Playing Playlists In ClipZip

[Grey012]

Hi,

I have done some searches regarding this topic, but couldn't find anything that helped me.  Here are the basics:

I have the latest build of Rockbox, have a 32 gb card in the Clip Zip, Windows 7, am using Media Monkey to make playlists on my laptop.  At that time, the files reside on my laptop and the playlists (in M3U) also.  After I create the playlist, I move the files, which are in separate folders,  to the music folder on the Microcard and put the playlist in the playlist folder on the card.  Each playlist points to a separate folder, where I placed the music files.  Just to make sure, I also put a copy of the playlist in the main playlist folder.  The playlists are of the "Best Of" variety. 

After moving the files, I can see the playlists and music files, but no matter what I do, I cannot play the playlists.  The playlist will come up, but when I press on the starting song of the playlist, it blanks out for a minute, then back to the playlist.  I can play files alphabetically, but that defeats the purpose of a playlist.  Any suggestions?

[saratoga]

Its probably because the playlist path on windows is something like:

G:\folder\file.mp3

but in rockbox the microsd card is inside the main partition, so its:

\<microSD1>\folder\file.mp3

Rockbox is smart enough to clip off the drive letter, but not smart enough to add the microsd1 folder back.

Here is a build for your player that is smart enough to do that:

http://duke.edu/~mgg6/rockbox/rockbox.zip

Does it fix the problem?

[Grey012]

No, unfortunately.  I used the file(s) you sent me, but they didn't make a difference.  I changed the playlists in the microcard to read like this:  \<microSD1>\The Smiths & Morrissey - Greatest Hits\Bigmouth Strikes Again.mp3.  It still doesn't work.

I have attached my config file.

[saratoga]

Does that file actually exist at that location? doesn't sound like it.

[Grey012]

None of them do...but I DID get the playlists working on the internal card, but not on the external microcard. 

I used Media Monkey, put the files in individual folders on my laptop, made playlists for the music I wanted and then synched it to the internal card - all of those playlists DO work. 

I then did the same thing for the playlists I wanted on the external microcard.  After synching to both cards, I then initialized the database.  BUT, even though I synched playlists to the microcard, they did not work. 

When I try to play a playlist on the external card, the playlist comes up with the first song for a second, and then flashes back to the main menu.  For less than a second, after the playlist starts, I see something that looks like {root}  {root}, before flashing back to the main menu.

I am stumped now.  The files and playlists on the external card are in the same format as the internal.  There is a music file and a playlist file.    The playlists on the internal card point to "H" drive and the ones on the external drive point to "I" drive, so they should play....but they don't

[saratoga]

None of them do...but I DID get the playlists working on the internal card, but not on the external microcard.  

Well then no surprise it didn't work.  Basically, all an m3u file does is list files for the player to load.  If the file it lists doesn't exist, it gets skipped.

The build I posted simply changes the logic so that if the m3u file is on a microsd card, it will change the root folder on which is is hunting for the files on to be the microsd card ("\<microSD1>"), rather then the rockbox root folder ("\").  That way you can have playlists of the form:

\<microSD1>\folder\file.mp3
\folder\file.mp3
G:\folder\file.mp3

or relative paths like
../folder2/file.mp3

where before only the first and last would work on the sd card.

[Grey012]

Okay, here is the latest.  I took all music files, including playlists off the player.  I then deleted all files under .rockbox, then replaced them with your build.  I then copied 1 music file and 1 playlist file to the internal card and 1 music file and 1 playlist file to the external card.  So, the directories on the internal card are:

.rockbox
Music
Playlists
clpza.bin

The directories on the external card are:

Music
Playlists

Each music folder contains a folder with the same name as the playlist, i.e., Best Of The Beatles. 
The playlist file on the internal card looks like this:  H:\Abba - Greatest Hits\Dancing Queen.mp3

The playlist file on the external card looks like this:  I:\Beatles - Greatest Hits\Day Tripper.mp3

After all of the deleting and copying, I then unplugged the Clip, turned it off, then rebooted.  I then go to "database" - it asks me if I want to initialize the db, I say "yes"...it finds a bunch of files.  I go to either Playlist Catalog or the file menu - doesn't matter - each playlist will come up, show me the playlist itself; I then select the first file name and the screen flashes (I quickly see the {root} {root} message, then it goes back to the main menu.  This is for the playlist on the internal card AND the external car.

