Creating Playlists

[simoncn]

Please attach one of your m3u files (small if possible) as a file attachment to a post here. Also, what are the other servers running on the Sonic Transport i5 that are handling the playlists correctly?

[Jack C]

(31-03-2023 09:05)simoncn Wrote:  Please attach one of your m3u files (small if possible) as a file attachment to a post here. Also, what are the other servers running on the Sonic Transport i5 that are handling the playlists correctly?

Hello,
Attached is a playlist found on the i5 disk. I have a main Music directory.
The playlist are stored there. Other contents of that directory are folders by Album.
The Squeezebox LMS music server is pre-installed by Small Green Computer on the I5 and has been the primary server.

Thanks for your help.

Jack

[simoncn]

The problem is caused by the backslashes in your playlists. This is the correct path separator on Windows. On Linux, the correct path separator is a forward slash (/) and the backslash (\) is available for use as part of a filename.

It sounds like the LMS server treats backslashes as path separators on Linux. See this post for a proposal for how this could be added to MinimServer without removing the capability to use a backslash as part of a filename.

I will look into implementing this proposed change in a future update to MinimServer. At present, I can't give a time estimate for when this will be available.

[noworries]

Simon,
Thank you - and you are 100% right.
My bad.
I think I've resolved the issue so no need for any unnecessary coding.
It was user error for the reason I PM'd you.
My playlist exporter has a bug and wasn't properly overwriting the \.

On a separate note, is there a way to get the Synology to automatically "re-scan" or "re-index" so it doesn't have to be manual all the time???

(31-03-2023 17:10)simoncn Wrote:  The problem is caused by the backslashes in your playlists. This is the correct path separator on Windows. On Linux, the correct path separator is a forward slash (/) and the backslash (\) is available for use as part of a filename.

It sounds like the LMS server treats backslashes as path separators on Linux. See this post for a proposal for how this could be added to MinimServer without removing the capability to use a backslash as part of a filename.

I will look into implementing this proposed change in a future update to MinimServer. At present, I can't give a time estimate for when this will be available.

[simoncn]

At present, MinimServer rescans need to be done manually whenever there is a change to any files in the library, including playlists.

[Jack C]

(31-03-2023 17:10)simoncn Wrote:  The problem is caused by the backslashes in your playlists. This is the correct path separator on Windows. On Linux, the correct path separator is a forward slash (/) and the backslash (\) is available for use as part of a filename.

It sounds like the LMS server treats backslashes as path separators on Linux. See this post for a proposal for how this could be added to MinimServer without removing the capability to use a backslash as part of a filename.

I will look into implementing this proposed change in a future update to MinimServer. At present, I can't give a time estimate for when this will be available.

Thanks for the info. I agree that the solution proposed looks like a good one. I hope indeed that it doesn't go to "the bottom of the pile", Maybe it deserves better than that. As it stands now, users with a large number of "Windows" playlists will have to maintain Two versions of the same playlist, and sorting them out and playing them will be a pain! So I hope this problem be fixed in the short term.

Also, for Media Monkey users, there is a great add-on utility that has a LOT of capabilities regarding the composition, Export, and Import of playlists. The developer of the code is also very helpful when support is needed for any reason.
Here is a link:
http://solair.eunet.rs/~zvezdand/ExportM...#whatisnew

Again I hope that proposed tweak to MinimServer happens soon, as I think a significant number of people might find it to be a much more viable app to use, particularly people who come from the Squeezebox world and have many \ playlists.

THX

Jack

[simoncn]

This is actually close to the top of the pile, not the bottom. I can't give a time estimate for two reasons. I am working on something now that is taking me much longer than I expected and it is hard to know when it will be completed. After that, i can investigate how long this change would take to implement. My intuition is that it should not be too difficult but I can't be sure of this until I start looking at the code changes neeed.

Regarding the need to maintain two versions of the same playlists for Windows and Linux, MinimServer users don't need to do this because forward slash path separators in .m3u playlists work on both Linux and Windows. The need to do this would arise if a user wants to use some other media server on Windows that doesn't recognise forward slash as a path separator (are there any of these?)

[Jack C]

(01-04-2023 09:38)simoncn Wrote:  This is actually close to the top of the pile, not the bottom. I can't give a time estimate for two reasons. I am working on something now that is taking me much longer than I expected and it is hard to know when it will be completed. After that, i can investigate how long this change would take to implement. My intuition is that it should not be too difficult but I can't be sure of this until I start looking at the code changes neeed.

Regarding the need to maintain two versions of the same playlists for Windows and Linux, MinimServer users don't need to do this because forward slash path separators in .m3u playlists work on both Linux and Windows. The need to do this would arise if a user wants to use some other media server on Windows that doesn't recognise forward slash as a path separator (are there any of these?)

That is good news about a fix!
This separators do make a difference in the setup I have.
Indeed, Windows doesn't care about forward or back slashes, and using foobar, VLC, etc. the m3us' play fine. Staying in the Windows world makes it easy. With MinimServer now, almost all of my entire playlist collection cannot be played using HEOS and the Sonic Transport i5, where MinimServer is installed. I have to use a text editor with "Find and Replace" to change the direction of the slashes to the forward direction before these files function using MS and the i5. I'm speaking the obvious I guess, because this is the heart of the issue.
Part of my confusion about all this too, is that on the Sonic Transport i5, I also have installed (it came pre-installed actually) the LMS Squeezebox server, used to feed the four Squeezebox players I have around the house. Even though this server is mounted on a unix device, the LMS server is OK with the forward and backward slash . This really threw me off when this problem appeared with the new HEOS setup. Eventually all indicators pointed to the MinimServer, and here we are! Not being a coder makes this tougher to figure this stuff out.

THX

Jack

[lyapounov]

I take the opportunity of this thread to jump in

I have created my first playlist, and I have some questions.

The playlist is located in a playlist/ directory which is at the root of my music, on a Synology.

First question:
I use the #PLAYLIST line to indicate the name of the playlist, but Minimserver only displays the file name and does not seem to use this tag ?

Second question:
I use the #EXTALB tag to display album name, but again minimserver uses the album name in the flac file rather than this one (which is OK somehow)

Thx !

[simoncn]

#PLAYLIST and #EXTALB are not part of the standard for .m3u and .m3u8 playlists and are not supported by MinimServer.