MinimServer failing to read special characters in m3u playlist files

[timster]

Problem in subject, but to clarify:
I have playlists created using AudioStation on Synology DS214play (latest version DSM5.1). According to notepad++ the associated m3u files are UTF-8 encoded. Trouble I'm having is MinimServer fails to load any tracks in the playlists whose folder or filename contains special characters (such as ¿, Ø etc.).

I have a feeling this is an encoding issue as I have had to convert my exported iTunes m3us into ANSI for Asset UPnP to read correctly. Obviously I can't do that with these as that would probably make them unreadable by Synology AudioStation and MediaServer.

Is there a workaround or something Simon could look into?

Cheers!

PS attached example playlist with special characters in

[DavidHB]

Just for interest, I copied your file to my NAS (which uses the UTF-8 character set, as against the windows-1252 set used by Windows), then opened it in and saved it from Playlist Creator. The result is in the attachment to this post. Would you be prepared to test it, to see if it works? If it does, using the free Playlist Creator may provide a fix. If it doesn't work, creating a list directly from the music files in Playlist Creator might be OK (you need to create the files directly on the NAS, use relative addressing, and set the program to use forward slashes rather than backslashes in the file paths)

David

[timster]

Hey Dave. Nice to see you here lol.

Thanks for trying. No difference in MinimServer I'm afraid - and your changes meant AudioStation/MediaServer couldn't read those special characters either, although they could read the rest.

So I tried my fix for iTunes/Asset and converted both yours and my original to ANSI. Neither could read those characters in that case either, although they could read the others as before - so they can read ANSI files.

I'm hoping Simon can come up with something

[DavidHB]

What character set is your installation of MinimServer using? You can see that in the startup information in the MinimServer log.

David

[timster]

(20-04-2015 18:38)DavidHB Wrote:  What character set is your installation of MinimServer using? You can see that in the startup information in the MinimServer log.

David

"Platform default charset is UTF-8"

Here's the log. You can see the Errors referring to the offending m3u entries

[simoncn]

(20-04-2015 12:40)timster Wrote:  Problem in subject, but to clarify:
I have playlists created using AudioStation on Synology DS214play (latest version DSM5.1). According to notepad++ the associated m3u files are UTF-8 encoded. Trouble I'm having is MinimServer fails to load any tracks in the playlists whose folder or filename contains special characters (such as ¿, Ø etc.).

I have a feeling this is an encoding issue as I have had to convert my exported iTunes m3us into ANSI for Asset UPnP to read correctly. Obviously I can't do that with these as that would probably make them unreadable by Synology AudioStation and MediaServer.

Is there a workaround or something Simon could look into?

Cheers!

PS attached example playlist with special characters in

Your .m3u file is encoded as UTF-8. The M3U playlist specification requires a filetype extension of .m3u8 in this case (see this section).

[DavidHB]

(21-04-2015 12:07)simoncn Wrote:  Your .m3u file is encoded as UTF-8. The M3U playlist specification requires a filetype extension of .m3u8 in this case (see this section).

Ah Let's see if I've got this straight.

I prepare my saved playlists on my desktop, using Playlist Creator. The playlists reference files on, and are saved to, the music library on the NAS. Presumably, as Playlist Creator is running under Windows, the .m3u files it creates use the Windows-1252 character set. MinimServer (using UTF-8 on the NAS) determines which character set is in use from the file extension, and thereby avoids incompatibility issues when it reads the playlist into its library. Is that correct?

David

[timster]

(21-04-2015 12:07)simoncn Wrote:  

(20-04-2015 12:40)timster Wrote:  Problem in subject, but to clarify:
I have playlists created using AudioStation on Synology DS214play (latest version DSM5.1). According to notepad++ the associated m3u files are UTF-8 encoded. Trouble I'm having is MinimServer fails to load any tracks in the playlists whose folder or filename contains special characters (such as ¿, Ø etc.).

I have a feeling this is an encoding issue as I have had to convert my exported iTunes m3us into ANSI for Asset UPnP to read correctly. Obviously I can't do that with these as that would probably make them unreadable by Synology AudioStation and MediaServer.

Is there a workaround or something Simon could look into?

Cheers!

PS attached example playlist with special characters in

Your .m3u file is encoded as UTF-8. The M3U playlist specification requires a filetype extension of .m3u8 in this case (see this section).

Ok thanks. So I can create them but will have to rename them, after which AudioStation/MediaServer won't be able to read them. And I can't edit them unless I rename them back again first.
Methinks I'll have to look into Dave's Playlist Creator!

[timster]

(21-04-2015 13:05)DavidHB Wrote:  

(21-04-2015 12:07)simoncn Wrote:  Your .m3u file is encoded as UTF-8. The M3U playlist specification requires a filetype extension of .m3u8 in this case (see this section).

Ah Let's see if I've got this straight.

I prepare my saved playlists on my desktop, using Playlist Creator. The playlists reference files on, and are saved to, the music library on the NAS. Presumably, as Playlist Creator is running under Windows, the .m3u files it creates use the Windows-1252 character set. MinimServer (using UTF-8 on the NAS) determines which character set is in use from the file extension, and thereby avoids incompatibility issues when it reads the playlist into its library. Is that correct?

David

Call me dim but if notepad++ can determine the encoding regardless of extension, why can't minimserver? Or am I missing something.

[DavidHB]

(21-04-2015 13:52)timster Wrote:  Call me dim but if notepad++ can determine the encoding regardless of extension, why can't MinimServer? Or am I missing something?

I think that what you are missing is the point that MinimServer is rigorously standards-compliant. If the M3U Standard requires a particular extension for a particular encoding, MinimServer will expect that extension to be used. Simon's repeatedly expressed view is that once you start departing from standards or incorporating fixes for non-standard behaviour, there is no stopping and the standards themselves are compromised. In my opinion, it's a very fair view.

The case of Notepad++ (which is also AFAIK fully standards compliant) is different to that of MinimServer. Notepad++ is a very sophisticated editor, which is able to convert text (of all kinds, obviously, not just M3U files) from one encoding to another. It is therefore appropriate that it should automatically recognise the encoding it is dealing with.

David