Best and easiest way to play/shuffle all

[Pommes]

Hi,
i just installed Rockbox on my modded iPod Video 5 and i really love it.
But what is the easiest way to play/shuffle all songs?
I have about 70000 songs on the iPod, i let rockbox build the database which took about 1 hour.
then i went to database, artists/all songs and kept pressing the select button then playlist then insert shuffled.
it started to count from 0 to about 70000 in about 10 minutes, then added the songs counting backwards from 70000. again about 5 minutes.
Then i had 32000songs in queue, in the now playing screen i kept pressing select, playlist, save current.
again it started counting from 0 to 32000, another 10  minutes or so.
Unfortunately it didn't save the file, so i had to repeat this step.
After that my database got corrupted/ disappeared, so i will start from scratch.
I tried to add all files from the files menu, not the database, but this was kind of similar experience.
I really really love rockbox so much better then apple os, but is there any easy way to shuffle all 70000 songs without waiting about 2 hours to have a saved playlist?
Please let me know if there is a workaround or plugin or a way to import a playlist from my computer.

[saratoga]

Long select on your music folder -> playlist -> insert shuffled.

I'm not sure how fast this will be given the slow CPU in your player and the enormous size of your library however.  Saving a playlist and putting the playback order to random might be more efficient. 

[Pommes]

Thank you,
i tried that, and i takes about 30 minutes or so as well. and playlist limited to 32000, so half of my library not in there.
But even then, when i have the 32000 songs in current playlist, how do i exactly save this playlist?
I tried save current playlist, gave it a name, waited 20 minutes countdown and it didn't even show up in that location .
I have to say, Rockbox is awesome, but only if you do not want to play random with a huge library, what i usually do all the time.
If not the 50000 file limit of apple, i would go back to apple os just for that one but very important feature:
One click shuffle all
Any hope this could be added to the rockbox, or any chance there could be some kind of workaround?
Thanks

[Pommes]

database is rebuilding now, i will try one thing:
From Database click albums, all tracks and insert random.
Then after 100-200 added cancel.
I do not need a playlist of 200 days, so 100 songs would be sufficient.
But i fear that it might be the same 100 songs again all the time i would do this?

[saratoga]

I forgot about the 32000 per playlist limit. 

One solution might be to make a playlist on your PC, load it in rockbox, and then play with playback set to random.  I'm not sure what happens in that case though.  It may only shuffle the first 32000 entries.

[Pommes]

YYEESS!!!
Its working perfectly:
-Build Database
-Got to Database/Artists
-Context Menu on all Tracks
-Current Playlist-Insert Shuffled
-wait couple Minutes or cancel if you don't need the whole lot of 32000 songs

I tried it a couple times and it does not use the same songs.
It really inserts random songs differently each time.

So this is exactly what i was trying to get, easily random all songs.
Rockbox Rox!
And thanKs to the developers!!!

only one question remains:
I had the issue of getting corrupted database,
can i just backup the database files in rockbox folder and reinsert them if database corrupt?

thanks
Pommes

[cereal_killer]

can i just backup the database files in rockbox folder and reinsert them if database corrupt?

Yes, just copy all database_*.tcd files.

[Pommes]

Perfect, thanks
All set then

[igipop]

Sorry for bringing up an old thread but it's exactly what I was looking for and Google found it so seems popular.

For your solution, I don't like to wait three minutes before playback starts. In Apple fw this is instant. So I chose to, each time I add songs to my iPod (12000 at the moment), go to music directory and insert Shuffled. Then I save current playlist under the default name (Music.m3u8) which overwrites the older playlist and now adds my new songs. Then, I also created in Shortcuts a file entry to this playlist which starts playing it instantly, BUT always in the same order. So I have one more step, I either select shuffle On or while playing i hold select button,, click playlist then reshuffle command and the next song is now fresh.

So looks that Reshuffle command is really fast on 12000 songs, so if I could just find i way to do
Reshuffle from shortcut while starting the playlist or at least move it to be available on the first connect button click in the wps context menu. Tagnavi conf change might work but seems too complicated work to save just a few clicks...

Well, getting closer! Maybe someone reads this and sees how to fix it.

[igipop]

SOLVED!

Found a sweet elegant solution and finally got Rockbox on my 5.5 iPod to play shuffle all instantly like on Apple firmware (I am now pretty sure now that is how Apple does it).

This is a one time setup:

1) Create an All Music playlist at the root of my Music directory (see my previous post)
2) Start the Playlist from Playlist Catalogue or a shortcut (see above)
3) Select Repeat->Shuffle to make playlist reshuffle after the last song is played. (you have to do this otherwise the bookmark keeps the state of the Repeat when marked.
4) Hold Select button, in the menu select Playlist -> select View Playlist (all 10145 items shown immediately)
5) Scroll counterclockwise one click (this rolls over to the bottom of the playlist)
6) Click to start the last song in the playlist (10145th song starts for me)
7) Fast Forward to the last second of the song and press pause
8 ) Hold the Select button, select Bookmarks (half way down)
9) Create Bookmark
10) Now set the Boomarking options under Rockbox General Settings -> Bookmarking (or Hold Select button over Recent Bookmarks in the Home Menu)
11) Verify that Bookmark On Stop is set to No
12) Verify that Update On Stop is set to No
13) Verify that Load Last Bookmark is set to Yes
14) If you want to maintain a list of recent bookmarks choose your selection (I have this set to One per Playlist). This is for the direct launch from Recent Bookmarks under Home Page and it works that way too. Only thing is that you cannot rename the bookmark so if you use bookmarks, you will have to remember which one will shuffle your songs.

