My settings are as posted earlier in the thread, except I changed the file naming to <Disc-Track#>-$Left(<Title>,5) wondering if long file names were the problem.  Didn't seem to make a difference, and some of the ones not making it are shorter than the ones that do.

Any ideas or troubleshooting steps I can undergo?
Last Edit: January 20, 2019, 05:39:30 PM by frankz

Steven

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There is a flaw with the device folder cleanup that removes non-empty device folders in some cases when it shouldnt. Its fixed but i need to do more testing before making it available

frankz

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There is a flaw with the device folder cleanup that removes non-empty device folders in some cases when it shouldnt. Its fixed but i need to do more testing before making it available
Ah, OK.  I'll sit tight then.

Steven

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https://getmusicbee.com/patches/MusicBee33_Patched.zip

anyone following this topic should update to this new patch version for the reason stated in the prior post