messed up Playlists on iPod
I encountered this weird problem synching my 3g 40 Gig iPod: Some playlists are completely messed up after synching on the iPod. There are other random songs included, while songs originally placed in the playlist are gone. The playlists in MC9 show the correct songs - however, the playlists on the synched iPod show different songs.
I tried a full restore, reformat in MC9, delete the playlists, make new ones, etc. And yes, I installed the newest beta and plugin. Any help would be greatly appreciated, it's shocking to listen to hardcore techno halfway through my chillout-Playlist!
[601 byte] By [
nibey] at [2007-11-9 14:29:34]
# 1 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
Are these smartlists or playlists?
Do the playlists have the correct songs on them on MC9?
dmt1 at 2007-11-15 17:20:13 >
# 2 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
hello. The smartlists are fine. The playlists are messed up. (some, not all) They display and play correct on MC9, if I display the playlists of the iPod on MC9 (select the iPod in the tree, select playlists) - completely different songs are displayed.
Can you imagine my surprise as - working as a massagetherapist - halfway into the treatment, Dee-lite's "Groove is in the heart" started playing?
nibey at 2007-11-15 17:21:13 >
# 3 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
Can you imagine my surprise as - working as a massagetherapist - halfway into the treatment, Dee-lite's "Groove is in the heart" started playing?
Could have been worse -- Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing" for one
BobU at 2007-11-15 17:22:23 >
# 4 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
LMAO!
Ok, I'm not sure what's going on there--I've never had this problem before. I'd post it over at Jriver.
dmt1 at 2007-11-15 17:23:18 >
# 5 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
I'm confused - again ;)
When I sync'ed my Pod to MC, MC saw that I have a Winamp playlist in every 'Album' folder (I set EAC to do this automatically when ripping Albums) & it whacked 'em all into my Pod as an 'imported playlist'.
Thing is, when I try & listen to an album, the playlist shows tracks from other albums, so halfway through a PJ Harvey album, Osymyso shows up for a couple of tracks, (yes they play when selected)
I have manually checked the playlists in both Winamp & MC, & the rogue tracks are definitely NOT listed in the playlist & they play in the order they are supposed to. Yet the Pod sees them.
Add. Info:
Pod was formatted to Windows (XP SP1 updated as much as it can be) with the Apple utility (which was then uninstalled).
Then sync'ed with MC (latest version via their update app.), no MMJB etc, as a fresh out of the box install.
Tried sync'ing several times with no success...
Help...someone! anyone?
# 6 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
Originally posted by northernlights
Add. Info:
Pod was formatted to Windows (XP SP1 updated as much as it can be) with the Apple utility (which was then uninstalled).
Then sync'ed with MC (latest version via their update app.), no MMJB etc, as a fresh out of the box install.
I'm confused. :confused:
If you've followed the above process, how have you managed to get Winamp playlists on your iPod ?
In fact, thinking about it, I don't think the iPod recognises Winamp playlists so I'm not sure what you're saying is correct.
Why use Winamp anyway ? Can't remember it offering anything more than MC9...
:confused:
BobU at 2007-11-15 17:25:27 >
# 7 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
Hello Bob, my own personal jesu...i mean support guy :)
When I began creating mp3z on my PC I sorted them into sub folders of Genre/Artist/Album
E.G. Indie/Gomez/In Our Gun/whatever.mp3
I also told EAC to create a winamp playlist (*.m3u or summat) for the album it was ripping & to put that in the same folder as the album tracks.
SO,
I install MC, it scans @ my MP3 folder, sees all the album playlists & (i think) imports them all...
When I hooked up the pod, MC moved all my playlists to the pod...
Thing is, they read 100% correct in MC, it's only when the Pod has them that the trouble begins.
I use Winamp for a couple of reasons:
1. I've used Winamp since I started using PC's.
Winamp3's current build is rock solid on my system & has been for ages, making a good test bed for any media errors I get with other programs, ie MC & this playlist thing.
