playlist relative path format?

I’ve got 3 .m3u playlists saved on my fuze that I sync’d with JRiver Media Center 13.  Files converted and moved over properly, and the playlists appear to be there.  But they’re all empty.  Perusing through this forum leads me to believe that it has something to do with the relative path.  I opened up one of the playlists in notepad and edited a couple of the lines to correctly reflect the relative path, but I still can’t get any files to show up in the play list.  I’ve seen alot of posts about relative path and the format of the line, but I can’t find anything that says what that line for each song in the playlist should look like.  Can someone please enlighten me?

Also, I saw something about non-english names.  Is that referring to foreign characters, or numbers, or special characters?  All of my songs are in the format of “Artist - Song Name.mp3” without the quotes obviously.  Are the dashes screwing me up?  If the dash is a problem, is this something that will be fixed soon?  I really don’t want to spend the time renaming all of these.  I’d rather sell my soul to the devil and take my fuze back to best buy and get an Ipod before renaming all of my tracks.

I want to follow up on this.  I’ve searched the forum and found similar problems with people using WINAMP or whatever, and tried to port that advice to my player, but I’m still having no luck.

I tried moving the playlist into the actual \Music folder itself instead of the \Playlist folder, and I changed all of the lines in the playlist so they read similar to \Music\artist\album\song.mp3, and I tried it without the \Music\ as suggested in another thread, so the entries in the playlist were just artist\album\song.mp3.  I also tried \Artist\album\song.mp3.  I’ve tried a variety of combinations and tried them in both the music folder and in the playlists folder.  I keep getting empty on all of these playlists I’m trying though.

@jehr wrote:

I want to follow up on this.  I’ve searched the forum and found similar problems with people using WINAMP or whatever, and tried to port that advice to my player, but I’m still having no luck.

 

I tried moving the playlist into the actual \Music folder itself instead of the \Playlist folder, and I changed all of the lines in the playlist so they read similar to \Music\artist\album\song.mp3, and I tried it without the \Music\ as suggested in another thread, so the entries in the playlist were just artist\album\song.mp3.  I also tried \Artist\album\song.mp3.  I’ve tried a variety of combinations and tried them in both the music folder and in the playlists folder.  I keep getting empty on all of these playlists I’m trying though.

Folder structure:  \Music\artist\album\song.mp3

If playlist is in root, paths in playlist should look like: Music\artist\album\song.mp3

Note there is no leading backslash.

If playlist is in \MUSIC, paths in playlist should look like: artist\album\song.mp3

That doesn’t work.  I’ve tried that several times, but the playlist still shows as empty when I access it from my fuze.

Can anyone post an example of an .m3u playlist that works on their fuze?

I’ve also tried all of the suggestions without the EXTINF line from this thread in ABI:

I keep getting empties all around.

I used to make playlists daily with my fuze (before the sleep timer was added to the firmware) and if you follow Skinjob’s path directions, you will have success.

When I first started using my fuze (s) and searched the forum for playlist threads, it seems like a common issue was that many people were leaving in the leading "" in their playlist, resulting in the playlists showing up empty on the player.  I’m not saying that is your issue, but if you follow Skinjob’s directions perfectly, your playlists should work.

I did exactly what skinjob said, but it doesn’t work.  I’ve seen conflicting reports on the EXTINF headers, and I’ve also seen alot of reports that you have to have an EXTM3U line in there…is that just the first line or is it required for each line?  Is there anything you need to close out a list before the player will read it properly?  Does the list really have to be encoded with ASCII and not ANSI?

I’d really appreciate if someone could post an example, known working playlist.  I’ve got the paths and location part down, I think, but it’s still not working.

Message Edited by jehr on 03-08-2009 08:27 AM

Beuller?

The #EXTM3U line is required and should be the first line of the file.  The #EXTINF lines for each file in the list are not required, but it shouldn’t cause any problem to have them (as far as I know they are ignored).

I wish I could figure out what was causing you such difficulty.  It really shouldn’t be that hard.

Why don’t you try a simple test with Notepad.  Open Notepad, add #EXTM3U as the first line.  Then add the filename of a single mp3 (filename only, no path at all) and save the playlist in the same album folder as the mp3 file.  That should eliminate path issues altogether.

You should have something like:

#EXTM3U

SomeSong.mp3

Both the playlist and SomeSong.mp3 should be in the same album folder.  Now see if it works on the Fuze.

