Subsonic Forum

I'm having the exact same problem as listed here
http://forum.subsonic.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5387
but I think I have a much better idea as to why.

The root of the issue is that on the Android app, any media files in the root of the media folder don't show up. Only child folders show. This is also not specific to Videos, but also happens with music files.

eg.
In the "Music Folders" Setting, I have the following
Music - /home/htpc/media/audio/Music
Movies - /home/htpc/media/video/Movies

My Music files are all in <artist>/<album> folders.
But, my Movies are mostly in the root folder, with a few child folders.

Browsing my media with the web interface on my PC shows everything just fine. All my music and all my videos. Mind you, it's a bit odd, because when I select my "Movies" folder, all of the videos in the root of that folder show in the left frame, with no way to list them in the center frame.

But, the Android app will not show any music or video files in the root folder.

I think however, it's not an issue with the android app, but instead an issue with the output from the REST call in combination with the Android app. I'm assuming the Android App makes use of the /rest/ api.

Using my web-browser, using the "getIndexes.view" rest call on my "Movies" folder, it shows only the child directories, and none of the root videos. Same thing happens in my music folder if I put a m4a at it's root.

As a result, there does not appear to be any way to call
/rest/getMusicDirectory.view
to list the contents of root Movies folder.

In short, the only way to play/view media files on the Android App is if they are at least 1 directory level down from the listed media root folder.

My Setup:
Subsonic Server: 4.4 (build 2169) – February 6, 2011
Gentoo Linux 2.6.36 (32bit)
java 1.6.0_23

Android:
HTC Aria (CyanogenMod7 Nightly Build 21)
Subsonic App: v2.6

Cheers
Shane

Sooooooooo anything?
Is this a known issue? Is it unfixable? It it being looked at? Am I nutz? Anything?

Without debating the merits of the individual details as to why each user has their own particular need to overcomplexify things, I've found that a simple file structure works the best. e.g. X:\Music\Artist\Album\tracks Keep in mind that on Windows there is a 255 character limit for the complete path/filename.

YMMV

While it works awesome for music, and my music file structure is clean enough that this issue doesn't affect it, it does affect my video collection.

<note, I'm on a linux box>
/mnt/md3/media/Music/artist/album/trackXX.m4a
/mnt/md3/media/video/Movies/Avatar.mkv

The above "video" directory also contains a whole bunch of video related material that I have no desire to be visible in Subsonic, if only because I won't want to clutter up subsonic with extra media I'll never use it for.

I have the the above file system setup in Subsonic folders as:
Music -> /mnt/media/music
Movies -> /mnt/media/video/Movies

I don't want to have to point Subsonic to
Videos -> /mnt/media/video
Just so I can see my Movies folder, because it pulls in the rest of the content under video too.

I hope you understand the the issue. It just doesn't make much sense to me that the root folder setup in the Subsonic folders can't contain any media files. That no matter what, you must be at least one directory deep first.

My workaround was to use symlinks in a totally seperate location. It works, but it's a hack, and rather unclean IMO. I'd prefer to be able to just access the files directly. Especially because the subsonic generated M3U files are compatible with my XBMC instance when using the actual files. But the sym-links files don't work. Or rather, they require changes to my XBMC install that I don't want to do.

If this is by design, fair enough... perhaps some form of documentation to explain this. If it's a bug, that's the reason for this thread.

This issue is REALLY annoying.
You are forced to add a empty parent folder for every hosted folder in order to see the files in the hosted folder.

Someone could you please fix this bug? Its really easy as this chap found the root cause. May I please fix it? Its the only bug in subsonic I have that drives me crazy.... I did pay for this app ya know...


Also, while a great service that adds value, my subsonic DNS djfuq.subsonic.org doesn't work for me, but I resolved it using a external dns provider. I wish that djfuq.subsonic.org worked though... not a showstopper for me. It is however a showstopper to have to nest a Videos folder within the existing Videos folder, such as /foo/Videos/Videos OR share a root directory /foo that shouldnt be shared in order to see the files in /foo/Videos. it could have within it /foo/taxes or /foo/nakedladies which is not smart to share.

So if your music is in folder /foo/typical_skeluser/Music with the files crappybarband.mp3 and blackfancyrap.mpg and folder "Joes's Stupid Band" and your sharing it via subsonic the only thing you can see or use on your android device is "Joes Stupid Band" and its files in /foo/typical_skeluser/Music/Joe's Stupid Band/* .

Now if your a Windows user, the same applies, but now your going to have to use Junctions (hard links sortas) and shift your media one directory up.. then show the OS that Music is in C:\Users\User\Music\Music == you break the Windows and Linux user Music folder structure and make a kludge for subsonic.

This type of bug is only passable for the type of user who has all their Videos and Music in a structure like this:
/Media (a empty container with other folders - or instead of calling this folder Media I bet a dollar they call it something lame the developers would love --- Subsonic )
So this empty of files /Media folder has a "root" Videos and a "root" Music folder in it and within there are perfectly organized songs into all their individual folders.

