Playlist reshuffling on its own

[djrichwoods]

This has been happening for some time now.  Right now I'm running a build from yesterday (18157) on an IRiver H320 and this has happened with nearly every build update for a while now.

This just happened today.  I pressed stop this morning when I arrived at work and the player shut itself off (I didn't manually turn it off).  When I turned it on again and pressed play the song playing was different than when I turned it off and the songs preceding it were completely different.

It doesn't always happen with I shut the unit off and I can't figure out anything that might be triggering it.

I think it's important to mention that I do manipulate my playlists using Foobar2000 (and, yes, I am using the players directories, not my computers thank you), but I was doing that before this started happening.

Thanks for your help in figuring this out, it's really starting to be annoying, especially when I'm looking forward to hearing some the songs coming up and the thing reshuffles itself.

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I'm not making this up... a reply, even if it's to ask for more information, would be nice.

[bascule]

What's your 'Repeat' mode? http://download.rockbox.org/manual/rockbox-h300/rockbox-buildch7.html#x10-1110007.1

You may have it set to 'shuffle', although, even then, it should not reshuffle on start-up.

Try saving your settings, reset all settings to default, then loading settings again.

The other option is that your playlist_control file may be corrupt. Delete the file /.rockbox/.playlist_control and restart your player (ignore any related warnings on shutdown or startup). The file will get re-created at the next shutdown.

[djrichwoods]

I had my repeat mode on shuffle...  I'll try switching it to off before trying the next suggestion...

So tell me if I'm doing something wrong here...

I have a playlist that I have been listening to for quite some time and one that I add new things to using foobar2000.  Usually I save the dynamic playlist as the playlist I'm editing and then open it, add to it and save it.

How does the dynamic playlist then respond to that if I don't restart the playlist from scratch?  I see the new tracks in the playlist so it seems they were picked up but could it be that that is what is causing my problems?

Thanks.

[bascule]

Usually I save the dynamic playlist as the playlist I'm editing and then open it, add to it and save it.

How does the dynamic playlist then respond to that if I don't restart the playlist from scratch? 

I'm really struggling with these two sentences, because I don't know what you mean. If you are using an m3u/m3u8 playlist, then you don't have a dynamic playlist. A dynamic playlist is what you have if you start playback from a folder or the database.

You seem to be talking simultaneously about editing the playlist on-the-fly (...I save the dynamic playlist as the playlist I'm editing...) and adding tracks to it using foobar, an entirely 'offline' activity.

Then the second sentence seems to imply that, having modified a playlist with foobar, you just resume playback and are wondering if this is confusing to Rockbox, which may be unaware of the 'offline' changes? This may be the cause of the problem, as Rockbox resumes playback based on some sort of indexing of the playlist file; if you've changed the file 'offline' and then just resume playback without re-reading the actual *.m3u file, it could get screwed.

But as I can't really tell what you are doing, can you explain the whole sequence of events you use to start playback, edit the playlist and then resume playback?

[djrichwoods]

Sure...

But first let me try and explain what I meant by those 2 sentences...

I was under the impression that once a playlist started playing (let's call it xyz) it became a dynamic playlist that existed separately from the original playlist.  So let's say that I add some tracks using the insert function and delete some other tracks.  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.

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.  I open xyz into Foobar and then open the directory where I put the new music.  I drag the new music into Foobar and then save xyz in the playlists directory (which overwrites the version of xyz I was listening to).

I then go to Rockbox and resume playback and can see the new tracks in the playlist from the context menu.

Does this make more sense?

[bascule]

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.

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.

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.

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.

I then go to Rockbox and resume playback and can see the new tracks in the playlist from the context menu

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]

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.

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]

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.

Yes, that would seem to solve your problem.

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.

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]

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.

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.