Random problem in playlists

MP3 players Clip Sport
1

I have a mac, I use Mp3Tag to create playlist, then edit in Textedit. Thank you to the person who wrote how to do this here. 

Anyway, sometimes it works fine, then I edit a bit and strange things happen. I have tried to put Textedit in unicode 8 -mode, it is in rtf- mode etc

Example:
This playlist were the songs are repeated twice, only plays five of the songs, the last song is not shown;
#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:238,Boni Pueri - Come with me
Music\Kill me heal me chicago\Boni Pueri - Come With Me Chicago Typewriter OST Part 5.mp3
#EXTINF:204,Jang Jae In - Auditory hallucination
Music\Kill me heal me chicago\Kill me heal me OST Auditory hallucination - Jang Jae In ft Nashow.mp3
#EXTINF:211,Boni Pueri - Time walk
Music\Kill me heal me chicago\Boni Pueri - Time Walk Chicago Typewriter OST Part 5.mp3
#EXTINF:238,Boni Pueri - Come with me
Music\Kill me heal me chicago\Boni Pueri - Come With Me Chicago Typewriter OST Part 5.mp3
#EXTINF:204,Jang Jae In - Auditory hallucination
Music\Kill me heal me chicago\Kill me heal me OST Auditory hallucination - Jang Jae In ft Nashow.mp3
#EXTINF:211,Boni Pueri - Time walk
Music\Kill me heal me chicago\Boni Pueri - Time Walk Chicago Typewriter OST Part 5.mp3

Another playlist: The playlist works fine when I leave the songs as they are, it works fine when I move around a few songs, it works fine when I delete a few songs and put one on repeat, then I delete even more songs and move them around a bit more and suddenly it doesn´t work, it shows only one of the songs , twice, and it is not the song I wanted to repeat. And I wanted three times repeat. 

Is there some hidden code in textedit?

2

Over the past several months I have been using a simple batch file to create m3u playlists for music subfolders in the main Music folder on my Clip Sport and in my micro SD.  Here is one of the messages I posted on the SanDisk Forum.

     http://forums.sandisk.com/t5/SanDisk-Clip-Sport/Simple-Batch-File-for-Playlist-of-Genre-Folders/m-p/359406#M3578

This batch file method will also work on a Mac using Wine -> File Manager command.  

           ( I could describe this easy method if anyone is interested.)

I thought it might be helpful for you if I attempted to convert your example text from your m3u file into the format created by the simple batch file.   I am using the drive letter F that is used on my Mac for my Clip Sport.  You can see this m3u format is really simple.

    DriveLetter:\Music\Subfolder\Filename         (This method will work with mutliple layers of subfolders)

F:\Music\Kill me heal me chicago\Boni Pueri - Come With Me Chicago Typewriter OST Part 5.mp3
F:\Music\Kill me heal me chicago\Kill me heal me OST Auditory hallucination - Jang Jae In ft Nashow.mp3
F:\Music\Kill me heal me chicago\Boni Pueri - Time Walk Chicago Typewriter OST Part 5.mp3
F:\Music\Kill me heal me chicago\Boni Pueri - Come With Me Chicago Typewriter OST Part 5.mp3
F:\Music\Kill me heal me chicago\Kill me heal me OST Auditory hallucination - Jang Jae In ft Nashow.mp3
F:\Music\Kill me heal me chicago\Boni Pueri - Time Walk Chicago Typewriter OST Part 5.mp3

Please write back and share your results.

1 Like
3

Sorry I can´t understand your explanation. Thank you for all the work you put in with explaining to people like me what to do. I felt so proud when I downloaded Mp3Tag and edited the playlist in Textedit LOL, but this I can´t understand

It should still be just one textedit-file?
Why add the directory when it is directly on the clip/microcard? Should it not be the relative path? On my computer it says both J and D of some reason, and I tried both instead of F, and none works.
Why not just save the file right away with an  *.m3u ending?
Should it be front slash or back slash?

