Forum.ArchosFans.com

Hi,

I have trouble getting Android 2.2 to read M3U playlist files? It seems like it wants to delete the files after scanning them with the media scanner, and the files i do manage to get on the hard drive and that the music app picks up doesn't see an y songs in the playlist? Does anyone have experience with this issue?

Thanks.

No one having trouble with playlists?

This am I was listening to npr on my a70 and wanted to see if I could share the audio file. Sent it to myself , clicked on link and dolphin browser opened and got an error message.....cant recall the exact wording, but no-go. doesnt appear to handle m3u files.

_________________
Nexus one, A70

.....clicked on link in Dolphin...file was downloaded. Went to file mgr and tried to launch it and got the error message. Did this a couple of times.....

_________________
Nexus one, A70

Thanks, the m3u files I either export from iTunes or create with WinAmp. They point to files on the local drive of the Archos. They show up empty in Music however. What format should my playlists be in?

I have the same problem with m3u playlists. No one had any suggestions other than to recreate them all on the device.

http://forum.archosfans.com/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=44130

Now I am waiting for my A70IT to come in but on my android phone I can sync m3u files using mediamonkey and they work just fine, Also I have talked to people that sync using winamp and those work fine as well.

Think I figured it out, blood, sweat and rescans but I think my test playlist did work. I'm copying my whole music collection with the playlist files, doing a rescan and will then check it again.

I haven't messed with this yet on gen8 and the media interface is different, but had the same issues with gen 7. Would transfer .m3u playlist and would work fine for a couple of days. Then the playlist would come up empty. Someone told me to transfer my playlist over and immediately open it in the archos music app. Once you have it open, save it as a new playlist and then it will save as a format that the archos player will recognize and not come up as empty.

Again, I haven't tried this yet, so I don't kow if it works for gen 8. Still using my gen7 for music.

Well I think my hard drive died, I might need to RMA

Anyone figure out how to get playlists to work? This is a big deal, because I organize mine on the computer in a lot of different ways and do not want to redo on the Archos. I load the .m3u file onto the device. It shows up under playlists, but is blank.

_________________
A70 250GB|Acer A500|HTC Thunderbolt

Hi, I made a test one that worked perfectly, I couldn't test it with my full music collection because the device stopped seeing the internal storage. I think the hard drive died. Do you want to test the format and see if it works for you?
It's really a simpler format than I thought it would be, note the slashes '/'
Here is a sample: (it seems like it doesn't need the path, I tried using /mnt/storage/Music and /Music and didn't have any luck with that)

#EXTM3U
Chevelle/Point #1/01 Open.mp3
Chevelle/Point #1/02 Point #1.mp3
etc...

I also read some people were having trouble with the # sign, it scanned these files OK however.

OK, so before I dig in, let me get this straight. I have saved a playlist as an .m3u file on my computer. This is an example of one song as it reads now:

F:\My Music\Music\Foo Fighters\In Your Honor\1-07 Free Me.mp3

I should change this to :

Foo Fighters/In Your Honor/1-07 Free Me.mp3

Is this correct? And if so I can get to work with a little search and replace. Thanks

-EDIT- I tried this format change and it did not work. Playlist shows up but is still blank. Do I need to point it to "SD/Music/" first?

Tried below as well, none worked
/sdcard/Music/_
sdcard/Music/_
/Music/_
Music/_

Any tips on what I am doing wrong?

_________________
A70 250GB|Acer A500|HTC Thunderbolt

Maybe let it scan the music first, copy the playlist file over (I copied mine to the root of Music) and let it scan it again. I edited the file on my PC and copied it over yes.

Bam, got it going. Put it in the root of the music folder, then reset the media library so it did a full scan. Worked like a charm now. Thank you so much for your help!

-EDIT- Well I spoke a little soon. I put two different playlists in at the same time. They had the same format. One took, the other didn't. Guess I am going to have to play a little more to figure it out. Still, thanks for the info, it got me a lot closer than I was before.

