Support and General Use > Audio Playback, Database and Playlists

Playlist reshuffling on its own

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bascule:

--- Quote from: djrichwoods on August 07, 2008, 02:34:37 PM ---I assumed that those changes wouldn't affect xyz until I used the save function to overwrite the version of xyz that's in the playlists directory.
--- End quote ---
That's correct. I believe that once you add tracks to a playlist that was started as an .m3u, it is then treated as a dynamic playlist again.


--- Quote from: djrichwoods on August 07, 2008, 02:34:37 PM ---What I'm doing with Foobar is trying to get around the task of finding the tracks I've added and inserting them manually into the playlist through rockbox.
--- End quote ---
Why? Once you've added them to the now-dynamic playlist using Rockbox, why not just re-save the playlist as xyz using Rockbox? Then you wouldn't need to use foobar at all.


--- Quote from: djrichwoods on August 07, 2008, 02:34:37 PM ---I then go to Rockbox and resume playback and can see the new tracks in the playlist from the context menu
--- End quote ---
If by resume playback you mean either press 'Play' or select Resume Playback from the Main Menu (as opposed to re-selecting xyz.m3u from the file/playlist browser), then I suspect that that is the problem. If your playlist has had deletions and additions since Rockbox last read it's contents, it can't be expected to resume where it was, because, as you've said, the song it was playing may have been deleted from the file.

Lear:
The dynamic playlist you mention is a file, .playlist_control in the .rockbox folder. When you start playing a playlist, .playlist_control will only point to the playlist file. If files are added or removed, this is recorded as changes to the playlist (i.e., add file x at position y, remove file at position z).

So even if the dynamic playlist doesn't change the original playlist until you actually save the changes to the original playlist, the dynamic playlist isn't independent. Thus, if the playlist referred to in .playlist_control is changed, the changes in .playlist_control can be done in the wrong place.

When a playlist is shuffled, what happens is that Rockbox loads the playlist and randomly re-orders an index in memory. This re-order isn't saved anywhere, except for a seed value that starts it all. For things to happen in the same way when you resume playback, the playlist file must not be changed (unsaved dynamic changes shouldn't affect this, but I'm not an expert in the playlist internals).

I'd guess one of these things are happening, but without knowing exactly what has happened to the playlists, it is hard to tell.

djrichwoods:

--- Quote from: djrichwoods on August 07, 2008, 02:34:37 PM ---What I'm doing with Foobar is trying to get around the task of finding the tracks I've added and inserting them manually into the playlist through rockbox.
--- End quote ---
Why? Once you've added them to the now-dynamic playlist using Rockbox, why not just re-save the playlist as xyz using Rockbox? Then you wouldn't need to use foobar at all.

When I add new tracks I add 20-50 at a time.  I'd rather just add them to my new tracks playlist using foobar as hunting each one down and adding it manually using rockbox is cumbersome.

But I think that between your reply and the one that follows yours I think I have an idea of what is going on...

I'll just have to remember that if I update xyz with new tracks I have to play xyz from scratch rather than resuming playback.

Thanks.

Rich

bascule:

--- Quote from: djrichwoods on August 08, 2008, 09:33:43 AM ---I'll just have to remember that if I update xyz with new tracks I have to play xyz from scratch rather than resuming playback.

--- End quote ---
Yes, that would seem to solve your problem.


--- Quote from: djrichwoods on August 08, 2008, 09:33:43 AM ---When I add new tracks I add 20-50 at a time.  I'd rather just add them to my new tracks playlist using foobar as hunting each one down and adding it manually using rockbox is cumbersome.
--- End quote ---
I still really don't understand this bit, as you have implied previously that you have already added those tracks using Rockbox functionality. Maybe I'm mistaken and what you are doing is adding some, but not all and that you prefer the 'offline' method of updating the playlist file. In which case, reselecting the modified file from scratch is indeed the way to go to avoid problems.

djrichwoods:

--- Quote from: bascule on August 08, 2008, 02:37:49 PM ---I still really don't understand this bit, as you have implied previously that you have already added those tracks using Rockbox functionality. Maybe I'm mistaken and what you are doing is adding some, but not all and that you prefer the 'offline' method of updating the playlist file. In which case, reselecting the modified file from scratch is indeed the way to go to avoid problems.

--- End quote ---

I don't know where I implied that...

When I get a batch of new songs that are scattered over a few directories I prefer to use the superior directory sorting options of Windows (or Mac) to find the new tracks in each directory and drag them en masse into the playlist.  Using the concept menu to insert 50 tracks is mind numbing and the database takes too long to update.

Thanks for your replies, I have a better understand of what may be going on.

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