I have now one document that looks like this:
dir /o:n /s /b *.mp3 *.wma *.wav> Kill me heal me chicago.m3u
Music\Kill me heal me chicago\Boni Pueri - Come With Me Chicago Typewriter OST Part 5.mp3
Music\Kill me heal me chicago\Kill me heal me OST Auditory hallucination - Jang Jae In ft Nashow.mp3
Music\Kill me heal me chicago\Boni Pueri - Time Walk Chicago Typewriter OST Part 5.mp3
Music\Kill me heal me chicago\Boni Pueri - Come With Me Chicago Typewriter OST Part 5.mp3
Music\Kill me heal me chicago\Kill me heal me OST Auditory hallucination - Jang Jae In ft Nashow.mp3
Music\Kill me heal me chicago\Boni Pueri - Time Walk Chicago Typewriter OST Part 5.mp3

Full name of document Kill me heal me chicago.m3u

It is placed directly in the folder named Music. I can see that there is a playlist when I look at playlist from card.mode, but it comes up as empty. I tried with the D: in from of Music for every line, and with J: in front of music for every line , and with only Music first in every line. All the music for this playlist is in that subfolder named Kill me heal me chicago

4

Hopefully this little project will end up with a positive result for you ?

Try using  the following lines of text and save as a text file named “Kill me heal me chicago.m3u”

Save this file in the main Music folder OR the “Kill me heal me chicago” subfolder.

  

Music\Kill me heal me chicago\Boni Pueri - Come With Me Chicago Typewriter OST Part 5.mp3
Music\Kill me heal me chicago\Kill me heal me OST Auditory hallucination - Jang Jae In ft Nashow.mp3
Music\Kill me heal me chicago\Boni Pueri - Time Walk Chicago Typewriter OST Part 5.mp3
Music\Kill me heal me chicago\Boni Pueri - Come With Me Chicago Typewriter OST Part 5.mp3
Music\Kill me heal me chicago\Kill me heal me OST Auditory hallucination - Jang Jae In ft Nashow.mp3
Music\Kill me heal me chicago\Boni Pueri - Time Walk Chicago Typewriter OST Part 5.mp3

And you should have a subfolder under the main Music folder with the subfolder name: Kill me heal me chicago

And the 3 song files should all reside in this subfolder.

Please report back with your results.

5

Hopefully this little exercise is beneficial for both of us. You just taught me the drive letter is not relevant.

Edit your text file “Kill me heal me chicago.m3u” and delete the entire first line.

Then re-save as a text file (ends with .m3u).

This m3u file can be saved in the Music folder OR the “Kill me heal me chicago” subfolder.

If this works OK for you, we could discuss the batch file process and how to execute using the Wine.app on a Mac. 

If you have mp3tag working on your Mac, then you likely already have Wine installed.

Alternately, you could use the Textedit.app and revise your future m3u files (from mp3tag) using the simple style shown here.

Please write back with your results.

6

Just a bit busy right now, I will tell you how it went, maybe in the end of this week

7

Hi again.
I am still messing around with this, and it still doesn´t work properly. I tried lots of different ways, maybe one hour every day for a month. Honestly it makes me a bit depressed. I keep trying, because I keep thinkin that Now! This is how it will work!

I did use the style you suggested, but I ran into the same problem.

I tried various ways to copy it into a zoho document, edit it there, and then put it back, and it turns up as empty.

I tried again in the #et -way : I made a playlist from all the songs in the folder and moved it to the playlistfolder, without changing the D:/ just keeping it. It worked fine.

I moved one song from almost last to the front. Suddenly I could see only twelve songs when I looked at it directly from the player, the song I had moved disappeared.

I started over and moved that song by using the “glue in and adjust style”-function (don´t know word in English) . It worked! 

I became overly confident and edited the whole playlist like that. Again it turns up empty when I look at it in the player. 

I took care to check if it is in text -mode, and as long as it says “convert to rich text” that means it really is in “simple text mode”, right?

This makes me crazy! 

Thank you for your help and patience.

8

I am really sorry you are having so much trouble with playlists. Especially since you are making a serious effort.

 I have a few simple suggestions for you to try.  

1.Try using a very simple text editor app on your Mac. Save the file as .m3u.  Save the file as a simple text file; not rich text.

  1. Try creating a simple m3u file based on 3 audio files saved in a new Subfolder under the main Music folder.

    Save this new text file in the new Subfolder with the filename:   Simple.m3u

       Music\Subfolder\audio file1.mp3

       Music\Subfolder\audio file2.mp3

       Music\Subfolder\audio file1.mp3

       Music\Subfolder\audio file3.mp3

       Music\Subfolder\audio file2.mp3

  1. I hope you are able to create this simple m3u file and it works in your Clip Sport.

  2. The best way to create and enjoy playlists on a Clip Sport is with a software method. My current favorite method  is to use a batch command. 