At least now I'm at a point where I can troubleshoot a little easier and can clearly list what I have done. 
BUT, it still doesn't play the playlists.

[saratoga]

I don't know how the playlist catalog works. Instead of worrying about that right now, what happens if you just directly select a .m3u file from the SD card?

[Lear]

So, the directories on the internal card are:

.rockbox
Music
Playlists
clpza.bin

The directories on the external card are:

Music
Playlists

Each music folder contains a folder with the same name as the playlist, i.e., Best Of The Beatles. 
The playlist file on the internal card looks like this:  H:\Abba - Greatest Hits\Dancing Queen.mp3

The playlist file on the external card looks like this:  I:\Beatles - Greatest Hits\Day Tripper.mp3

After all of the deleting and copying, I then unplugged the Clip, turned it off, then rebooted.  I then go to "database" - it asks me if I want to initialize the db, I say "yes"...it finds a bunch of files.  I go to either Playlist Catalog or the file menu - doesn't matter - each playlist will come up, show me the playlist itself; I then select the first file name and the screen flashes (I quickly see the {root} {root} message, then it goes back to the main menu.  This is for the playlist on the internal card AND the external car.

Because the playlists doesn't include the correct path. As saratoga mentioned, Rockbox tries to remove path components when trying to find a file in a playlist, but it will never add path components.

When playing, Rockbox will look for these files:

\Abba - Greatest Hits\Dancing Queen.mp3
\Dancing Queen.mp3

and

\Beatles - Greatest Hits\Day Tripper.mp3
\Day Tripper.mp3

Since the files are in a \Music folder on either card, Rockbox can't find them, even with saratoga's build.

For the playlist to work, it should look something like this for the internal "card" (the drive part is optional for Rockbox):

H:\Music\Abba - Greatest Hits\Dancing Queen.mp3

And like this for the external card:

I:\<MicroSD1>\Music\Beatles - Greatest Hits\Day Tripper.mp3

[Grey012]

Actually, after I reinstalled Rockbox, I again tried synchronizing with Media Monkey, and, to my surprise, everything works fine.  Happy camper now.

[ClipZip]

Lear, thanks for the info. I just bought the Sansa Clip Zip about a week ago and just tried copying some MediaMonkey playlists to <microSD1> card. They didn't play.

Then, I saw your post here and followed your advice, used Windows WordPad to edit the playlist using WordPad's Find and Replace feature and replaced the D:\ at the beginning of each line with <microSD1>\ and it now plays the playlists correctly on the Zip.

Thanks again!

[saratoga]

Lear, thanks for the info. I just bought the Sansa Clip Zip about a week ago and just tried copying some MediaMonkey playlists to <microSD1> card. They didn't play.

Then, I saw your post here and followed your advice, used Windows WordPad to edit the playlist using WordPad's Find and Replace feature and replaced the D:\ at the beginning of each line with <microSD1>\ and it now plays the playlists correctly on the Zip.

Thanks again!

FWIW, they should play without editing anything using the build I posted above.

[ClipZip]

Saratoga, would your build work since all my music files are in a folder named \audio\music on <microSD1>?  

I do not automatically sync Sansa Clip Zip with MediaMonkey 4.x as it seems to take a very long time to do this. Should I automatically use the sync feature of MediaMonkey, and use your build to make this work automatically?

When I manually copy playlist from MediaMonkey, I do the following:
1. Connect Zip to PC and wait for PC to show Sansa Clip Zip Drives: G: (internal) and M:(external microSD card)
2. Highlight playlist I want to copy
3. Right click and select Send to -> M3U/XPPF playlist -> M:\playlist-name.m3u
4. Now, I have to edit the playlist and replace the "D:\" with "<microSD1>\".

Thanks for your advice in advance. Any help is appreciated as I am not sure how to correctly set this up the best way to use with MediaMonkey and Sansa Clip Zip.

[saratoga]

Like I said above, it just gets rid of the need to add <microsd1>, nothing else.

Edit:  well assuming the playlist is stored on the microsd card.  If you put it on the main memory, you'll need to keep putting the microsd1.

[ClipZip]

OK, thanks. Also, I found that .m3u playlist files can point to music files in 2 ways:

If the mount point is <microSD1>\audio\music\song-name.mp3 and playlist resides on <microSD1>, then:

Specific Link: <microSD1>\audio\music\song-name.mp3

Relative Link: audio\music\song-name.mp3