Playlist "repair" automation

[Krinter]

This button would be a big help and timesaver:
"Update paths of dead playlist files"

Whenever I try to tidy up my music folders or filenames, I have to manually relocate an reassign the now missing entries in my playlists. I know of course it's because the path have changed, but if I haven't changed metadata and since I'm using said metadata to relocate music - Couldn't you just as easy have this process automated?

To have a search engine to locate missing entries, come up with possible matches or even simply just rebuild by itself if the match is dead on? ...or a an option to adjust the level of autonomy for this "bot"?

Do you catch my drift? or am I rambling?

Sometimes it has been a case of a simple drive letter change, but everything else is the same. But this simple change hase given me hours of work.

[rjc862003]

yea I like it would be very useful I am always resorting my music and its HUGE pain to need to remake my play list every time I do it

[jtbse]

A forum member has recently posted an open-source java utility to do exactly what you're asking. Not really a Winamp plugin per se, but current version is working pretty well. You might want to check it out here "http://listfix.sourceforge.net/"

[Krinter]

Interesting... a little scary but interesting
Thanks

I still would like it integrated in the program though

[Krinter]

hmm... my firewall and other security apps. freaked out when I tried to get the application. I find the site a little conspicous.

My wish remains.

[jtbse]

Well..

It's just a SourceForge hosted site and the download is the standard SourceForge download pages.

So I guess your security software is just averse to open source?

Good luck with your wish...I've seen the same request many times over the last 5 years or so.

[Krinter]

I'll give at second chance.
If they were to implement the feature in Pro I would buy it.

[Patrix87]

for now there is a software that do most of the job if you had moved some folder but it doesn't work well with renamed files :

"www.softpedia.com/progDownload/DioneSS-Playlist-Editor-Download-95820.html"

[ujay]

If that program does half of what it claims, then there doesn't really seem to be a need

A playlist format with content resolution has been talked about, it's main purpose being to create shareable playlists between machines with roughly identical Media Libraries.
This should also give it the potential to rebuild file locations, although strictly speaking this would not be necessary. (provided the ML is repopulated)

As to when, or even if, this is ever developed, then your guess is as good as mine.

UJ

[Ikarus7]

i need the repair function, also.
DioneSS-Playlist-Editor is not bad, but I have about 200 playlists and i am not willing to load, search and save every single playlist file.
I need something like a batch repair for m3u files.
Is there anyone who knows a program or plugin for that ?
This cannot be too hard to program.

[ujay]

Reading XSPF playlists is now available, see here :

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread....55#post2487755

A stand alone converter between m3u and xspf would seem to be almost trivial, if you can find someone to code it for you.

UJ

[Ikarus7]

so now the winamp library saves as .m3u8
All the repair programs do not work with that.
What do we do now ?

[DrO]

winamp has been using m3u8 for almost 2 years now and is just the same as an m3u file but the data is saved with utf8 encoding so it's not that much of a 'change' for other programs to support. or are we meant to be penalising those people who want to use valid unicode named files??

-daz

[ujay]

Originally posted by ujay
... A stand alone converter between m3u and xspf would seem to be almost trivial, if you can find someone to code it for you.

UJ

Any chance daz? or is a 'Save to .xspf' in the planning.

UJ

[Ikarus7]

@All :
Look for the tool
"listfix()".
It does a really good job.
Ikarus

[firewyre]

Hi, I'm the author of listFix() and I happened to come across this thread. Thought I'd let you know that I just released version 1.5.3 with much improved UTF-8/M3U8 support and batch repairing of playlists. You can find out more about it at http://listfix.no-ip.com or http://sourceforge.net/projects/listfix/. If you do try it out, please let me know what you think - all suggestions and bug fix requests are appreciated!

[firewyre]

hmm... my firewall and other security apps. freaked out when I tried to get the application. I find the site a little conspicous. My wish remains.

Krinter - my program is a standard jar (java) file and my website is nothing other than basic HTML and CSS. What security software are you using? Maybe its just blocking the java updater from dialing home to Sun?? Either way, I challenge anyone to find anything malicious in my code, in fact you can read all of it at http://listfix.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/listfix/ (as it's open source). Sorry if my site was too simple for you, but I'd rather spend the time coding than making a crazy website.

FWIW, listFix() has been a hobby of mine for some time... I've been developing it on and off since 2001. Anyway, I hope you give my application a second chance, as your wish may already be answered, and that you will be less hasty to judge the work of others in the future.

