Persistant Bug with M3U Playlists.

[mgillespie]

I have a problem, in both sonictage AND connect, where importing a M3U playlist creates duplicate entries in my library, instead of refrerencing the already existing track.

I can't believe other people are not suffering this problem. Anyone have any idea what the problem is? See thumbnails below, which shows the duplicates.

The biggest problem, is that one of my plalist has over 300 tracks, scattered across all my albums, deleting the playlist does not remove the duplicates, I have to completely erase my library and re-import, as finding all the duplcates is almost impossible. If I have transferred the duplicates to my NW-A walkan, I have to re-format to get rid of the duplicate tracks...

HELP....

[Ascariss]

I've never had this problem, ever, have you tried looking for the file on your pc and checking to see if its duplicated elsewhere?

[mgillespie]

I have come up with a very simple way of demonstrating this bug. I am confident it can be reproduced in both Connect 1.04 and SonicStage 3.4

1/ Download the attached ZIP file, it's got 3x blank MP3's with ID3 tag info (so as not to infringe any copyright).

2/ Extract it somewhere with the folder structure intact.

3/ You should have 2 directories (Playlists and Test with a Test subfolder)

3/ Open Connect or SonicStage and drop in the 3 Test.Mp3 tracks, obverserve the 3 tracks in the library (Artist Test, Album Test).

4/ Import the M3U file in the playlist folder, which references these 3 MP3, and then look at your library again

You should now have 6 tracks, 3 the original tracks, plus the 3 M3U tracks, whic reference the exact same tracks!!

Please can someone confirm this is also a problem at their end, as it's driving me nuts, and it means I cannot use Playlists on my NWA-3000, and without being able to reproduce it, Sony will unlkely ever fix it.

Thanks...

[Ascariss]

There is something wrong with that playlist, and its not the mp3s.

I did what you told me and did get 3 more duplicate files from the playlist I imported. I removed them, and deleted the playlist again.

I went forth and added the mp3 files to winamp and saved over your playlist and reimported that playlist, no duplicate files appear then on my pc.

Of all the playlists I import, I never have gotten a duplicate, so again not sure why thsi is happening, a bug? perhaps, but unlikely, only happened with your playlist and files, and then corrected quickly right after.

there is no need to re-format the player you can delete individual tracks on the player no problems, I do it in CP all the time. As well try this, save the m3u file into one of the test subdirectories, not a seperate directory, see what happens then.

example

Root directory --> test folder 1 (save the playlist in this folder 1) -->directory --> test folder 2 (mp3s in here)

[mgillespie]

  Ascariss said:

There is something wrong with that playlist, and its not the mp3s.

I did what you told me and did get 3 more duplicate files from the playlist I imported. I removed them, and deleted the playlist again.

I went forth and added the mp3 files to winamp and saved over your playlist and reimported that playlist, no duplicate files appear then on my pc.

Looked at how Winamp writes it's M3U files, and it works differently, in that it uses absolute paths. Most other programs use relative paths. I have to use relative paths, as it's not just my NW-A3000 that uses these playlists, and they may appear in a different drive letter, hence the relative path information

  Quote

Of all the playlists I import, I never have gotten a duplicate, so again not sure why thsi is happening, a bug? perhaps, but unlikely, only happened with your playlist and files, and then corrected quickly right after.

I am convinced this is a bug, as no other software I own has any problem with these M3U playlists, the only software that fails, is Connect and SonicStage. (latest versions).

  Quote

there is no need to re-format the player you can delete individual tracks on the player no problems, I do it in CP all the time.

Not so easy, this playlist has 300 tracks scattered across about 600 albums, in my library of 1000 albums. Would take me weeks to locate an delete every single duplicate entry. Emptying my library, and starting again is the only solution, along with another 12 hour marathon download of ArtistLink information.

  Quote

As well try this, save the m3u file into one of the test subdirectories, not a seperate directory, see what happens then. example

Root directory --> test folder 1 (save the playlist in this folder 1) -->directory --> test folder 2 (mp3s in here)

No use to me, my playlists are not from a single artist, they are from many artists. My music is structured on disk like this:

MUSIC/ARTIST/ALBUM

MUSIC/PLAYLISTS

hence the ../ in the M3U playlists.

I really need this buy fixing, how can I report it to Sony? Anyone know???

I can conclude that absolute paths ALWAYS work in M3U files (not suprising), but relative paths ONLY work, if they are at the same level or higher that the music.

Connect and SonicStage fail to understand the /../ in the playlist, which is valid notation for navigating up a directory level. This causes the duplicates.

Sony, if your reading, please fix your M3U parser you are using in Connect and SonicStage...

Edited May 1, 2006 by mgillespie

[Ascariss]

Artist link. the stupidest gimmick sony introduced in my opinion.

You are aware you can order the songs by album? album artist? by clicking at the top both for the library and as well the playlists?

other than that you are on your own, sorry.