  3. When you want to introduce special repeat and play patterns, this is a bigger challenge.

        

9

The strange thing is that I have made playlists with repeat and they work just fine. But sometimes it doesn´t work. And I just can´t figure out what is the difference between the one that works and the one that doesn´t work. 

And also very strange that there is one playlist like that and it works fine, but now I am finished listening to it (language classes), and want to delete it, but I can´t find it anywhere when I look through with Finder. 

The whole thing is very mysterious :stuck_out_tongue:

10

When you want to use Finder to delete a specific m3u file, maybe try searching the entire directory of the player. Maybe you saved the file outside of  the Music folder?  

Also, whenever you “delete” a file from your player, make sure you also empty the Trash on your Mac.  (The file will be marked as deleted but not actually erased until you empty the trash.)

Best Wishes

11

Copy from other message, where RegW gave me the tip on how to do it. The coding of the lineshift on the Mac is not the same as the lineshift that the Clip Sport uses. 

Thank you both RegW and DFELD2005! 

OK I only made one (1) succesful playlist so far, but it is a version I have tried to make thousand times. 

So here is how I did it:

I use the program MP3Tag that I downloaded for free to make a playlist in m3u format. The playlist is placed in the folder where the music is. I go to Finder and move it to the folder “playlist”

I open it with Textedit. I take care that it is “not rich text”, there are several places in Textedit where you command this, and you have to take care when you save.

Now here is what I did that your comment showed me: Instead of copying one and one line and move it, I copied the line from after the hashtag to the hashtag on the next line, so that the coding of lineshift that the MP3Tag-program made will still be there. 

Example:

The playlist looks like this, with the files directly from MP3Tag, but I want to play the Jordan song twice.

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:177,Kristin Asbjornsen - Some day I ll carry you home
Music\kristin asbjornsen\carry you home.mp3
#EXTINF:238,Kristin Asbjornsen - Im gonna cross the river of Jordan
Music\kristin asbjornsen\river of Jordan.mp3
#EXTINF:152,Kristin Asbjornsen - In the kitchen
Music\kristin asbjornsen\In The Kitchen.mp3

I copy these lines:

EXTINF:238,Kristin Asbjornsen - Im gonna cross the river of Jordan
Music\kristin asbjornsen\river of Jordan.mp3

Then I put them after the hashtag for the kitchen-song, so the whole playlist is like this:

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:177,Kristin Asbjornsen - Some day I ll carry you home
Music\kristin asbjornsen\carry you home.mp3
#EXTINF:238,Kristin Asbjornsen - Im gonna cross the river of Jordan
Music\kristin asbjornsen\river of Jordan.mp3
#EXTINF:238,Kristin Asbjornsen - Im gonna cross the river of Jordan
Music\kristin asbjornsen\river of Jordan.mp3
#EXTINF:152,Kristin Asbjornsen - In the kitchen
Music\kristin asbjornsen\In The Kitchen.mp3

Now I will start a subscription to iTunes to figure out which songs to buy. Finally!

12

Congratulations on solving your question about repeating audio file entries within a Playlist text file.

Your detailed explanation inspired me to explore the possible differences between end-of-line characters used by TextEdit (Mac app) and Notepad (Win exe ).  I think the Mac end-of-line character produced by TextEdit  (LF only) is not compatible with the end-of-line characters that the Clip Sport (and Clip Jam) require to properly read successive lines in Playlist files (CR and LF).

       Your clever solution is to clone a text line produced by mp3tag and then change the internal  information without deleting the hidden end-of-line characters (for CR and LF).

           Here is an introduction to this complicated topic.

            https://www.editpadpro.com/tricklinebreak.html

There are likely a wide variety of solutions to the Mac TextEdit end-of-line limitation for your needs. Here are two.

    1) Create a simple text file with several end-of-line entries copied from a working Playlist file. Use this separate file as a “copy and Paste” resource for your future endeavors.

    2) Use the text editor app NOTEPAD++ that is available with “Wine Bottler for OSX”

           http://winebottler.kronenberg.org/

         (Wine Bottler is the app the authors of mp3tag use to make their Mac-compatible version.)