A more powerful user may opt to pay for their OS, or pirate it since it will be more secure anyways, and opt out of the whole mounting of volumes or editing fstab or configuring a LDAP to be without TLS so passwords are sent in cleartext or sharing files via a security joke like NFS that anyone can SU from root to anyone else and access anything. This user may purchase an entire hard drive for music and that would be the root folder. May even assign it a custom drive letter such as M:\ and may not care a whit about making pretty nested folders with cutsy categories or band names. This application wont work for this type of user either.

Reason this annoys me so much? Im using subsonic to host 4 folders from 4 machines (3 via SMB/CIFS).. u think I want to change every setting in all my other apps to conform to the C:\Users\User\Video\Video standard? Oh man. You think I want to mount my Music drives as \\localhost\music\music? Haha.
Fix it please. Its obviously not the way anyone wants it to work.


BTW I love creative writing and being all **** about **** - I get a rise from my own writing! CHEERS! lol

djfuq wrote:Someone could you please fix this bug? Its really easy as this chap found the root cause. May I please fix it? Its the only bug in subsonic I have that drives me crazy....

Absolutely. Go ahead and fix it.

djfuq wrote:I did pay for this app ya know...

Sorry, but just because you paid for it doesn't mean you can demand features. Try that line with Microsoft... "I need automatic subscripting in Word when typing Chemical Formulas... after all, I did pay for the app..."

djfuq wrote:Also, while a great service that adds value, my subsonic DNS djfuq.subsonic.org doesn't work for me, but I resolved it using a external dns provider. I wish that djfuq.subsonic.org worked though... not a showstopper for me.

The subsonic redirect service was down... it is back up now.

If you have all of your media files in one root folder, you either don't have many files or don't care to have them sorted in any kind of coherent manner... I can't imagine what I'd do with a collection my size all in one root folder... actually, I don't think there is a file system that would TAKE all of them in one folder...

Personally, I have my videos in genre subfolders inside the video folder (ie, \Videos\Action) and my music inside Artist subfolders in my music share (ie, \Music\Phish) and I share the root Videos or Music folder.

While I agree that it is silly that the android app cannot see files in the root of a shared folder, it is easily mitigated by simple sorting, or feel free to fix it yourself and use a custom apk on your android devices. Or submit a feature request to the feature request forum and Sindre can put it on his to-do list (if it isn't there already, which would surprise me).

Hope this helps,

Glenn

PS, I removed the ethnic slang and swear from your "BTW" line... we try to keep these forums clean and family friendly.

Thank you Glenn - you saved me the dubious pleasure of replying to that post

bushman4 wrote:

djfuq wrote:Someone could you please fix this bug? Its really easy as this chap found the root cause. May I please fix it? Its the only bug in subsonic I have that drives me crazy....

Absolutely. Go ahead and fix it.

Source is where? What component is responsible for this? Is it the android app, or is it an issue with how the server sends content to the app? Send some breadcrumbs and I'll be happy to give it a shot.

Sorry, but just because you paid for it doesn't mean you can demand features. Try that line with Microsoft... "I need automatic subscripting in Word when typing Chemical Formulas... after all, I did pay for the app..."

Love the slashdotesque bashing of microsoft. way off topic. Yes your right.

The subsonic redirect service was down... it is back up now.

Thanks!

If you have all of your media files in one root folder, you either don't have many files or don't care to have them sorted in any kind of coherent manner... I can't imagine what I'd do with a collection my size all in one root folder... actually, I don't think there is a file system that would TAKE all of them in one folder...

Personally, I have my videos in genre subfolders inside the video folder (ie, \Videos\Action) and my music inside Artist subfolders in my music share (ie, \Music\Phish) and I share the root Videos or Music folder.

Dont fool yourself into thinking your way of organizing your file system is the best way. I have over 7 TB of music and videos and I have it based on root folders and categorized how I like it, and subsonic is the only application suggesting I change everything to work around this BUG.

While I agree that it is silly that the android app cannot see files in the root of a shared folder, it is easily mitigated by simple sorting, or feel free to fix it yourself and use a custom apk on your android devices. Or submit a feature request to the feature request forum and Sindre can put it on his to-do list (if it isn't there already, which would surprise me).

Glenn, I appreciate that you think the sorting on my end is simple. It isn't, and in fact would take much more time than fixing this bug as you have to think of how many people using this app will waste their time REsorting their crap to work around this easily fixed flaw that has been on these forums for over a year.

PS, I removed the ethnic slang and swear from your "BTW" line... we try to keep these forums clean and family friendly.

I'm not interested in living in a world of censorship, and neither should anyone else be.

On the contrary, I rather appreciate that there are still a few places left where a rational moderator does a good job of keeping the discourse on a civil level.

All too rare these days.

Bumping because I want to know if this has been fixed. If it has, what do I need to do in order to see files in the root directory?