[lanfear]

Yes, a built-in feature to "Rescan playlist" would be great!

Almost all of my old playlists are "dead" since files get moved around now and again. Rescanning and fixing playlists would be awesome.

[ujay]

In future you should save your playlists as XSPF.

As implemented in Winamp this is a locationless playlist format that relies entirely on what tracks you have in your Media Library, not where they are stored.

XSPF support can be added via the following post :

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread....55#post2487755

Current implementation is very slow loading, so you may be waiting around a bit if you have a large playlist and/or a large media library.
There is an upcoming release that addresses this, hopefully it will be available soon. I've found it to be up to 20 times faster.

The only drawback to doing this is that Winamp cannot save playlists in xspf format (yet??), you will need to use something like foobar to do this, (Seems fair enough, foobar users will need to use something like Winamp for content resolution). Or you may like to try the utility below.

Playlist regeneration is really just a side benefit of XSPF, the main use being the creation of shareable playlists i.e. something that can be sent to a friend and still work(always provided they have the tracks in their Media Library)

Regarding old M3U and M3U8 playlists.
=====================================

While looking into this I've made a small utility that will take an M3U8 and convert to XSPF, giving you the original playlist in XSPF locationless form.
There are some limitations depending on the specific formatting in the M3U8, and might not work with all files. Not creating the <location> tag may help here.

Should do what you want, though it was originally written so as not to have to resort to some other player to create the playlists.

WARNING - It's the only program I've ever written for a Windows machine, and only ever been tested on a single XP box, so only give it a go if you think you're hard enough

http://stashbox.org/591538/Convert%2...20v2.0.1.1.zip

I could probably add support for M3U and PLS if there's any interest.

UJ

[lanfear]

Any chance of getting the "Update dead links in Playlist" function?

The Winamp team is not very responsive these days, it seems.

[boarderparadise]

Originally Posted by lanfear

Yes, a built-in feature to "Rescan playlist" would be great!

Almost all of my old playlists are "dead" since files get moved around now and again. Rescanning and fixing playlists would be awesome.

Originally Posted by lanfear

Any chance of getting the "Update dead links in Playlist" function?

The Winamp team is not very responsive these days, it seems.

Originally Posted by Krinter

I still would like it integrated in the program though

+1 from me

[boarderparadise]

Originally Posted by ujay

In future you should save your playlists as XSPF.

As implemented in Winamp this is a locationless playlist format that relies entirely on what tracks you have in your Media Library, not where they are stored.

Can you reference your claim, ujay?

The xspf.org webpage shows that the .xspf files are structured as followed:

Originally Posted by xspf.org

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<playlist version="1" xmlns="http://xspf.org/ns/0/">
<trackList>
<track><location>file:///mp3s/song_1.mp3</location></track>
<track><location>file:///mp3s/song_2.mp3</location></track>
<track><location>file:///mp3s/song_3.mp3</location></track>
</trackList>
</playlist>

See, there is a specific location (which can get broken) for your audio file.

Can you post an example of this "locationless form" ?

[ujay]

Hi boarderparadise,

Almost all playlists depend entirely on the location of the media resource for their info e.g. local files, network files, online files, online streaming(broadcasts) etc. There may be other information in the playlist, but this is usually for display purposes and plays no part in identifying the file.

The big difference with XSPF is that while it can be used in a purely location dependent form(the example you have given above), it is also possible to add additional fields in the playlist and use then for identification purposes as well. In our case we are interested in the <creator> and <title> fields. A typical entry would be :

<track>
<location>J:\Music S-T\The Incredible String Band\The Incredible String Band - 5000 Spirits Or The Layers Of The Onion [1967]/04 - The Mad Hatter's Song.Mp3</location>
<creator>The Incredible String Band</creator>
<title>Mad Hatters Song</title>
</track>

If the loader cannot find the location(or it is absent) it will perform a 'fuzzy' search and use what other information there is to try and find the track in your Media Library.

The result is that provided you have the track in your ML it will still be found, regardless of broken <location> tags.

The generator utility given above still needs some working, if you want to try it, it's probably best to use locationless entries at the momment.

I'll try and put together something a bit more complete when I have more time.

UJ

[DrO]

i'll just chip in that a lot of people's playlist issues would be resolved if they save playlists relative to the files ie in the same or parent folder of the file. yes changing filenames will break things but generally as long as the folder structure is maintained and the relative playlist moved with the files then things should work. that's how i've dealt with moving my files and folders around over the years without any major breakage of things. it's only the 'master' playlist that needs then to be rebuilt and that's easy when there's a few relative playlists to re-add togther.

the other things is that maybe playlists are for people moving files around all of the time...?

-daz

[ujay]

Thanks for that daz.

The main purpose of XSPF is to provide playlists in a form that can be shared with other people on totally different machines. Provided the tracks exist in the other users Media Library they will be found, regardless of the file locations. Relative paths would not be any help here of course.

Playlist regeneration is really a side benefit of this ability, and probably involves too much preparation and maintenance for many people to bother with it. To be fully effective you will need to synchronise XSPF, Media library and tag info.

Ironically, I don't use playlists at all and only got interested in it as a method of stress testing the ML when Benski was doing some speed optimisation.

UJ

[boarderparadise]

many thanks for your contributions, daz and ujay!

Originally Posted by DrO

a lot of people's playlist issues would be resolved if they save playlists relative to the files ie in the same or parent folder of the file.

that's not really the issue, because in these simple cases a simple find&replace in your text editor does the job. But anyway, how do you save relative playlists in winamp? That would be interesting.


@ujay: thank you for the presentation of xspf, that's really a good new concept!

Originally Posted by ujay

The generator utility given above still needs some working, if you want to try it, it's probably best to use locationless entries at the momment. I'll try and put together something a bit more complete when I have more time. UJ

the utility above is an m3u-2-xspf converter no? so what will your "something-more-complete-tool" be? I'm excited about that

[DrO]

Originally Posted by boarderparadise

how do you save relative playlists in winamp?

you just save into the folder where the files are or in a folder on the same drive as the files and the OS api used should then generate relative paths which Winamp will then save to the playlist file.

-daz

[boarderparadise]

I see. Thank you.
A more explicit/visible program design would have been better in this case.

[DrO]

you say that though i've no idea where in the UI something stating that would even be able to go and unfortunately most people don't bother (unlike yourself from what i've seen in other posts) to try to look at the help/documentation to find out such things. alas it's just one of those things that people eventually work out/find out but you have a fair point that documentation of the player is lacking in some areas though if documented then there's the problem of going too technical as some parts would require.

-daz

[boarderparadise]

daz, I'm not sure if I understood your posting correctly ("you say that though I've no idea..."), but I didn't blame the lack of documentation, I just wanted to make the point that even if that behaviour was documented, it would be less "clandestine" if winamp asked the user whether he/she wants to save absolute or relative paths instead of silently assuming this decision based on the chosen folder, if you know what I mean.

There are hundreds of possibilities to implement that.
(1) For example a pop-up window asking this question after you click on "save playlist".
(2) Or two different menu items "save playlist with absolute paths" and "save playlist with relative paths".
(3) Or a radio button in the preferences, where you can set absolute or relative paths.
(4) Etc. etc.

IMO, the basic principle here is "it's always better to ask than to assume, because assumptions can be wrong"

[rachelbonilla]

Good to know that I am not the only one to move my music files and then go "Doh!" the playlists don't sync up anymore! I would love to see a plugin built into the system too. I actually signed on to the forum just to see if there is something specifically to help me with this, maybe I will try one of those opensource links. Anyone download one of those programs and have success with it?

[DrO]

boarderparadise: what i was trying to get at was if you or anyone else had a suggestion about improving the access of such information then to make it. as currently the few suggestions are to link to the wiki/help somehow (with lots of little buttons all over the prefs) or as i sort of tried to do, an extensible tooltip feature for all of the preferences (though i've no time to finish/work on that project now). the only thing which is a problem with all of the suggestions is that it adds an extra step/configuration for things to happen (and with the playlist saving other than changing some of the OS api's used, it's just how the saving actions work from when it was all originally implemented years ago).

yes, asking is generally the best way and if people on the forum know and can answer then they will but unfortunately the forums are a lot quieter nowadays than they have been which doesn't help getting some things done via 3rd party plugins (as a native solution isn't always the best way to go).

