Cannot sync playlists from phone to PC

[nalawod]

I'm using MMA 1.0.4.0233 and MMW 4.1.1.1697.
As I've been listening to my tracks on my Samsung Galaxy S2, I've been adding tracks to a "Favs" playlist. In fact, I have 4 playlists on the phone and they're all in the \playlists folder of my sd card and they all show up and work perfectly in MMA. My problem is I'd like to sync my "Favs" list back to MMW. I go into the sync options in MMW and turn off all the Auto-Sync --> <device> because I don't want anything going to my phone (it's current AND copying over USB usually ends up with corrupt tracks) and then I turn on just Playlists in <device> --> Library. Nothing ever shows up in the status graph at the bottom as far as bytes to sync so I suspect it's simply NOT picking up my playlists even if I go in and add a new track to my favs (so it's changed from last sync).
How can I get this playlist into MMW? I tried just copying the m3u file over - it does have contents of about 79k so I know the data is there - but when I get it into the MMW imported playlists, it shows no tracks so I'm suspecting I really do have to use the Sync function which isn't working for me.
Any ideas?

[Lowlander]

and turn off all the Auto-Sync --> <device>

Seems you need to get Playlists synced back.

[nalawod]

I half expected I was using the sync in an odd way. But I really didn't want all the MMW playlists hitting my phone as I don't use them at all. Should I really have to sync playlists from MMW --> my phone in order to sync ones created only on my phone back to MMW?
Delving further though:
I'm guessing the underlying problem is that my music tracks were never sync'd from my PC windows to my phone because I kept ending up with corrupt files even over a short USB cable. I had to manually copy them onto my micro SD card using an SD adapter physically connnected to the computer in order to avoid corruption. And because these aren't really "syncd", the playlists won't work anyway, right?

[Lowlander]

I misread, thought you disabled Auto-Sync (--> Library). Is it enabled?

[nalawod]

I have Auto-Sync (-->Library) enabled and ONLY playlists ticked (Green) to sync. They never show up even if I create a new one with only 1 track.

[nalawod]

I guess I should tell you what I'm trying to do: As I listen to tracks on my phone, I want to mark them as a list of favorites - and not only play that list using my phone to my bluetooth speaker - but also sync back to my main multimedia machine running MMW so that I can play that list in my home theater system. I thought the way I should do that is create a favorites playlist on my phone and add tracks to it as I go along. That works fine, the phone keeps the list and I can play it. However, I can't find any way to get this back into MMW - it never even shows up under imported playlists. Should I be doing this via sync - or can I just drag-n-drop the list somewhere that MMW can pick up? This should be a simple function and I have to thing I'm either not setting something correctly or I've encountered a bug.

[MagGyver]

I am chiming in here because I'm interested in something very similar and I'm watching the answers to this thread with interest.

My question is related: I'm not using a Favs list like the OP is, but I am reviewing playlists I've compiled on the computer running MMW. As I listen to it on MMA, there might be times when I want to remove a track from a playlist. If I do this from MMA, upon next sync is that track removal supposed to update on the same playlist on MMW?

[rusty]

nalawod,
The usecase you describe should work, assuming the following are enabled:

[x] Auto-sync new files and playlists from the device to the PC
. . [x] Music
. . . .
. . . .
[x] Confirm updates (recommended)
[x] Auto-sync file metadata from the device to the PC

Files in MMA should even be copied to the Server if they only exist in MMA (provided they're in the /Music directory, or any other directories that have been defined) .

Is it possible that the music files in question are stored to a directory other than <Device>:\<StorageLocation>\Music on the device (NOTE: <StorageLocation> is based on the sync device selected e.g. if you sync using the External SD card profile, then the StorageLocation for that device is the External SD card) ?

MagGyver,
Playlists that are on the auto-sync list will also be updated with the settings above.

NOTE: with the settings above, you'll be prompted as to whether you want the changes from MMA to be made to the Server (you should be prompted for New files to be copied to the library, deletions from the device, and updates to the library).

Please let me know if this clarifies and helps you get it to work or not.

Thanks!

-Rusty

[MagGyver]

Rusty, thanks so much for a quick reply. In adjusting the settings as suggested, I have come across another issue. I don't wish to completely hijack the OP's focus so I will start a new thread to ask my next question.

[nalawod]

Rusty - thanks - it wasn't so obvious to me that in order to sync a playlist from device to server that I also needed to enable my music tracks too. I just tried what you documented, and now I DO see my playlist names show up Playlists in MMW, but they're empty. For this to work properly, is it a requirement that the sync from Library to Device be done properly first? As mentioned above, I actually just copied the tracks over to my device because I was having problems with sync over USB creating corrupt tracks.

[rusty]

For playlists to sync back to MMW, it's not a requirement that the tracks have been synced between MMW and MMA. But if USB sync isn't working for you, I would suggest restarting and do a Wi-Fi sync.

[nalawod]

I tried this a few more times- and figured out that although it creates the playlist name under Playlists in MMW, each time I do the sync with the same playlists selected on the device (+ all music), it believes it needs to transfer it again.
Example, playlist Favs ticked on device to sync to MMW ends up autosync confirmation "Existing file(s) and playlist(s) to update from the device to the PC (2)". I tick the box to confirm and press "Continue". It will create an empty playlist "Favs" under playlists in MMW. And if I do the exact same sync again, it prompts the same thing. Is there any debug info I could generate for you? I find it interesting that I can copy this Favs playlist to other devices running MMA and the android versions work fine.

[rusty]

To make sure I understand: the playlists are being synced correctly from MMA to MMW, but the problem is that they're continually resynced on every sync operation even when nothing has changed?

-Rusty

[nalawod]

Yes, nothing has changed and it thinks it needs to sync each time. I believe it thinks it has to sync each time because the playlist on MMA has over a 100 tracks in it but the sync'd playlist that shows up in MMW is always empty - thus, different.

[nalawod]

Hmmm-- I don't know why I never tried to open an m3u playlist in wordpad or notepad, but I just did it. My playlist from my phone is of the format:
/storage/extSdCard/Music/track1.mp3
/storage/extSdCard/Music/track2.mp3
etc.
On my MMW machine, the path would be:
c:\mmp\track1.mp3
c:\mmp\track2.mp3
etc.
My track names are identical on both the phone and the PC but the relative paths, of course, are different. I would have expected MMW to auto-convert the path. What I did was use wordpad to change the /storage.... to c:\mmp... on all tracks and then just opened the file in MMW. Now it works
I noticed now the file looks like this:
#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:0,track1.mp3
..\mmp\track1.mp3

So, anyway, I got it working manually but I'm happy now. Any feedback on why this wouldn't work automatically during a sync would be appreciated. Again, if I do it via sync, my playlist name does show up in MMW but the playlist itself is empty.