Assuming that works, move the playlist to the Music folder and add the artist and album to the path, like so:

#EXTM3U

Artist\Album\SomeSong.mp3

Hope this helps.  I promise it really does work and should be quite simple.  We must be missing something in your process.

Here’s what my sample playlist looks like, exact copy and paste:

#EXTM3U

3 Doors Down\Away From The Sun\3 Doors Down - Away From the Sun - When I’m Gone.MP3

This is in the music folder.  I have a folder called “3 Doors Down” in the Music Folder, and it has the “Away From the Sun” folder inside of it.  And inside of that is a file called “How You Remind Me.MP3”

The file is called “albumtest1.m3u” and it is in the music folder.

Doesn’t work.

I created another one called “songtest1.m3u” that is in the 3 Doors Down\Away From The Sun\ folder.  It looks like this:

#EXTM3U

3 Doors Down - Away From the Sun - When I’m Gone.MP3

Doesn’t work either.  Both say they’re empty.

Does it matter if these are ANSI encoded?  I thought I read somewhere they had to be encoded in ASCII, but I don’t have that option. My only options are ANSI, unicode, unicode big endian, and UTF-8.

Okay…this is weird.  I changed it from MSC to MTP, reripped all of my music and reloaded it.  The default playlists that JRiver transferred over worked.  JRiver made the playlists .m3u files when it was in MSC mode, but when it’s in MTP mode, it made PLA playlists on the fuze instead. 

MTP is slower, but everything synchs and works the way it’s supposed to.  I couldn’t get playlists to work in MSC for the life of me.  It shouldn’t matter.

The GoList serves my purposes:smileyvery-happy:

@jehr wrote:

Okay…this is weird.  I changed it from MSC to MTP, reripped all of my music and reloaded it.  The default playlists that JRiver transferred over worked.  JRiver made the playlists .m3u files when it was in MSC mode, but when it’s in MTP mode, it made PLA playlists on the fuze instead. 

 

MTP is slower, but everything synchs and works the way it’s supposed to.  I couldn’t get playlists to work in MSC for the life of me.  It shouldn’t matter.

I think you solved part of your problem; the JRiver application is probably making .m3u files that aren’t compatible with the fuze.

I always made my playlists in Winamp in MSC mode and they worked perfectly.

What do you suppose prompts more requests for help, playlists or video? :wink:

@marvin_martian wrote:
What do you suppose prompts more requests for help, playlists or video? :wink:

I’d say it’s about even…

@jehr wrote:

Here’s what my sample playlist looks like, exact copy and paste:

 

#EXTM3U

3 Doors Down\Away From The Sun\3 Doors Down - Away From the Sun - When I’m Gone.MP3

 

This is in the music folder.  I have a folder called “3 Doors Down” in the Music Folder, and it has the “Away From the Sun” folder inside of it.  And inside of that is a file called “How You Remind Me.MP3”

 

The file is called “albumtest1.m3u” and it is in the music folder.

 

Doesn’t work.

 

I created another one called “songtest1.m3u” that is in the 3 Doors Down\Away From The Sun\ folder.  It looks like this:

 

#EXTM3U

3 Doors Down - Away From the Sun - When I’m Gone.MP3

 

Doesn’t work either.  Both say they’re empty.

 

Does it matter if these are ANSI encoded?  I thought I read somewhere they had to be encoded in ASCII, but I don’t have that option. My only options are ANSI, unicode, unicode big endian, and UTF-8.

Both your examples look correct and should work.  ANSI should be the proper encoding for m3u.  m3u8 would be unicode.

Just to make sure about a couple things:

  • you have the latest FW
  • you are using MSC mode
  • your files were added under MSC mode
  • your tags are id3v2.3 format with ISO-8859-1 encoding (not 2.4 or UTF-8, etc.)

Could the issue possiblly be tag related?  I’ve heard of some weird playlist/playback problems with bad tags or formats other than id3v2.3 ISO.

In your example above, can the “3 Doors Down - Away From the Sun - When I’m Gone.MP3” file be played normally by browsing the artist/album list?  And does all the tag info appear correctly when played?

@fuze_owner_gb wrote:


@jehr wrote:

Okay…this is weird.  I changed it from MSC to MTP, reripped all of my music and reloaded it.  The default playlists that JRiver transferred over worked.  JRiver made the playlists .m3u files when it was in MSC mode, but when it’s in MTP mode, it made PLA playlists on the fuze instead. 

