"Playlist control file is invalid"

[wintermute23]

I listen to a lot of podcasts, often long enough that I can't get through them in a single sitting (or I'm driving, and I'll go on to the next one, and stop listening when I get to work). I'm suer several of you are familiar with with the general idea.

Anyway, this morning or last night, I had a problem where, when I pressed "play", instead of going back to where I left off, it gave me a "playlist control file is invalid" error, and I had to scan through until I got to somewhere I recognised.

I was planning on asking for advice, but while I was typing something out here, I tried deleting nvram.bin (in the .rockbox folder), and letting Rockbox rebuild it, and that seems to have solved the problem. So I thought I'd leave a post anyway, in case other people have the same problem.

Moderators, feel free to delete this, if you feel it's a waste of time. I honestly don't know if I think it is, but after typing out the description I didn't want it to go to waste...

[karashata]

I think that error occurs when something related to how the playlists are managed gets changed...  Any time I've gotten it there was usually something done related to playback or playlist management.  I usually just start playing the last file I was playing over again and the next time I turn my player off and back on again later there's no problem.

[wintermute23]

In this case, none of that helped.

[karashata]

Sorry I couldn't be any help.  I just figured you might have needed some possible explanation, forgive me if I was wrong.

[wintermute23]

No, I figured the NVRAM got corrupted or wasn't getting written to properly, and I was mostly posting so that others could try the same solution, if they needed to. But your advice would be worth taking first.

[Lear]

The nvram.bin file was probably fine (it only contains a few settings and things like the resume position). There's another file, ".playlist_control", that Rockbox was unable to read for some reason. Just playing a track should re-create it however...

[wintermute23]

The nvram.bin file was probably fine (it only contains a few settings and things like the resume position). There's another file, ".playlist_control", that Rockbox was unable to read for some reason. Just playing a track should re-create it however...

I played several files while I was having this problem, and I can be confident that on none of those occasions did playing a file correct the problem. I may be committing a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy by saying that deleting nvram.bin fixed the issue, but it went something like this:

Play file: Doesn't work. Have to skip through to where I was.
Reboot.
Play file: Doesn't work. Have to skip through to where I was.
Play new file.
Reboot.
Play file: Doesn't work. Have to skip through to where I was.
Reboot.
Play file: Doesn't work. Have to skip through to where I was.
Reboot.
Play file: Doesn't work. Have to skip through to where I was.
Play new file.
Reboot.
Play file: Doesn't work. Have to skip through to where I was.
Delete nvram.bin
Reboot.
Play file. Works!

I'm sure you can see how I got the idea that deleting nvram.bin did more good than playing a file.

[martin_t]

Hey, I know this is ancient history, but as my bacon has just been saved i.e. playback resumes after a restart (phew!), I'd just like to say deleting nvram.bin certainly worked for me :-)

Thanks wintermute 23, if you're still around.

[coacharnold]

Been suffering a long time on this ...THANK YOU

coacharnold

[maclyn]

Literally registered to say this: thank you! Deleting nvram.bin solved playlist issues on a Clip Zip!