This is it!

Now to confirm, start your playlist either from Playlist Catalogue or the way I do it is from Shortcuts menu where I added this playlist and named it Shuffle All (as i described in the post above).

The playlist starts from the last second of the last song in the Playlist (alphabetical). Almost immediately the Repeat Shuffle plays the next random song. (In my case this one second the song is silent and actually is only very briefly showing the song title only while loading (if that), not time for art to show, and then the new random song starts the playlist again showing 1 of 10145 songs to go!)

Each time I click on the Playlist or my Shuffle All shortcut the songs reshuffle immediately as 1 of 10145. No delay to reshuffle or hanging up the iPod anymore.

As long as I was looking for this functionality I am really happy to get it working.

Hope this post helps someone. If so drop a note here and maybe mods can make this post a sticky.

Cheers!
Igor

PS: One way to test/troubleshoot this if you have any existing bookmarks or if the last song in your All Music Playlist updated is to change Load Last Bookmark is set to ASK and then when loading playlist you will see all the previous bookmarks or saved bookmarks for that playlist which are present and might be stopping this from working. Just delete the other bookmarks you don't need for that playlist. The first bookmark is auto started by Rockbox so just make sure this bookmark for the last song is atop the list.

[lemon67]

This ^ Doesn't work for me? I am doing everything you have listed in terms of your method but whenever I go to the bookmark at the end of the process and try and play it, it always starts with the same track, somewhere weird in the middle of the track or something.But it never loads up shuffled and most times that I press the bookmark it loads with an error screen popping up behind and then, does the same thing loads to the same song. And with the playback setting on repeat shuffled, that only shuffles it at the end of the playlist, i understand why this should work but I cant make it work.

Edit: when I am pressing the created bookmark (for the last second of the playlist) it says "error accessing playlist file" and then yeah, proceeding to load all the songs but in the same order and since shuffle setting is on but repeat shuffled is on, for some reason the only way is to basically yeah use the reshuffle shortcut while in playing the playlist, or to turn shuffle on and off in the playback setting menu.

So it seems like there is a step that is missing or something that should be done differently. Let me know if you could thanks

[igipop]

Hi, sorry for delay - I was checking this thread but the last three weeks in the world the life as we know it was not quite normal.

Let's try these things to troubleshoot:

1) Confirm that you created a proper Playlist in the root of your Music directory. I explained that above (by the way I am using iTunes to sync songs and Build Database on rockbox to store my songs). You should still be able to find the / directory that has several folders with songs names like XUZT.mp3 and once you create/name the playlist it should have a high song count to match what you have downloaded on the iPod.

2) If you have the playlist, without worrying about the bookmark, just play the last song in the list and confirm Repeat Shuffled works? (the steps are above, enable repeat shuffled in options, then hold select when you start playlist then scroll wheel all the way to the last song to play it thru the end)

3) If this works, try to bookmark by pausing two or three seconds before the end of the last song (I had some trouble when trying to select the last second and it could have been the same error you are experiencing but eventually I got it to take the last second and start shuffle all instantly. This could have to do with how long it takes the CPU to process all). If done right, the bookmark name will have the timestamp of where you pressed pause.

This 2sec before the end bookmark should work. Mine still works flawlessly after updating database several times.

Let me know what fails of the three steps above. Confirm that Repeat Shuffled is selected when you start your playlist. Let me know if you are using iTunes as well but if not I don't see why that would make a difference. My songs are sorted alphabetically but due to iTunes naming they don't appear alphabetically in this playlist even if you don't insert them shuffled. Once shuffle all works, your order will change.

Talk soon!

[Pommes]

Hello,
I do not understand your bookmark idea.
I created a playlist in my music folder root including all songs.
When I play this playlist in random mode, I have exactly what I want, it plays all my songs in random, starting immediately.
The only thing which I do not like: when I add new music, I have to generate the all songs playlist from scratch.
I have more than 100,000 songs, and generating this playlist takes quite some time.
If using the database I could only add the new songs, but building the database takes even longer.
Any ideas?

[igipop]

Hi!

Note, I am using database (and iTunes as well), and for me the new songs do get recognized after rebooting from Apple to Rockbox mode. (this takes a few mins but my new songs get there). I still need to recreate the playlist tho, which does take a bit as you know, so I don't do it everytime I add stuff as 11000 shuffle is fine w me.

The main advantage of bookmark method is that I do not have to set Shuffle to On and then chase the All Music playlist to start shuffle by one click. This alone saves time compared to setting shuffle and finding playlist and starting which is how it is done in Apple firmware. (Because the bookmark is on the last second of the last song in the list, and the Repeat Shuffled mode was set when I created the bookmark, the playlist reshuffles and plays instantly.)

Tip: In my case, all the mp3s in my database are named by 4 character mapping from iTunes, e.g. ZZYX.mp3 is my last song in playlist. If a newly added song is named ZZZZ.mp3 it will become the last song in the playlist so I will have to remark it if that happens and this stops working. In your case, might be easy to one-time create 1 sec mp3 file named ZZZZ.mp3 that is only 1sec long and just bookmark it to start your shuffle.

Hope this helps or let me know if you can figure out another approach. Thanks!

[Telehubis]

I tried the method with bookmarking and it works for me.

Had some issues with it but from what I noticed is that you may need 3 second bookmark.
This is because when the last song is ending the new one is shuffled (around 2 seconds before end of the last song) and if you save a bookmark with this shuffled (new) song it will be remembered and thus shuffle all will not work.