2.Winamps 'killer app' for me is Milkdrop (www.nullsoft.com), a visualisation suite, it is worth it for this alone IMO, if you haven't seen it, you need to, it surpasses anything similar, get it...it really is THAT good & best of all, it's free!
It can be a bit of a bugger to setup in Winamp3 but IS worth the effort, the WA forums will tell you how to.
UPDATE:
Messed up playlists on iPod (http://ipodlounge.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10574)
This thread shows the same things happening...could a kindly moderator merge please? Ta much!
# 8 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
Merged northernlight's thread with this one as per his request. ;)
Adam
# 9 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
One question guys....
When you sync, do you have the "Delete Files" checkbox checked? Can you try that?
My other thought is that the imported playlists somehow aren't stored correctly...I'll point Steve to this thread...
Adam
# 10 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
Oooh I usually tend to keep away from options marked 'Delete files', especially concerning my tunes, but if you think it'll help then I'll give it a go...
You know, it's options like these that need to have a help 'hover' function, like EAC, ie place yer mouse over the option & a concise explanation pops up...
Just a thought...
Speaking of deleting files, when right-clicking an individual track & selecting delete, you get 3 options, middle one is 'delete from MC & move to recycle bin' but the files don't show in my bin, is this because I have my recycle bin turned off on my C drive? (D: is my sys drive).
# 11 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
well, fixed it, but in the tried & trusted Microsoft/Apple Support solution, ie reinstall the OS...
well, the iPods anyway...
reinitialised the pod in MC
unmounted it
manually reset pod
rebooted PC
opened MC
pod in dock
sync'ed pod, (with all 3 options checked)
iPod now displaying playlists correctly
I realise now when I look at the playlists, the tracks were 'bleeding' from contiguous playlists, ie albums next to each other had tracks mixed up...
weird...
however all is well now
tell you what would have been nice though...
when sync'ing, if i minimise the MC window the sync transfer totally disappears even if I re-maximise MC... some sort of taskbar icon to show connectivity/data transfer 'tween pod & PC when syncing would be handy as the HD light isn't the best indicator...
# 12 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
Might want to post that over at JRiver as an enhancement request.
Delete Files just Deletes files on the iPod. It will never delete files in MC9. It's to be used to make sure you sync selection matches whats on the iPod.
For example: Say I have a smartlist called iPod Tunes (which I do ;)). I add and remove artists to this smartlist to add and remove tunes from my iPod.
So, if I get a new album that I want on my iPod and I want to remove another album to make room for it, I can edit the smartlist, uncheck Artist A and Check Artist B.
Next time I sync (since I have delete files checked), Artist A will be automatically deleted from the iPod. And Artist B will be added of course.
Hope that makes sense, check out Phil's sticky on Managing your iPod at the top of the board.
Adam
# 13 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
I too have playlist wierdness now after upgrading to MC9 for the first time. I had a hell of a time getting this going.
It seems from this thread that my only option is to restore once again (which I don't relish).
The first time I loaded music onto the ipod with MC9 I did it by ticking the "Auto Smartlists" All Music playlist. Is it possible there is some kind of bug with this?
I have tried a number of things like re-building the ipod dbase and playing with the playlists on the pc but none seem to work.
Overall the promise of feature on MC9 is very nice, but it does not feel like a well sorted app just yet.
Graeme
# 14 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
There is definitely a bug with the Auto-Smartlists. Specifically the All Music one. Steve hasn't been able to duplicate it--but everyone else can.
So, make sure to not sync w/that one.
Might want to do a restore, but Rebuilding the iPod Database and then resyncing (w/o the All Music list checked) should bring everything back.
Oh, to make you're own All Music smartlist, just create one with the rule: File Type=mp3
Adam
# 15 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
Thanks for you help. I'd pretty much worked this out: I have my own all tracks list now.
All the other stuff seems to be coming together. MC9 is a pretty comprehensive bit of kit! I'm just waiting for the dollar to go down more and make it even cheaper :-)
graeme
# 16 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
I have had this same problem - I am using MC9 9.1.271 and all of my playlists and smartlists are f'ed. I had 6 hours of driving this weekend and the playlists were all messed up.
