Author Topic: Slow Sync with Android Device  (Read 4837 times)

dirtee

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You mean copy the songs/folders/files onto the SD card, regular standard transfer, and THEN do the wifi sync (should one always do "preview" instead of "sync now"?).

Yes, copy them manually with a regular transfer. When I first changed over to musicbee from itunes I found a lot of inconsistent tag data especially with the album artist field. So while that was getting fixed up I would do a preview to get an idea of how long it's going to take. But don't bother so much now. From what I have seen, playlists get re-synced every time.

I assumed you were just copying your entire library over which should make it easy. Just copy everything in your music folder on the PC to the music folder on the android device. If you are only syncing a playlist that makes things more complicated as you will need to copy over all the individual songs in the playlist and maintain the folder structure.

Once you have copied them over, run the wifi sync. That will sync your playlists (copy them to the device) and check all the songs in the playlists are on the device, if not it will copy any over that you missed.

If you didn't miss anything, the wifi sync should be pretty quick.

I was actually doing a playlist based sync. My entire library is too big. So I created a playlist "For Phone" just to transfer a big bulk of music, alongside my 'normal' playlists.
I opted to JUST try that "For Phone" playlist first, with about 40g of music. And I transferred the specific artists first onto the SD card.
You were right. It was much much quicker.

Then, I ticked a few more common playlists, without transferring the files beforehand, thinking I'd do them one by one or two by two, even if it takes longer (because copying over the individual songs and maintaining the structure seems very annoying).
The tracks did copy, but they don't appear as "playlists" in my music players (trying both Media Monkey and Omnia).

phred

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The tracks did copy, but they don't appear as "playlists" in my music players (trying both Media Monkey and Omnia).
What format is the playlist that's being synced?
Have you confirmed that the player(s) on the phone can accept that format?

GoneMad and PowerAmp are the two Android players that allow reverse syncing via MB's WiFi Sync app. Since both have free trials, I suggest trying one or both and see if you get better results.
Download the latest MusicBee v3.5 or 3.6 patch from here.
Unzip into your MusicBee directory and overwrite existing files.

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BoringName

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Check the playlist folder on your device to see if the playlists actually copied over. You might also have to do a rescan in your music program for it to pick up the new playlist.

There are issues with reverse sync and android 11 or greater. There are workarounds available for some of these.

Reverse sync (play counts & ratings) does not work with GoneMad on the trial version. You need the paid version for that but just general syncing of music should work. I don't know if poweramp needs the paid version or not.

I haven't tested it but from what I have seen in the wifi app code, I don't believe reverse sync will work for PowerAmp on Android 12 and that can't be fixed without changes to both apps. I just noticed  PowerAmp was updated 2 weeks ago so maybe their side of the problem is solved. I will check it out.

edit: doesn't look like they fixed it but it could be a paid feature like GoneMad.

edit: Another user has confirmed MusicBee does reverse sync with PowerAmp in Android 12.
Last Edit: August 18, 2022, 11:28:55 PM by BoringName

dirtee

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The tracks did copy, but they don't appear as "playlists" in my music players (trying both Media Monkey and Omnia).
What format is the playlist that's being synced?
Have you confirmed that the player(s) on the phone can accept that format?

GoneMad and PowerAmp are the two Android players that allow reverse syncing via MB's WiFi Sync app. Since both have free trials, I suggest trying one or both and see if you get better results.

I have had these same playlists on both Omnia and Media Monkey before.
It's worked before.

As for the playlist format? What do you mean?
How do I find that out?

And what's reverse sync? Should I need that? I don't care about plays on my phone affecting MusicBee on my laptop and such.

phred

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I have had these same playlists on both Omnia and Media Monkey before.
It's worked before.
Syncing to the same phone and the same music app on the phone?

Quote
As for the playlist format? What do you mean?
How do I find that out?
What's the file extension of the playlists being sent to the phone?
Preferences > Device > Configure > Settings > on-the-fly conversion. If that's blank, then Preferences  > Library > playlists > exported playlists. If that's blank and you're only using library playlists and the extension is MBP, then that's why the playlists don't work. MBP is for use within MB only. You'll need to go back to device settings and configure on-the-fly conversion to a format that your phone's music player uses.

Quote
And what's reverse sync? Should I need that? I don't care about plays on my phone affecting MusicBee on my laptop and such.
It would copy play counts from the phone to MB. It would also take any new music files that were added to the phone and add them to MB.
Download the latest MusicBee v3.5 or 3.6 patch from here.
Unzip into your MusicBee directory and overwrite existing files.

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Posting screenshots is here
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dirtee

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Right, so I'm not interested in Reverse Sync.

Just need to figure out how to get my playlists properly sorted now.
The files are copying, but I guess not the playlist file that's supposed to organise them into a playlist?
There's no playlist folder on my phone/SD card.

In my device settings, on the fly conversion is blank.
In my library settings - playlists:
Exported Playlists is set to M3U. Which has definitely worked before and should be fine no?
'use relative file paths' and 'use unix paths convention' and 'map base file paths in exported playlists' are all unticked.

In my device settings, in playlist storage, how should I have that set?
I've currently got it as Samsung Memory Card\music\playlists\
I've not ticked 'create a sub-folder for each playlist and its tracks.
Save as M3U.
And 'use relative paths' is ticked.
(I should probably send a screenshot, haven't quite figured out how to do that here yet...).

Again, thanks for your continued help!

phred

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There's no playlist folder on my phone/SD card.

Quote
I've currently got it as Samsung Memory Card\music\playlists\
You need to create the playlist folder on the phone. Your settings are telling MB where to put the playlists, but it doesn't exist.
Download the latest MusicBee v3.5 or 3.6 patch from here.
Unzip into your MusicBee directory and overwrite existing files.

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The FAQ
The Wiki
Posting screenshots is here
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dirtee

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I followed your advice and did that.
Created the "playlists" folder, then tried again. But it hasn't worked. The folder is empty after a sync!

phred

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I followed your advice and did that.
Created the "playlists" folder, then tried again. But it hasn't worked. The folder is empty after a sync!
A screenshot of your device settings might be helpful here.
Download the latest MusicBee v3.5 or 3.6 patch from here.
Unzip into your MusicBee directory and overwrite existing files.

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


phred

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Do you have two memory cards?
You music files are going to a SanDisk card while your playlists are going to a Samsung card.
Download the latest MusicBee v3.5 or 3.6 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

dirtee

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Lol, the wonders a fresh pair of eyes can do.......
Well that was stupid of me!
The SanDisk is my new SD card, replacing the Samsung one.
Right, I'll try it all again and get back to you!
Thanks  :-X

dirtee

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So it didn't work immediately, I had to try a few different paths, delete a few seemingly useless folders.
But eventually, it synced and worked, and I now have playlists on my players!

My original and ABSOLUTE BANE OF MY LIFE, is that I still get duplicates FROM the playlist songs appearing in the albums from the artists.
But hoping that's because I haven't yet done a 'big sync' with the music I've transferred to the SD card.

So will report back when I've done that, although I'm getting the classic "a non-recoverable error occurred...." at the moment.

dirtee

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So, after the original suggestion by BoringName to copy music onto the device first before doing a Wifi Sync, I tried it and it worked a lot quicker.
It doesn't seem to be as quick now, although that could be due to a bigger bulk of songs being transferred.
It has also failed every time, without passing 20%.
But another issue has arisen: my player has now duplicates of most of the artist starting with A and beyond.

So I think my player has read my SD card and updated the player. And then when I do the Wifi Sync, it's then started re-copying all the files?