Huge playlist problem!

[markyyy999]

Hi guys, I have a huge huge playlist problem on my winamp!
I've been stacking up songs for over 2 years now and I added them on my playlists regularly but I only once saved my playlist. And that was a year ago, since then I added a lot of songs to my playlist.
So I've upgraded to Windows 8 (which is awesome btw) and I turned on Winamp and all of my playlists are gone. So I found them in the appdata/roaming folder but I only found the playlists that I saved over a year ago!!!
When I play them my songs are missing! Not all of them ofc but just the one's that I added a year after.

So my question is, how does Winamp save the songs on may playlist automatically? Is there a cache folder or something?

Please can somebody help me, I don't wan't to spend an eternity rearranging my music collection ((((

[DrO]

i have to assume you're referring to the main playlist editor window. if so then %appdata%\Winamp\Winamp.m3u or %appdata%\Winamp\Winamp.m3u8 (this is the preferred file) will be the saved copy of what is in the main playlist editor window between Winamp sessions.

and as a note, unless the drive and folder paths are the same from your prior OS to the new one, the playlist won't work since it's just a plain text file and there's no auto-magic way it'll update broken entries for you - there are tools which do it but i don't remember their names - will leave that for someone else if they also want to reply. otherwise you have to look at doing search+replace of text in the file to correct folder paths.

-daz

[markyyy999]

Hi there, thanks for the reply.
My problem is that I have 5 playlists and they are all saved, but only until a year ago.
Now when I open them they stop on the last song I added, but nothing since then.
So I've lost half of my playlist that I didn't actually save. But just a few days ago when I had Windows 7 it played all of my songs.

So is there a way to get that cache from winamp or something like that?

I opened the file you gave me but that just opened a random playlist...

[markyyy999]

You can see here that this playlist is and year old.

[DrO]

where did you save them? were they in the media library? if so then you need to go into the Plugins\ml folder and copy back any playlist files as well as playlists.xml from that folder into the new one.

if you did it outside of Winamp then you'd just have to search the whole machine and base things on the last modified date. otherwise that covers the 2 places that Winamp natively saves things - if you did save it manually then that would not have been tracked and/or internally backed up.

-daz

[markyyy999]

The problem is that I only saved them once manually, and that was a year ago.
But since then I've added songs to my playlist and played all of them.
And I did found them in the ML folder but the date modified is a year ago.
So that sucks now
Is there a way that Winamp automatically saves them to a certain place or something like that?

[Aminifu]

Hi markyyy999,

The current version of Winamp is not completely compatible with Windows 8. The policy of Winamp developers is to wait for the final release of a new version of Windows before making any required compatibility changes. That work is currently in progress.

You should always make a backup of stuff you don't want to risk losing before doing something major like an operating system upgrade. Backups should be done at reasonable intervals anyway, a computer can break down at any time. Sorry you had to learn that the hard way.

As DrO said, Winamp keeps 2 copies of the active playlist from session to session, so that folder in the screen print you posted must not be the one Winamp was using a few days ago. If it was, then the dates of those playlists would be from a few days ago, not a year ago.

Are you running Winamp under a different profile (user name) than what's indicated in your screen print? You have not provided a configuration report (One for Nunz) of your current installation, so we can not help you find where Winamp is storing it's current setup and playlist data. You should have read the sticky, "FAQ: Troubleshooters - Info Required When Posting - Read This First - Do NOT Ignore !".

Bottom line, since you have run Winamp after the Windows 8 upgrade, then the active playlist from the last time you ran it under Windows 7 has probably been overwritten and whatever was in it has been lost.

In the future, you can use a plug-in that DrO wrote that saves additional copies of the active playlist, so you can recover from accidental or intentional changes. Link below.

http://nunzioweb.com/daz/plu.html

[markyyy999]

Yes I get you perfectly. My Winamp was installed on my second disc (E) and that's where my screenshot was taken as you can see.
I also had the Undo program installed as you can also see here.

And how can I send my install log file? Sorry I didn't read the FAQ

[Aminifu]

Originally Posted by markyyy999

Yes I get you perfectly.(

Maybe you don't. That screen print still shows files that are over a year old. Look for the same folder on your other drives (C:, D:, etc). The current files from a few days ago must be somewhere, unless the installation of Windows 8 somehow deleted them.

Did you install Winamp for shared settings or separate settings?

You should be able to use the "Reply" button to attach a zipped copy of your full One for Nunz report. Look in the area below where you type your message for the attach files section and the "Manage Attachments" button.

Instructions from the sticky:

"Also confirm whether you are setting up Winamp 5.63 (the only supported version) on an administrator account, or on a limited user profile. And, as from v5.2, whether you selected "shared settings for all users" or "separate settings per user" in the Multi-User Settings screen of the installer options {Update: 5.5x relevant info here}


Use your initiative, and try your best to supply us with all information (as referenced above) that you feel to be relevant to your specific case. The more info you provide, the better chance you have of getting a speedier accurate reply.

Excluding this information may result in you being ignored.

____________________________________________________________


Instructions for attaching the HijackThis and/or dxdiag log(s) to your post:

Attach the log and don't post it directly into the thread, else it may break tables.

Start HijackThis.exe, click "Do a system scan and save a log file", change the extension from .log to .txt (ie. save it as hijackthis.txt, not hijackthis.log) and attach the log to your post via the "Post a Reply" button in your thread (or via "Post a New Topic" if starting a brand new thread for a new topic)."

