Playlist entrys in an external player

[CharlySix]

Hello,

I use Subsonic V3.8 build 1130, and I have little issue, wich may eventually require a bugfix, or a brainfix for me if I have just been to stupid to find the correct solution.

Usually, I pick some albums using the Subsonic web interface, and add them to the playlist using the external player with playlist. If all works properly, I can close the browser window once the playback starts.
In the beginning, before the stream starts, the playlist entrys look quite normal, e.g. "AC/DC - T.N.T.". But as soon as the stream starts, it shows only things like "stream?player=2&pathUtf8Hex=453a5c636861726c79365c4d7573696b5c414344435c5f646976657273655c313130382d616364635f2d5f68656c6c5f6f725f686967685f77617465722d7374612e6d7033&suffix=.mp3" - and it won't set back when playing the next item in the playlist.
Maybe its a minor bug, but its quite a bit annoying anyways. Is the "Stream-Name" set by Subsonic, wich generates the stream? Would it be possible to set it to the ID3-Tag infos such as "Artist - Title" or something like that?

Thank you for answering,
CharlySix

[CharlySix]

No idea about this? Nobody?

[snowlizard]

I'm on 4.1 and this is still happening.

This behavior doesn't happen on a playlist with FLAC content though, with no transcoding active. In other words, I'm streaming the FLAC directly to an external player (AIMP2 2.61 build 583).

I would expect the same behavior for MP3 files sent to the external player, but I'm seeing the same thing CharlySix is seeing.

[GJ51]

I just did some testing on my site which uses ver 4.2. Using WMP as the external player, I had some issues until I unchecked the transcodes in the player definition that WMP could play natively. e.g. After defining an external player, all the transcoding options were cheched for the player. Unchecking wma>mp3 and wmv>mp3 alowed tracks in those formats to just play in native format on the external player. m4a's only show "stream" for the name, wma's show the title of the track once they play.

Behaviors may change depending on what external player you use, and what codecs you have installed for that player. You might also want to check file associations set for the default player.

[snowlizard]

Thanks GJ51.

I updated to 4.2 yesterday and the problem is still present.

To be clear, these are MP3 files in the playlist - there is no transcoding going on with these files. OP's post also shows he's trying to play an MP3 file.

I'm not trying to play anything other than MP3's. I tested FLAC and it works as expected - the title doesn't get converted to a stream name once it starts playing, which is what one would expect for a format as ubiquitous as MP3s.

What's also interesting is that if I look at the playlist file downloaded before it starts playing, everything in the playlist looks correct. Once the track is played though, the playlist's track title gets changed, from the human readable name before, into a stream name (a long string of characters).

[GJ51]

Sounds like your mp3 files might be corrupted, or your external player has issues. There are other posts in the forum regarding problems that were fixed by using a utility to clean up mp3 file problems. I'll post a link if I find it again.

[snowlizard]

MP3 files corrupted - I've tested with multiple sets of files. Everything is tagged and plays fine, but I'll keep trying with various files.

External player issues - haven't had any problems with AIMP2 playing MP3s. But I'll try other players.

Thanks Gary.

[GJ51]

I was using just good ol' WMP with the klite codec pack.

[snowlizard]

Happy New Year..

Just to follow up.. I tried out a few different external players with the playlist. Some players will show the stream name, others will show the intelligible/readable name. Guess it depends on which player you're using.

[cwalger]

I really really like the "External player with playlist" option but am having the same troubles. Even when players do parse the m3u files properly, only some song data is available, and there can be problems with it when the artist or title has a hyphen in it. The ideal solution would be to upgrade from the m3u format and use a more capable format. XSPF could be a good choice - it's open, can contain more information about the songs, and is recognized by many popular media players. Sindre, do you think there's enough user interest to put any effort into changing the playlist format (or adding another and leaving m3u as an option)?

[BKKKPewsey]

When you save a playlist in SS you can specify m3u, pls or xspf

[cwalger]

Thanks BKKKPewsey,

Interesting - I don't save playlists so I haven't seen that until now. I don't think it is possible though to select a different format when playing with an external player (instead of playing with the player built in to the Subsonic webpage). But since Sindre's already implemented the XSPF format, it would probably be pretty straightforward to add it as an 'external player' option.

[Galaedriel]

I am using WMP as an external player.
What I don'g get is why doesn't Subsonic just tell WMP to open that specific m3u playlist. Because using as an external player shouldn't it just give WMP control over playlist?