Correct me, if I'm wrong, the only way to fix this is to do a full restore on the ipod? What's to keep it from happening again?
k-rock at 2007-11-15 17:35:30 >
# 17 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
I think the main thing is never cross the beams. Sorry... that should read never use the Auto Smartlist: All Music. That one seems to carry the mark of the beast.
graeme
# 18 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
Yep, Steve apparently can't reproduce the problem. So, just make your own "All mp3" smartlist...I made a playgroup titled--strangely enough--Ipod; the first Smartlist is the "All mp3" smartlist--only rule is file type=mp3. Even if the Autosmartlist worked, I'd STILL set it up this way--all I have to do is open up my Ipod playgroup, and all the playlists I want are right there--don't have to bother expanding the autosmartlists...
dmt1 at 2007-11-15 17:37:32 >
# 19 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
I actually have never used the "All Mp3" smartlist, I too have my own smartlist for all Mp3s - is this really the only place there can be trouble? All of my smartlists are ruined.
k-rock at 2007-11-15 17:38:31 >
# 20 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
Ok, if you want this definitively fixed:
Download the latest MC9--I think it's 274. Go into library>update library and make sure delete files that do not exist is checked, hit ok--this will clean your library up.
Restore your ipod with the ipod updater. Initialize for MC9. This should do it, and it will (hopefully) be the last time you'll have to do a restore when changing builds...It's been a recurrent problem with the 9.1 betas because they have been changing a fair amount of stuff w/r to the ipod each build--but Steve, in reply to one of Kurt's post, thought that after the lateset build this shouldn't be an issue anymore.
It's a pain doing the restore, but it'll take care of the problem...
dmt1 at 2007-11-15 17:39:33 >
# 21 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
And k-rock: make sure you expand all the Playlist Groups when syncing and make sure none of them are checked (except the ones you want).
I am curious, you said all your smartlists were messed up. Can you be specific? Were the wrong tunes on them? How do the smartlists look in MC9 itself. Are they showing up with what you would expect there? Meaning the tunes on each smartlist fit the smartlist rules properly?
Adam
# 22 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
The smartlists look perfect in MC9 on the PC - but when they synchronize to the ipod, all of the songs come out without any regard to the parameters set in the smartlist.
Example: Smartlist of ONLY Rolling Stones songs
ON MC9: looks perfect, all songs are Rolling Stones
On iPod: there might be some Rolling Stones, some Who, some Janet Jackson, some Uncle Tupelo - its completely erratic - there no way of telling what will show up. It has affected all of my smartlists.
I'm bummed -- I'll do the restore and keep my fingers crossed. Odds are I'll be trying out iTunes when it rolls out this week- I'm thinking that will be my best bet, going forward.
k-rock at 2007-11-15 17:41:38 >
# 23 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
You're describing what I had. I just did a restore on the ipod, re-initialised with MC9 and re-uploaded and all now seems fine. MC9 is on probation: if it goes the full 30 days without any failures I'll buy it!
graeme
# 24 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
I'm past that point- I'm very happy with it, I paid my $40 - but playlists and smartlists can't go wacky like this... I'll do the restore.
k-rock at 2007-11-15 17:43:39 >
# 25 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
One little key when you sync: always make sure that the "Delete Files not on List" is checked on the sync dialog.
Tell me if that improves things. Keeping this checked ensures that the smartlists will not be additive from one sync to the next and it also ensures that what's on the iPod is only whats in your sync lists.
Adam
# 26 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
I do have the delete selected and I didn't when I first tried. I will be very carefully monitoring this for problems.
# 27 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
Update to my last post,
I said that all the playlists were fine after a reset, not quite, all my imported playlists had 2 copies of each song in the album...(the MC playlists were all ok) had to edit the playlists direct on the iPod (I:\) icon, right click on the playlist & 'remove duplicates'
(The common factor with ALL my imported playlists are that they are created with EAC into Winamp playlists (.m3u)
another thing I was thinking...