[markyyy999]

Here's the log file.
As you can see it's saved on my other disk, and it shouldn't be affected by the Windows 8 upgrade.
When I installed Windows 8 Winamp crashed on start, then I just removed the Crossfade plugin and it worked fine, but without any playlist in winamp.
Then i scooped up the old playlists that I found.
I've searched:
E:\Users\Marko\AppData\Roaming\Winamp
E:\Users\Marko\AppData\Roaming\Winamp\Plugins\gen_undo
E:\Users\Marko\AppData\Roaming\Winamp\Plugins\ml

and there were only those year old Playlists, nothing from this year or even close to this date.
I've also found some playlists in the document folder on C disk, but only one that I saved a few days ago.
All of the other playlists are a year old.

I don't get it, how can it play these songs if it doesn't play it from some cache folder? Or something similar?

P.S. I just wan't to say thanks a lot for helping me out here. I've been so depressed that I lost 50 % of my playlists songs

[MrSinatra]

have you tried a search of the whole hard disk using a wildcard and making sure hidden and system files are included? something like:

all hard drives, *.pls

?

[markyyy999]

Originally Posted by MrSinatra

have you tried a search of the whole hard disk using a wildcard and making sure hidden and system files are included? something like:

all hard drives, *.pls

?

Yes I did, only found the recent one that I made (25.11), but it should have found playlist at around the date 20.11.
But nothing

[Aminifu]

Originally Posted by markyyy999

Here's the log file.
As you can see it's saved on my other disk, and it shouldn't be affected by the Windows 8 upgrade.

No, I don't see. You did not make the attachment correctly. You have not answered any of DrO's or my direct questions. You are just repeating the same information. I don't know what else I can do to try to help you.

Originally Posted by markyyy999

When I installed Windows 8 Winamp crashed on start, then I just removed the Crossfade plugin and it worked fine, but without any playlist in winamp.
Then i scooped up the old playlists that I found.
I've searched:
E:\Users\Marko\AppData\Roaming\Winamp
E:\Users\Marko\AppData\Roaming\Winamp\Plugins\gen_undo
E:\Users\Marko\AppData\Roaming\Winamp\Plugins\ml

and there were only those year old Playlists, nothing from this year or even close to this date.
I've also found some playlists in the document folder on C disk, but only one that I saved a few days ago.
All of the other playlists are a year old.

The active playlists are not the only files that Winamp writes to the hard drive every time you shut it down. Those files have to be somewhere. The 1st line in the One for Nunz report that begins with "Winamp.ini path is:" should list the folder that is being used to store the majority of these files. Did you install the One for Nunz plug-in (link below) and run the report?

http://nunzioweb.com/daz/14nunz.html

Originally Posted by markyyy999

I don't get it, how can it play these songs if it doesn't play it from some cache folder? Or something similar?

P.S. I just wan't to say thanks a lot for helping me out here. I've been so depressed that I lost 50 % of my playlists songs

Winamp does not play songs from a cache folder. Whatever folder or folders you download songs to and whatever folder or folders you put songs in when you rip them from CDs are where the songs are. Unlike iTunes, Winamp does not move song files around. A playlist is just a text file that lists the names of the song files and the folders that they are in (open one in notepad to see). Winamp then uses this info to find and play the songs listed.

You have not lost your songs (unless they were deleted), you just lost, or can't find, the playlist that lists where they are.

[markyyy999]

Sorry about that, probably didn't click the upload button.
There are 2 files that you asked.

So, when I go to the Winamp.ini file there are a few playlists but only, and just only a year back.
Then, I searched *.m3u on my Computer and found year old playlists.
I know that my songs are not deleted, but on my playlists half of them are gone, and I can't find any recent playlists that Winamp automatically saves.
Even in the undo folder are a year old playlists files.

Can you get anything from the attachments?

P.S. It would be awesome if Winamp had an online snyc storage, so you would just log in and get all the plugins and playlists that you had

[Aminifu]

Hi markyyy999,

The HiJackThis.log is not needed for this problem. Sorry if that was not understood.

Anyway, the main problem is that the current version of Winamp is not fully compatible with Windows 8. According to your One for Nunz report Winamp is trying to use a restricted folder (Winamp.ini path is: E:\Program Files (x86)\Winamp\Winamp.ini) for saving playlists and other data, so nothing is being saved.

Bottom line, that playlist you had before you upgraded to Windows 8 is gone. Any playlists you make now will not be automatically saved when you close Winamp. You can try reinstalling Winamp over your current installation, then the proper user data folder may be selected. If you do a reinstall, rerun the One for Nunz report afterwards and check if the Winamp.ini path is: E:\Users\Marko\AppData\Roaming\Winamp. If it is, then the active playlist going forward will be automatically saved.

Also you will have to use the Windows 8 Default Programs utility to associate your song file types with Winamp. The association code in the current version of Winamp does not work correctly with Windows 8.

If reinstalling does not cause the proper data folders to be used, then there are other ways to force this. But I suggest you wait for a fully compatible Winamp version.

[markyyy999]

Ok I will rather wait the for the proper release.

I just have to says thank you again and again for being so supportive
At least now I have learned my lesson and I will save more often.

Thanks to everyone who helped <3

[Aminifu]

Originally Posted by markyyy999

P.S. It would be awesome if Winamp had an online snyc storage, so you would just log in and get all the plugins and playlists that you had

There is a Winamp Backup Tool for saving data (media library database, playlists, etc). But it is probably not compatible with Windows 8 yet either.

EDIT:

Another user reports that version 5.56 seems to work with Windows 8.

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=350732

[MrSinatra]

u did *.m3u but did u do *.m3u8 and *.pls?

maybe some other ones?

i would suggest using real playlist files as opposed to just "scratch" playlists, or better yet get your tags straight so you can create custom smartviews that give you result sets based on criteria queries as opposed to static playlists.