-daz

[boarderparadise]

Originally Posted by DrO

boarderparadise: what i was trying to get at was if you or anyone else had a suggestion about improving the access of such information then to make it.

okay, I get that point (I will think about that). But I was trying to make an (unrelated) point, namely a suggestion for winamp (the program itself), not the documentation. See points (1)-(4).

the only thing which is a problem with all of the suggestions is that it adds an extra step/configuration for things to happen

no, only suggestion (1) adds an extra step (the pop-up window). Suggestion (2) involves no extra step because the user just selects a different menu item. Suggestion (3) involves an extra step, but only ONCE (change in prefs), then you can save thousands of playlists without extra steps.

yes, asking is generally the best way and if people on the forum know and can answer then they will ...

sorry, this is a misunderstanding. When I said the basic principle here is "it's always better to ask than to assume, because assumptions can be wrong", I didn't mean you guys here, but WINAMP itself. I was trying to say that instead of GUESSING if the user wants relative or absolute paths judging from what storage location the user choses, it would be better if winamp ASKED the user (by way of one of the (1)-(3) suggestions above).

Anyway, I'm not too concerned about all this, because I can switch from absolute to relative paths in any text editor in a matter of 3 seconds. I was just making a suggestion and sharing my ideas. There sure are more pressing issues, and it's a little too far from the threads original topic anyway, so I think I'll leave it at that, right? cheers

[boarderparadise]

Originally Posted by rachelbonilla

Good to know that I am not the only one to move my music files and then go "Doh!" the playlists don't sync up anymore!

no you are definitely not alone with this problem. When searching the board, one finds dozens of threads about this topic.

I would love to see a plugin built into the system too.

There are winamp plugins already (Dynamic Library and Playlist Fixer), but if you argue that such a function should be adopted in winamp itself, I give you points for that.

[ujay]

Originally Posted by boarderparadise

... the utility above is an m3u-2-xspf converter no? so what will your "something-more-complete-tool" be? I'm excited about that

Sorry to dissapoint, but the "something more complete" was referring to an explaination of XSPF and what can be done with it.
Nothing about a "something-more-complete-tool"

In fact, I can't see any point in taking the convert utility any further and may even revert it to just a 'locationless' form.
I wrote the utility purely because Winamp currently has no way of generating xspf playlists, and being a very old coder, I've used a very old UNIX style solution and piped a known input(m3u8) to a reformatted output(xspf).
This is full of limmitations and far from optimal, the place for any further development is within Winamp itself, where there is direct access to the PE/ML for generating playlists.

The xspf_loader is not part of the standard Winamp distro and has to be seen as 'work in progress'.
i.e. it's up to the devs if and when a native xspf playlist generator becomes available.

UJ

[boarderparadise]

I see ujay, thanks for the answer though.

Originally Posted by ujay

... and may even revert it to just a 'locationless' form.

in case you remove features, please make that optional if you can

The xspf_loader is not part of the standard Winamp distro and has to be seen as 'work in progress'. i.e. it's up to the devs if and when a native xspf playlist generator becomes available.

fingers crossed

[psyhest]

Originally Posted by firewyre

Hi, I'm the author of listFix() and I happened to come across this thread. Thought I'd let you know that I just released version 1.5.3 with much improved UTF-8/M3U8 support and batch repairing of playlists. You can find out more about it at http://listfix.no-ip.com or http://sourceforge.net/projects/listfix/. If you do try it out, please let me know what you think - all suggestions and bug fix requests are appreciated!

Hey, I love your app, but for some reason, I don't know is it my fault or not, but in some point your app stoped working =( ... I run it and it seems to open it, tells I have to add media to libery. I press ok and then its gone =( no programm opens =(
why ????? im really sad now =(

[firewyre]

Hi Psyhest - shoot me a PM and I'd be happy to help you figure out what the problem might be. Version 2.1.0 is out now, and version 2.2.0 will be coming soon, so if you're on an older version I suggest upgrading. Look forward to hearing from you!

[kabayan]

@firewyre been searching the net and your prog so far is the most usefull though it return some wrong tracks. I tried to get billboard chart list in the form <Artist> - <Tittle> like Jason Aldean – Dirt Road Anthem. Using exact option it will fail locating in my lib since it is organize in <Artist>/<Album>/## <Tittle>. Using the second option it was able to find some correct track other have correct tittle but not the rigth Artist. Would appreciate if you can include custom exact fix where we have the option to separate the string in playlist (<Artist> - <Tittle) and use it to search the metadata and will only show result if those two field meet the query.
Your program really is very nice.