_________________
A70 250GB|Acer A500|HTC Thunderbolt

It pulls the file names from the library and I think the music library deletes playlist files it "thinks" are empty. Thanks for testing though!

not having luck with .m3u playlists. No suggestions other than to create on the archos.

I found an app called TuneSync that works for me. It will sync your iTunes playlist and also pull over the lists themselves. It imports into the native music app as well. Only got the lite so far which does 20 songs but I have imported 2 lists. Plan on getting the full tomorrow and will advise how it goes.

_________________
A70 250GB|Acer A500|HTC Thunderbolt

OK, just got done syncing my music. The full app cost $5 from the Android Market. I downloaded it and installed. Pretty self explanitory. You also have to download a small plugin on your computer that reads iTunes. It creates a TuneSync file in your Music folder by default, and then music is loaded here organized first by artist then album. You can sync via Wifi or USB. The USB option will go once your device is mounted. I looked long and hard for a program or format that would load mutiple playlists from my computer onto the Archos and work in the native player. This is the only thing I found that would do it. Below are a few thoughts

1) I started with a clean music library. It does not scan your system first to see if files are already on the system in a different location, so it will load duplicate files. Once the files are in the location it is expecting, it does not duplicate further (say you have two playlists with the same song on it)

2) Since I was loading around 1700 files, I was hoping to use the USB method for speed. I mounted the device and started the sync. It said it was not going after I waited a while, so I unmounted. There was music being loaded even though it said it wasn't. I decided not to do it this way since I really had no idea how the progress was going.

3) The next step was to do it wirelessly. Obviously this was going to take a long time, and it did. But it plugged through it for hours with no real hiccup. The device was basically useless during this time, but I did not have any issues with it dropping on me.

4) Once complete the music was loaded properly with most of my album art loaded as well. It does the media scan as it goes, so once the sync is complete it is ready to roll. I now have multiple playlists to choose from in the native music app.

5) I synced again after the first was complete just to see if anything was missed. It did not look like anything was, and the process took about 5 minutes. This is a little slow for "not doing anything" but since it is wireless not a huge deal.

6) By default it is set up to automatically sync every 12 hours. You can turn this off by un-checking a box that says "Enable Sync". I assume it would also not sync if you closed the module on the computer. There is a button to force a sync as well.

7) When syncing via Wifi, it gives pretty good updates on exactly what it is working on.

8 ) You have a lot of options for syncing. It will allow you to sync the entire library, just music, podcasts, and any playlists (including the songs in your smart playlists).

9) There is an option to load the cover art as well. I noticed in a test playlist when it does this it actually puts a .jpg file in the folder with the album. I did not want this, so unchecked. The majority of my songs that had the cover embedded with the files still transferred over the art so the option really does not need to be selected. The few covers that did not go were easily downloaded with the app Cover Art Downloader.

Overall I am extremely happy with this app. I think it is well worht the $5 to end the frustration of me trying to figure out how to load playlists. There are a few bugs, and if you have a large music library the initial setup will be very time consuming. I do not know if you could drag and drop music already on your device into the TuneSync folder and have it work, may be worth a shot if you have more songs than me. If you have iTunes and want its playlists on your Archos I think this app is a win.

_________________
A70 250GB|Acer A500|HTC Thunderbolt

Had a bit of luck with my Archos 43 internet tablet trying this approach. I had already failed with copying any m3u playlists to the Playlists or Music/Playlists folder. Using mediamonkey I copied my m3u playlists to the Music folder (/Music/). Then before dismounting I opened the playlist files to add the #EXTM3U line at the top, and change the \ to / and then delete the leading '/Music/" from each line. Then I had to reboot the Archos for it to work, before opening the Music app.

This is a real pain and I don't think it reflects well on Archos. Apart from anything I contacted them to ask what the format for m3u playlists was and they didn't bother to reply.