m3u playlists - requesting info and standard practice

[arbalest]

I am a new user of MM and I am interested in using it to access music on any of multiple SMB shares and UPnP/DLNA servers via my existing playlists. I am willing to change the playlists as needed (absolute or relative paths, etc) to make this happen.

Do most people put a version of their playlist (absolute or relative paths) where the music is (SMB or server) and access that via their phone? Or is there a way to put the playlists on the phone and use different versions of them to access the music from what ever source? I would think the best case is that I could select a playlists and have it work regardless of which source I have selected.

I am in the learning and experimentation phase so I have the same music directory structure and playlists as both SMB and UPnP sources. Also, I am assuming this question/problem applies to all players/controllers such as something like BubbleUPnP.

[Lowlander]

You'd generally access a DLNA Server. It would have the Playlists and serve them to the client on your phone. MediaMonkey for Windows can act as a DLNA Server on your network.

It will depend on the DLNA Server what Playlist formats it supports. MediaMonkey for Windows works with both.

[arbalest]

Thanks. I created a playlist folder and put an m3u, txt and mp3 file in there. MMA only sees the mp3 file. Should I be accessing it differently or putting it in a different place? Is there some documentation or a tutorial on this?

[Lowlander]

Are you referring to on the phone itself?

[arbalest]

I put the playlist on the DLNA server where the music is -- which I thought you were referring to above. MMA is on my phone and it sees the playlist folder, but not the playlists.

And, thanks for this help, I appreciate it.

[Lowlander]

Which DLNA Server? Do other Apps see the Playlists or also fail to show them?

[arbalest]

The DLNA server I am trying today is built into a TP-Link wireless router. BubbleUPnP doesn't see the playlists either (but also sees MP3 files if I put them in that playlist directory I created).

Over the weekend I can try this with a server built into a NetGear R7800 router. I can probably run something on a Windows machine. All of this is just for my learning about of of DLNA. I would be open to other server options down the road.

Update: On the server I added dummy files ending with .m3u, .m3u8, .asx, and .fpl and I don't see any from either of the apps I am using.

[Lowlander]

It sounds like the issue is on the server end. You may need to check its documentation if this is supported and how it works.

[arbalest]

Could this be related to both MMA and BubbleUPnP being the free versions? I just started Windows Media Player and the playlist were already there. I ran Media Player Classic and I could navigate to the playlists and run them.

I might just upgrade MMA (and Bubble) over the weekend and see what happens.

[Peke]

Hi,
I tested on my 2 ASUS routers (both ASUS and Merlin Firmware) wonder if you maybe have case of non relative paths in playlist?

I tested by Saving/Exporting playlist using relative path (eg. "\Music\1.mp3" instead of default "f:\Music\1.mp3") and all worked as a charm.

[arbalest]

I deleted the original content of this post as I think I was incorrect...

[arbalest]

At this point I am updating this to let others know what I found.

• On the Netgear router the playlists are visible regardless of where I put them.

• On the old TP-link router they are not visible to MMA or BubbleUPnP regardless of where I put them.

• On either router the playlists are found by Windows Media Player.

So, I think this is an issue of with the very old version of the media server I have on the TP-link router and that WMP is doing something else to find the playlists.