I got a lot more bother with sync'ing after receiving iPod, then I realised that all 3 or 4 'Recently Imported' smartlists were stuffed with 20gig of music each.
I deleted these & it seemed to make things less sluggish...
So I would advise anyone that has a new iPod & lots of music to upload to it, to make sure the 'Recently Imported' smartlists aren't ticked as well as the 'all music'...
OMG, just noticed this just now...
Downloaded some music last night, added it to the correct folder, imported it to the media library, tagged it then tried a sync...
I find ALL playlists on pod have gone except On-The-Go
BUT
the only playlists updated on sync should have been the 'random' & 'recently imported' smartlists, I have all 3 options checked in the sync dialog...
will check tonight & see if 'delete files which do not exist' is checked, I'm running .274 & I would have thought my reset at the weekend would have cleared these probs :(
Not happy, however I have 14days left on my trial so we'll see how it goes...
# 28 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
Northern...from what I read in your post you only checked 2 playlists when you did the sync? If that's the case, then only those 2 playlists would show up. I getting this from:
"the only playlists updated on sync should have been the 'random' & 'recently imported' smartlists, I have all 3 options checked in the sync dialog... "
Well, each time you sync, you want all playlists that you want on the iPod checked. Even if they are already on there. It will skip over them (or if they are smartlists, it'll refresh them).
I'm also, just not a fan of the Auto-Smartlists. I've created my own (I just copy the rules from the Auto-Smartlists if needed) because Steve cannot find a bug that's in there somewhere
Anyway, you might also want to recreate those imported playlists as standard MC9 playlists. Not sure if that's going to fix things...
Adam
# 29 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
I installed the newest version of MC 9.277, reset the iPod, reformatted it in MC, and did a synch without the all music smartlist, and had the delete files option checked. However, some playlists were still completely messed up on the iPod after synching.
I then copied the contents of the messed up playlists into a new created playlist, deleted the old one, and it synched correctly. I don't know if this will be the case for future synchronisations, though.
PS: The new Enigma-CD is unreal.
nibey at 2007-11-15 17:48:47 >
# 30 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
This is starting to sound like we're homing in on the problem. I too had some imported playlists (from .m3u music match files). Once I'd got these into Media Centre I didn't really need them as a combination of ratings and other logic meant I could re-write them as smartlists.
At the same time as I restored and got it all working I stopped using both the All Music list and my imported lists. Perhaps this is another direction to look in to replicate the problem.
graeme
# 31 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
not gotten the time to play with smartlists yet...
However I think I've around 80-100 albums, all with imported playlists! have I got to sit & manually redo these?
Say it ain't so mista!
# 32 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
Just out of interest, why do people need a playlist for each album. Surely its pretty easy to navigate to a particular album with the iPod's own navigation system. Don't you want to keep the playlist screen clean with only a screenful or two fo playlists?
Graeme
# 33 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
Ok, did the full restore - NO DICE
All of my playlists are screwed up - all of my smartlists are screwed up.
WACKY - I figured it out - First do a sync with just your "Ipod ALL" or similar list. Do not have any of the other playlists synced on your initial sync after restore.
Once this is done, you can add additional smartlists and playlists and they will work (well at least they worked for me).
k-rock at 2007-11-15 17:52:45 >
# 34 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
I wish I had read this thread before this morning...
Everything was working fine on my iPod with the latest MC. Then I ripped and converted about 20cd's last night. This morning I synced my iPod before coming to work. I decided to include (for the first time) the "Recently imported" and "All Music" auto smarlists.
Since I was runing late, I didn't do more than a cursery check on my iPod, but I'm certain I saw the "recently imported" list and I THINK I saw all my other playlists as well. So, I put my iPod to sleep (via the "Hold down the play button" route), packed it in its case and came to work.
When I pulled it out, and docked it at work (charging purposes), I noticed I was missing over half my play lists, but had an empty entry at the top (empty play list name and no songs in it) that shouldn't have been there.