 

MTP is slower, but everything synchs and works the way it’s supposed to.  I couldn’t get playlists to work in MSC for the life of me.  It shouldn’t matter.


I think you solved part of your problem; the JRiver application is probably making .m3u files that aren’t compatible with the fuze.

 

I always made my playlists in Winamp in MSC mode and they worked perfectly.

I realize JRiver must be formatting the playlist wrong.  That’s why I asked like 10 times for an example of a properly formatted playlist, because my M3U files looked exactly like what people were saying they needed to look like.  I can’t use WMP or WINAMP because they don’t support all of the file types that I use with JRiver (nor are they as good of programs to begin with), so I can’t use those to make my playlists.  I’d still like to figure out what’s going on with the M3Us so I can switch  back to MSC someday, as MTP is too slow for my tastes.  I’m beginning to feel like I’ll never get the complete answer on everything you need to know about playlists on the Sansa from this board.

Not trying to be a jerk, but the last comment there is meant to be constructive.  I see people on this forum asking about playlists alot, and they’re often met with a response to do a search or see some other thread.  I’ve done the searches, and I’ve found all sorts of different claims about ascii vs ansi, extinf headers, modes, and what not in different threads.  If anyone is going to give anyone advice to do a search or see another thread, then there needs to be an all-inclusive thread on playlists that has all of the right information that is referenced.  I’d recommend that the mods create official “playlists on the Fuze” and “video on the fuze” threads and sticky them at the top of the forum.  I think it’d help this board alot since these two issues seem to be the dominant recurring issues.

Message Edited by jehr on 03-10-2009 10:37 AM

@skinjob wrote:


@jehr wrote:

Here’s what my sample playlist looks like, exact copy and paste:

 

#EXTM3U

3 Doors Down\Away From The Sun\3 Doors Down - Away From the Sun - When I’m Gone.MP3

 

This is in the music folder.  I have a folder called “3 Doors Down” in the Music Folder, and it has the “Away From the Sun” folder inside of it.  And inside of that is a file called “How You Remind Me.MP3”

 

The file is called “albumtest1.m3u” and it is in the music folder.

 

Doesn’t work.

 

I created another one called “songtest1.m3u” that is in the 3 Doors Down\Away From The Sun\ folder.  It looks like this:

 

#EXTM3U

3 Doors Down - Away From the Sun - When I’m Gone.MP3

 

Doesn’t work either.  Both say they’re empty.

 

Does it matter if these are ANSI encoded?  I thought I read somewhere they had to be encoded in ASCII, but I don’t have that option. My only options are ANSI, unicode, unicode big endian, and UTF-8.


 

Both your examples look correct and should work.  ANSI should be the proper encoding for m3u.  m3u8 would be unicode.

 

Just to make sure about a couple things:

  • you have the latest FW
  • you are using MSC mode
  • your files were added under MSC mode
  • your tags are id3v2.3 format with ISO-8859-1 encoding (not 2.4 or UTF-8, etc.)

 

Could the issue possiblly be tag related?  I’ve heard of some weird playlist/playback problems with bad tags or formats other than id3v2.3 ISO.

 

In your example above, can the “3 Doors Down - Away From the Sun - When I’m Gone.MP3” file be played normally by browsing the artist/album list?  And does all the tag info appear correctly when played?

Yes to your last question.  I’m highly doubtful it’s a tag issue.  Even if I did have tag issues, the tags within the files shouldn’t prevent the OS on the fuze from properly reading the playlist and displaying the file names that are listed in that playlist.  I was using ANSI, and I am using the latest firmware downloaded from this site as of last week.  I was using MSC mode, and all files were added under MSC mode.

@fuze_owner_gb wrote:


@marvin_martian wrote:
What do you suppose prompts more requests for help, playlists or video? :wink:


I’d say it’s about even…

Don’t forget folder navigation. :stuck_out_tongue:

Most of those start out as requests for help, but then quickly turn into a heated debate (or worse).

@tapeworm wrote:


@fuze_owner_gb wrote:


@marvin_martian wrote:
What do you suppose prompts more requests for help, playlists or video? :wink:


I’d say it’s about even…


 

Don’t forget folder navigation. :stuck_out_tongue:

 

Most of those start out as requests for help, but then quickly turn into a heated debate (or worse).

Yup… I almost forgot about that topic…:wink: