Syncing with Android AND keeping ALBUM ART: New Tool

[bsg75]

**BETA**BETA**BETA**BETA**BETA**

Hi

It was suggested I start this as a new thread. The original is located here and has the background information on the problem. Please consider that thread done and post followups to this thread.

Problem: Winamp syncs media to Android but strips out the embedded album art. This can be very, very frustrating.

Solution: Winamp should fix this, but I am unaware of any response on the issue.

Temporary Solution: I expect Winamp to fix this at some point, but until then I am making a tool I created available. You can download it from here: http://mikedepaul.com/Articles.aspx?artID=101. It's a very simple sync tool and it's definitely beta. It will locate your Winamp playlists and allow you to sync them to your Android device (or any other drive connected to your computer, actually). There are bound to be bugs. I am only making it available in this very early beta state because I know the lack of album art, which you already embedded, can be very, very frustrating. Just drag a playlist from the left into the target drive (C:\, F:\, etc.) and hit the Sync button. It does a byte-for-byte copy so album art is preserved. It is USB only. Did I mention this thing is beta?

How to use:

1 Download and install mdSync (First link at the top of this page).
2 Plug in your Android phone in USB disc drive mode and wait for it to be recognized
3 Launch mdSync 0.5.*.* beta
4 It will find all of the drives on your computer as well as Winamp playlists (hopefully)
5 It will default to the first drive it finds (C:\)
6a Select your Android SD card drive from the dropdown
6b You can also select the internal memory if you like, but not all Android media players read the internal memory
7 Drag-and-drop a Winamp playlist from the left to the grid area on the right
8 Click "Sync"
9 Wait for it to complete (or click "Stop") then shut down mdSync and eject your phone
10 Music with album art! (hopefully)

Requirements:
*Windows 32bit machine (64 bit may work, but not tested. Tested on Win7 32bit with default playlists/media library setup)
*.NET framework (this is probably already on your computer, but can also be downloaded manually below)
*Winamp

http://www.microsoft.com/net/download.aspx

To conclude: Beta. Post comments to this thread. Beta.

--Mike

[bsg75]

Bumping above the old thread...

[c00ller]

Are there plans to have this working for iTunes like the old BlackBerry version?

[bsg75]

Are there plans to have this working for iTunes like the old BlackBerry version?

Yes, I will add iTunes later if requested. I need to clean up a lot first. Do you use iTunes? I didn't expect anyone on the Winamp forums to miss iTunes.

[c00ller]

I am on this forum because I like Winamp for Android.

I do use iTunes, but only because I love the "auto organize" feature. If I change an artist, title, or album tag, then file name or path will automatically change accordingly. It is also easy to dump new music this way without having to manually create new folders etc myself.
If Winamp can do this, I would love to be enlightened. But until then, I just can't let go to iTunes's easy music directory organization.

[bsg75]

I am on this forum because I like Winamp for Android.

I do use iTunes, but only because I love the "auto organize" feature. If I change an artist, title, or album tag, then file name or path will automatically change accordingly. It is also easy to dump new music this way without having to manually create new folders etc myself.
If Winamp can do this, I would love to be enlightened. But until then, I just can't let go to iTunes's easy music directory organization.

I see. The auto-organize feature is pretty nice.

You know you can use iTunes and Winamp. Just use iTunes normally. Open Winamp on your PC, purge the library (don't delete songs from disc) and import your iTunes library. I believe it pulls in playlists, which means you could then use the current mdSync tool, if you wanted.

I can add iTunes, but this workaround may get you through until then.

[Snowtoad]

I've had this problem too and it's damn annoying.
However I think I've found a workaround.

Winamp seems to only strip the album art for Android devices. If you plug your Android in with the SD card in it, it will recognise it as an Android and for some inexplicable reason, strip album art. And the way it seems to recognise if it's and android device is it searches for a folder called "Android" in the root directory, which is created by Android. Which is kind of stupid. So you gotta trick it into thinking the card is just a standard removable disk.

Now, what I did is:

1. take SD card out of your phone, close Winamp
2. Read it on your computer through some other means (sdcard usb adapter etc)
3. Backup the whole card besides your music and besides the "Winamp" folder in root directory onto your computer
4. Format the SD card
5. Copy everything back, but rename the folder "Android" in the root SD directory to something else e.g. "Android_"
6. Open Winamp. It should detect it as a USB Drive instead of Android Device.
7. Now do your sync, it should work with album art
8. Make sure to rename the folder back to "Android" when done


However I don't think all those steps are necessary. That's what I did before I realised how Winamp 'knew' it was an Android device - by looking for the Android folder. And when it thinks it's an Android device, it puts it's sync info like pmp_usb.ini in a "Winamp" folder instead of just root directory.

So I havent tried this but you could probably just do:

1. Keep SD card in phone and plug in as normal as disk drive (Winamp closed)
2. Remove your music, and the folder "Winamp" on card and rename "Android" folder to something else
3. Open Winamp, hopefully it detects the card as a USB Drive instead of Android.
4. Sync (you will have to re-do your sync preferences)
5. Rename folder back to "Android"

And when you want to sync next time:

1. Close Winamp BEFORE plugging in phone.
2. Open Phone's card and rename Android folder
3. Sync
4. Rename back again after

Try this and let me know how it goes...

[bsg75]

That is a good tip, Snowtoad. Thanks.

If anyone has tried my tool out, I'd like to hear your feedback. Thanks.

[c00ller]

BSG75, I tried your v0.5 on Win 7 Pro 7 64-bit, but after I try to select any drive other than the C:\ drive, the right column turns blank and I can't drag any of my playlists over.

[c00ller]

The 0.3.3.0 Blackberry version at least lets me transfer select playlists, however when I look at each individual playlist on my Android, they are all empty. All the songs are on the device, just not properly assigned to the playlists.

[bsg75]

The 0.3.3.0 Blackberry version at least lets me transfer select playlists, however when I look at each individual playlist on my Android, they are all empty. All the songs are on the device, just not properly assigned to the playlists.

The problem with the BB version is that it creates the m3u file in a format different than Android wants. So the playlists are empty as far as Android is concerned. It only looks at iTunes, too.

I'm surprised the BB one works for you because you are using a 64bit machine. I am getting a 64bit machine in about 5 weeks (after I close on my new house), until then I can only code/debug on a 32bit machine .

I can add a toggle to the old bb one so that it will do iTunes->Android.

I'll also have to adjust the new Winamp one to add some error trapping. If you use the new Winamp one, can you successfully sync to the C:\ drive? Does it put music into C:\Music\mdSync?

[c00ller]

The problem with the BB version is that it creates the m3u file in a format different than Android wants. So the playlists are empty as far as Android is concerned. It only looks at iTunes, too.

I'm surprised the BB one works for you because you are using a 64bit machine. I am getting a 64bit machine in about 5 weeks (after I close on my new house), until then I can only code/debug on a 32bit machine .

I can add a toggle to the old bb one so that it will do iTunes->Android.

I'll also have to adjust the new Winamp one to add some error trapping. If you use the new Winamp one, can you successfully sync to the C:\ drive? Does it put music into C:\Music\mdSync?

I tried using 0.5.0.0 to sync to my C:\ drive. I tried adding a few playlists to sync, and upon clicking Sync the program immediately said "Sync complete. You may now eject..." but the C:\Music\mdSync\ is empty.

Also, when I click on some of the cells of the right grid (any cell in the left column or top row), I get the following error message:

Unhandled exception has occurred in your application. If you click Continue, the application will ignore this error and attempt to continue. If you click Quit, the application will close immediately.

Index was out of range. Must be non-negative and less than the size of the collection.
Parameter name: index.

If I click on Details, there is a long message with programming details. I copied the text into the attached txt file.

[bsg75]

I tried using 0.5.0.0 to sync to my C:\ drive. I tried adding a few playlists to sync, and upon clicking Sync the program immediately said "Sync complete. You may now eject..." but the C:\Music\mdSync\ is empty.

Also, when I click on some of the cells of the right grid (any cell in the left column or top row), I get the following error message:



If I click on Details, there is a long message with programming details. I copied the text into the attached txt file.

Thanks for bringing that to my attention. I have not recreeated that problem, but I've been adding a lot of logging and tracing options, as well as adding error trapping. I'll review that section of code to see what I can add logic-wise to stop whatever is causing that problem. I'll also do a test in a VM to mimic a user environment. Once that is done, I'll post the updated tool, then I'll start on the iTunes side. I have already started the framework for adding iTunes syncing.

[bsg75]

Hi. I updated the tool. I added a bunch of logging and error trapping. I also fixed a bug where it didn't work in XP. I have tested this on my Win7 dev machine and inside a clean XP virtual machine. I didn't bother to update the version so it's still 0.5.0.0. You can get the new msi from the same link as before.

http://mikedepaul.com/Articles.aspx?artID=101

[bsg75]

Here is a video demo.