I Mounted my iPod and started exploring in MC where I discovered ALL my playlists were blank. All my files seemed to be OK though (5250+).
I rebuilt my iPod database which wiped out my playlists (but that's OK, I think I still have them at home) and got rid of the corrupt portion of my iPod database.
I'll let you know if it happens again after I resynch at home tonight.
So far my iPod seems to be working fine without any playlists, I just have to browse via artist or Album and add them to the "on the go" list...
# 35 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
Yup...Steve knows there's something wrong w/the All Music smartlist, and possibly other Auto smartlists. Possibly the imported playlists messing things up will lead him in the write direction.
Adam
# 36 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
I'm leaning toward it being the imported smartlists myself. That seems to be a stronger common feature here than anything else. I've been fine since I turned those off.
# 37 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
Yeah, but some folks have had the problem w/o even having any Imported Playlists...at least they haven't mentioned them. Hm...maybe when they imported their libraries they imported m3u files and they just neglected to mention it...
Interesting theory....
Adam
# 38 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
For those of you with disappearing playlists, I can not duplicate this. I have tried 'All Music', I have tried ripping new tracks, I have tried importing .m3u. I cannot duplicate this. I do not yet know of anyone who can tell me steps that are reproduceable, so this is hard to fix.
Let me suggest this, if you have this problem, email me your iTunesDB file ( found in Windows under your iPod drive letter in iPod_control\iTunes) and I will look at it for clues.
Thanks in advance for any help.
steve (steve @ jriver.com)
STeveG at 2007-11-15 17:57:57 >
# 39 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
OK -- in regards to my post above... I was fine - when I loaded one playlist plus the ALL IPOD TRACKS smartlist. I had loaded only one playlist to see if the restore had corrected the situation - it did work for that one playlist.
But when I synced again and loaded the rest of my playlists and smartlists - they were all corrupted AND the one playlist I had added originally was screwed up again as well.
What is the last stable version of MC9 that has playcounts and ratings in it?
k-rock at 2007-11-15 17:58:58 >
# 40 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
k-rock,
The current version of MC 9.1.279 is fine. The problems you are having are not related to an inherent flaw in the plugin or MC. I do not question that you are having a problem.
In order to solve your problem, we have to try to narrow the problem.
All of my playlists are screwed up - all of my smartlists are screwed up.
What do you mean? You have the wrong files in your playlists? One way this can be explained is if you clean your MC library and reimport tracks but do not reinitialize your iPod. This will be a problem because the synching between iPod and MC is based on a file ID that MC assigns when files are imported. If you transfer files to iPod and then reimport files, these IDs are all messed up. If you clean your MC library, a reinitiallize of iPod is also recommended.
Steve
STeveG at 2007-11-15 17:59:54 >
# 41 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
The wrong files are in the playlists.
So I should do the following:
1. Remove all audio tracks from MC9 - clean out the library on the PC.
2. Initialize the ipod.
Do I need to do another restore? To clean everything off of the ipod, or will the initialize process do this? Sorry to be dense - I just want to make sure I am doing this correctly. If there are any steps missing from above, please add them in your reply.
Thanks for the help!
k-rock at 2007-11-15 18:00:59 >
# 42 Re: messed up Playlists on iPod
K-Rock,
You should be able to just do the Intialize. Did you reimport your MC files?
For everyone with a similar problem, let me try to explain so we can rule this out as a future issue. Whenver you import files into MC there is a unique ID assigned to the files. MC uses this ID for all kinds of transfer and syncrhonization to the iPod.
If you clean your MC library and reimport songs, the ID changes. iPod still associates the old MC ID with the files so things can get kind of messed up (assuming you already transferred the songs to iPod). At any point if you initialize iPod, then whatever you have done to your MC library (i.e. deleting and reimporting files that used to be in the library) should not matter and you should be OK.
FYI Adding new files to MC will not be a problem, because they will not already be on iPod.
I hope this helps.
Steve
STeveG at 2007-11-15 18:01:53 >
