Author Topic: PC/Android two-way sync of Ratings  (Read 6027 times)

arcendus

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Bit of background: For many years I used iTunes as my primary music library, making heavy use of ratings and playlists as a means to organize—specifically with regards to my mobile device, in that my library is much larger than mobile storage allows, so I need to be selective. I have playlists that consist exclusively of tracks I haven't yet listened to, with the goal being to assign every track a rating. If a track is rated 5-stars, then it's assigned to a different playlist, essentially marking it as being "worthy" of being on my device. Songs rated below 5-star are not assigned to a playlist. Virtually all rating assignment takes place on my device, rather than desktop.

During this time I used iSyncr, which allowed me to two-way sync playlists, ratings, and playcounts, in conjunction with the same developers' listening app, Rocket Player (required in order to sync ratings). This accomplished everything I needed, but these apps were recently sold and acquired by a different studio that has decided to introduce intrusive ads and highly excessive monetization. They stopped supporting the original iSyncr app (presumably in an effort to nullify previous premium purchases, which were a one-time $5) and re-released it, charging $29.99/m to sync more than 100 songs. Rocket Player is now littered with ads, and the cost of removing them is another $29.99/m. I will not be paying ~$720 per year just to sync music between my PC and device, and since these devs took over functionality of both apps plummeted anyway, so I jumped ship.

Now, I'm trying to find a way to accomplish this with MusicBee. I've transitioned my library from iTunes to MB and have been playing around with the sync process, but it seems with Android 11+ that two-way sync is no longer possible. I've run a wired sync, followed by a WiFi sync, trying both PowerAmp and GoneMad Music Player, but ratings assigned on mobile will not sync to MB. I thought an alternative process might be to create 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5-star playlists and to then assign tracks to those playlists, rather than use ratings, which are then synced to desktop where I can apply ratings according to the name of the playlist, but I can't seem to get playlists to sync two-way either. Using GMMP and running a WiFi sync, the playlist will be created in MB, but none of the assigned tracks appear in the playlist.

Anyway, I realize not all of these issues are related specifically to MB and might be on the end of PowerAmp or GMMP, but I'm really at a loss here and can't seem to determine whether or not my existing process is viable any longer. Has anyone managed to get something like this working? Any ideas as to what I might be doing wrong or something else to try? Thank you very much in advance!

EDIT: Typo
Last Edit: December 29, 2022, 07:26:16 PM by arcendus

kelevra7

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I'm in the exact same boat as you. Did you ever find a solution to your predicament?

arcendus

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I'm in the exact same boat as you. Did you ever find a solution to your predicament?

Fortunately, yes. I ended up having to create a patched apk of the MusicBee WiFi Sync app (something I had absolutely 0 experience with), and that's been working just fine with GMMP. From what I understand this should also work with PowerAmp, but I haven't tested (yet) so I can't confirm. Got some of the patched info from this post, and it involved editing the official APK with the info in BoringName's second comment in that thread. If you'd like me to share the patched APK I used just let me know (assuming it doesn't violate any forum rules). I still have that file, but unfortunately don't recall where I found all the info required to modify the APK.

brick0852

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Hi arcendus. Would you be able to share that APK please? I'm in the exact same situation and really miss having ratings on my files in android.

boroda

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yes, it would be great if somebody has shared just .apk instead of source code and complex instructions how to modify and compile it.


boroda

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arcendus

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Does anyone else encounter an issue with this that results in two-way sync randomly breaking after a while - giving the typical "Server not found" error?

For me, when this happens and I plug my device in there's a duplicate device that appears in Preferences > Devices, and all the settings are reset to default. If I match these settings to the original and run another wired sync (successful), then attempt to sync wirelessly, the "Server not found" error continues to appear, along with the following Error Log:

2023-05-01: SM-G998U1:   13;   2.2
19:08:27: tryStart0: java.net.SocketException: java.net.SocketException: Software caused connection abort
19:08:28: tryStart.java.net.SocketException: Broken pipe

Babydoll32

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After too many disappointing moments with wifi syncing, I found another solution for me. I sync directly to SD card. Use Musicolet music player. Create playlists for ratings (1 star, 2 stars e.g.). within Musicolet and store songs into them. I export playlists, import them into Musicbee and change ratings as playlist name. No perfect solution, but good enough to sync ratings without lot of work or getting errors. If someone is interested, but don’t know how, I can make a manual for it.
Last Edit: June 19, 2023, 04:32:22 PM by Babydoll32

SkyZippr

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Does anyone else encounter an issue with this that results in two-way sync randomly breaking after a while - giving the typical "Server not found" error?
I'm not sure if it's the same issue as yours, but after I went into my wireless router's setting and set my PC to static IP, I've never had any "Server not found" error.