Imported 3mu playlists

[deszath]

I have exported my iTunes playlists to a folder and then imported those m3u files into subsonic. The tracks all list but some of them show as "Missing" in the listing. These items will not play. If I go into the main subsonic A-Z listing and search for the tracks, I can add them to the subsonic playlist within the webpage, so I know that the track files are ok.

What is causing this problem & how can I fix it? I don't want to have to maintain my playlists in both iTunes AND subsonic

[toolman]

Most likely it's an issue with the folder- or filenames. Ever tried to read the exported M3u files with Windows notepad or any other texteditor?

[deszath]

Thank you for replying Toolman.

I'm sorry to be stupid, but I'm not sure I understand your point about reading the m3u files through a text editor? What would that show me? I have opened the file using the Mac text editor, as you suggested, and it opens without any problem but I don't know what I should be looking for to discover a problem. I'm not a tech-wizard on this stuff.

[toolman]

When you open a M3u file with a texteditor you can actually read the folder and filenames in the playlist.
This way you can find out if there's a problem with the files Subsonic doesn't play and what the problem is.

[deszath]

Toolman
I've done as you suggested but I'm no further forward unfortunately. There doesn't seem to be any obvious pattern as to why some tracks are not being carried over from the iTunes playlist to the subsonic playlist. These are examples of what shows on the listing

#EXTINF:479,Orfeo - MIO BEL NIEME - Emmanuelle Haïm: Le Concert d'Astrée
/Volumes/Media/Music/Philippe Jaroussky/Carestini_ A Castrato's Story/11 Orfeo - MIO BEL NIEME.m4a

#EXTINF:268,Orlando (HWV 31) - GIÀ L'EBBRO MIO CIGLIO - James Bowman, Arleen Augér, Catherine Robbin, Emma Kirkby, David Thomas
/Volumes/Media/Music/Christopher Hogwood_ Academy Of Ancient Music/Orlando (HWV 31)/3-15 Orlando (HWV 31) - GIÀ L'EBBRO MIO CIGLIO.m4a

#EXTINF:314,Li Zite 'Ngalera - CHE BUO' CHE SPERA - Maria Ercolano, Emanuela Galli, Roberta Invernizzi, Giuseppe De Vittorio, Daniela Del Monaco, Rosario Totaro, Roberta Andalo, Giuseppe Naviglio, Pietro Naviglio, Maria Collina
/Volumes/Media/Music/Antonio Florio_ Cappella Della Pietà De' Turchini/Li Zite 'Ngalera/2-10 Li Zite 'Ngalera - CHE BUO' CHE SPERA.m4a

The first one listed ((479 Orfeo) is fine but the next two examples (268 Orlando and 314 Li Zite) do not carry over

Bearing in mind that I don't really know what I'm looking for, am I missing anything obvious?

Many thanks

[toolman]

I've studied the examples and to be honest I don't see why Subsonic would have problems playing the files.
I see the first line and think :
there's a folder: Media
Subfolder: Music
Subfolder: Philippe Jaroussky
Subfolder: Carestini_ A Castrato's Story
Track: 11 Orfeo - MIO BEL NIEME.m4a
Which plays fine according to you.
Than we have
Folder: Media
Subfolder: Music
Subfolder: Christopher Hogwood_ Academy Of Ancient Music
Subfolder: Orlando (HWV 31)
Track: 3-15 Orlando (HWV 31) - GIÀ L'EBBRO MIO CIGLIO.m4a
And this doesn't play.
Could it be that
Subfolder: Christopher Hogwood_ Academy Of Ancient Music
in reality is
Subfolder: Christopher Hogwood
Subfolder: Academy Of Ancient Music?
That would explain why this file isn't playing.

[billraff]

I just ran into a similar problem when importing playlists that had been exported from iTunes. The playlist had some songs that had accented characters that were being rejected. Once I renamed them and regenerated the playlist all songs imported fine. The subsonic.log showed the file names as:


[2016-11-13 08:45:12,535] WARN PlaylistService - File in playlist 'LosLobos.m3u8' not found: volume1/Music/Los Lobos/El Cancionero-Ma�s Y Ma�s/48 Angels With Dirty Faces.mp3
[2016-11-13 08:45:12,542] WARN PlaylistService - File in playlist 'LosLobos.m3u8' not found: volume1/Music/Los Lobos/El Cancionero-Ma�s Y Ma�s/64 When The Circus Comes.mp3

Try renaming one of the problem songs to not have the accent(s) and see if it goes through.

[toolman]

Could wll be the solution. I avoid having "strange" characters in folder- and filenames because that often leads to weird problems in all sorts of applications.

[deszath]

Hi Toolman & billraff

Many thanks for your very helpful comments. This seems to get stranger as I go along...having read your suggestion to remove any accents from tracks to be imported via the 3mu playlist, I amended a number of tracks and found that they imported into subsonic without any problem. However I then noticed that other tracks in the playlist appeared to have come over without any problem in spite of containing accent punctuation. This makes me think that a simple explanation of anything with accents not being imported isn't quite correct...

I was then thinking that I might just have to add some tracks manually to subsonic (if I didn't want to lose the accents) so I changed some tracks back to being accented in iTunes, as they were originally. When I re-imported that file I expected to find that the re-accented tracks would show as missing....but they don't....they have been imported complete with accents and they play without any trouble in subsonic

[toolman]

So it seems that there's really no way of saying why Subsonic is behaving so erratic.
Could be a database problem, because Subsonic stores all playlists in it's database.
Perhaps something didn't go quite right while importing the playlists.

[deszath]

Yes - it certainly is very strange.

But thank you so much for taking the time to help me with my problem...I'm very grateful

[toolman]

You're welcome. Perhaps a next time we will be able to help you better.

[billraff]

This probably was an issue with the encoding used at the time the file was tagged. Simply editing and re-saving could straighten them out. When I wonder why something like this is happening I do a simple test. Create a small playlist in Subsonic that has one or more of the problem songs. Then export that and compare what you see in that to what the subsonic.log sees when trying to import a playlist exported from iTunes. I always see some stray characters that are the root cause of the 'file not found' issue.

-billraff