13

I feel super proud that I managed to do it! It is not like I know a lot about computers. And it is some kind of culture among people who know computers that they think it is beneath them to explain properly. As if I would explain to you when you want to knit a sweater: “Then you do the rib there, You don´t know what a rib is? Hmph! Well, then I can´t help you” haha

Anyway, one more thing: 

The filenames should be different and not to long, for example if you have fifteen files who all start with the artists name, that is confusing for our player. If you use Mp3tag you can first tag the artists names on all the files, and then delete the the artists name from the filename to be only song-name. 

And even one more thing: To be able to use Mp3Tag the program has to be set to certain specifications. Someone in this forum has written about that. (Maybe you?)

1 Like
14

About having a source-file for the line endings: I suppose you can just get someone you know to mail you a playlist file (that works) and use that as source. Then it is not even necessary with Mp3Tag.

15

UPDATE June 2019

After Mac updated this solution didnt work any more. In general I started to hate mac, and have gone over to Linux. 
I can open an older / write a new M3U playlist with the normal texteditor, and save it as DOS-text. Some of the texteditors for Linux have this option.

OVERVIEW FOR NEW READERS SO YOU DONT HAVE TO READ THE WHOLE THREAD:

  1. Filename must be correct - example:   Music\Asian music\Kiha and the faces\Coffee

After I updated the Clip with firmware it is not any more necessary to write D:\

  1. You cant have a lot of filenames that start with the same - don’t write for example artist name in the beginning of the filename, then the playlist will just repeat one song.

So the playlist should look something like this:

The lines that go #EXTINF:274, young Iranian female voices

is supposedly not necessary. The number shows the length of the song, the rest are just tags

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:274,Young Iranian female voices - nena
Musikk\Asia\Iran\Nena.mp3
#EXTINF:396,Young Iranian female voices - Masnavi Shoor
Musik\Asia\Iran\Masnavi shoor.mp3
#EXTINF:255,Young Iranian female voices - Heyf
Musikk\Asia\Iran\Heyf.mp3
#EXTINF:113,Young Iranian female voices - Longing
Musikk\Asia\Iran\Longing.mp3
#EXTINF:154,Young Iranian female voices - Farewell
Musikk\Asia\Iran\Farewell.mp3

So if you still have Mac you can probaly make it work if you find a dos editor

16

During my exploration of creating Playlists for my Clip Sport, I discovered that it is not necessary to include any information related to #EXTM3U

For example, maybe try these lines of text for a TEST PLAYLIST.m3u

Musikk\Asia\Iran\Nena.mp3
Musik\Asia\Iran\Masnavi shoor.mp3
Musikk\Asia\Iran\Heyf.mp3
Musikk\Asia\Iran\Longing.mp3
Musikk\Asia\Iran\Farewell.mp3

17

Yes, it worked for me too without the tag-info-line. The text there is the text that scrolls past on the small display when you listen to the song.

Also you can make a playlist with songs from different folders as long as you write the path for each song correctly.

One more problem that I solved:

On one of mye playlists some of the songs didn’t work. All of them were in one folder. I had previously had a different folder with the same name that I deleted. I have seen before that things I delete from the player don’t always get completely deleted. So I changed the name of the folder, and the path name accordingly, and all worked well.

18

After re-reading our extended discussion, I checked into the Playlist creation options of “mp3tag”.

Under Tools, I found a check-box for “Write Extended Info”.  When this box is not checked, mp3tag does not include any text lines with “#EXTM3U”.

Also, the free software “Wine Bottler” (for MAC OSX) includes a built-in method to install “mp3tag” on a Mac computer.

http://winebottler.kronenberg.org/

19

I am trying to follow this. I am looking at my old playlists created on PC and they work. I want to try and figure out on a MAC. What is the significance of the numbers 238 177 152? On all my working (from a PC) every one is a zero…Next question give me format…because some day i ll carry you home is different than the next line which only says carry you home.mp3. is on the file name, and the other the actual song title as indicated on the tag? I still think this playlist empty thing has to do with end of line character I am not seeing so I think maybe you might have something…

20

The “mp3tag” software (for MAC) is the best and easiest way to create m3u playlists for SanDisk players using a MAC computer.
Download – Mp3tag: the universal Tag Editor for Mac

And here is an older version that is Free.