[REQ] backup and restore auto-playlists

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lobodoug

[REQ] backup and restore auto-playlists

Post by lobodoug »

I've been a huge fan and user of Media Monkey for at least 15 years. However, having just bought a new computer and downloaded the latest version I have been completely unable to import my playlists DESPITE the fact the media are all stored on an external drive and the file path is exactly the same. I am looking at other media players. I may be back, but this is ridiculous! It should be dead-simple to import playlists... but for some reason it is not! Bye!
ZvezdanD
Posts: 3257
Joined: Thu Jun 08, 2006 7:40 pm

Re: Import Playlists fail On New PC

Post by ZvezdanD »

Please use the other corresponding sections of the Forum if you are unsatisfied with the program itself and especially if it is related to its 5-th version.

EDIT (Peke): Moved to new topic. THX for Report
Magic Nodes 4.3.3 / 5.2 RegExp Find & Replace 4.4.9 / 5.2  Invert Selection/Select None 1.5.1  Export/Create Playlists for Child Nodes 4.1.1 / 5.4.1  Expand Child Nodes/Expand All 1.1.2  Event Logger 2.7  Filtered Statistics Report 1.6  Track Redirection & Synchronization 3.4.2  Restore/Synchronize Database 3.1.8 / 4.0.1  Find Currently Playing Track 1.3.2  Queue List 1.2.1  Add to Library on Play 1.0.1  Tree Report for Child Nodes 1.1.1  Update Location of Files in Database 1.4.5 / 2.3  Inherit Child Playlists 1.0.3  Add Currently Playing/Selected Track(s) to Playlist 1.2
Peke
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Re: Import Playlists fail On New PC

Post by Peke »

Hi,
I tested it today on My external HDD that I use for Media Playback on My car Headunit and contain around 200 playlists.

No issue importing them in New Clean MM install.

I can even test browsing folders with M3U files and I can also browse playlists like folders, along with manually import one by one if I want.

After that I repeated steps using old copied DB (from other PC) that contain all those playlists were there, playable and all worked flawlessly.

As you use MM for 15 years I guess you already learned that in MM things can be done in multiple ways, which most do not take more than 5-10 min to setup.
Best regards,
Peke
MediaMonkey Team lead QA/Tech Support guru
Admin of Free MediaMonkey addon Site HappyMonkeying
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MusicKing
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Re: Import Playlists fail On New PC

Post by MusicKing »

But editing the imported playlist is STILL not possible with MM5. Like, come on man!! See the thread below:

https://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewt ... 39#p502939

"But how do I edit/change (smart) playlists?"

"Unfortunately that does not work. AUTO-PLAYLIST is also exported as a "Static Playlist".m3U and can only be imported again as such.
Never worked in MM4 either!!!

I always take a screenshot for my AUTOPLAYLISTS - with all the criteria and keep this photo.

But maybe the developers will come up with something?"


Yes, MM is STILL user unfriendly as HELL and you guys know that! FIX THAT!
Peke
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Re: Import Playlists fail On New PC

Post by Peke »

Hi,
MusicKing wrote: Sun Nov 20, 2022 2:21 pm But editing the imported playlist is STILL not possible with MM5. Like, come on man!!
M3U8 (UTF-8 M3U Playlist) is not capable to support Auto-Playlist. Even "almighty iTunes" can't Export/Import Smart Playlists. If you find any application that can export its Auto/Smart playlists that can be imported in any other app please let us know. They are called such for the reason as they are Dynamic and tied to specific library to show content.
MusicKing wrote: Sun Nov 20, 2022 2:21 pm Yes, MM is STILL user unfriendly as HELL and you guys know that! FIX THAT!
Can you please be more concrete on what you meant by that.
Best regards,
Peke
MediaMonkey Team lead QA/Tech Support guru
Admin of Free MediaMonkey addon Site HappyMonkeying
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Rob_S
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Re: Import Playlists fail On New PC

Post by Rob_S »

So, the issue being there is no simple way to transfer a complex auto-playlist.

What I could do is add one more criteria that makes it nearly empty, and sync to a device. Point being to avoid copying a whole lot of tracks

Then on the new PC I would sync from the device, (playlist only) and remove the added criteria. This should give me a copy of the original editable playlist with minimal effort - am I right? I have not tried it.

I do agree there should be a way to export/backup and re-import/restore all of my auto-playlists intact, and separately from my entire db. This should be a high priority feature or addon request - yes?

That said, I have not checked myself if such addon exists, but judging by post above it does not.
Using 5.1 LATEST alpha or beta build on Windows 10, HP laptop, managing 13k tracks
ZvezdanD
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Joined: Thu Jun 08, 2006 7:40 pm

Re: Import Playlists fail On New PC

Post by ZvezdanD »

As I already said in the original mentioned thread, there exists the add-on for MM4 that allows export/import of auto-playlists, which is called Restore/Synchronize Database. Its port to MM5 is planned.
Magic Nodes 4.3.3 / 5.2 RegExp Find & Replace 4.4.9 / 5.2  Invert Selection/Select None 1.5.1  Export/Create Playlists for Child Nodes 4.1.1 / 5.4.1  Expand Child Nodes/Expand All 1.1.2  Event Logger 2.7  Filtered Statistics Report 1.6  Track Redirection & Synchronization 3.4.2  Restore/Synchronize Database 3.1.8 / 4.0.1  Find Currently Playing Track 1.3.2  Queue List 1.2.1  Add to Library on Play 1.0.1  Tree Report for Child Nodes 1.1.1  Update Location of Files in Database 1.4.5 / 2.3  Inherit Child Playlists 1.0.3  Add Currently Playing/Selected Track(s) to Playlist 1.2
Peke
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Re: Import Playlists fail On New PC

Post by Peke »

Hi,
Addon is great for general support for its function, but to make things more multi platform and set as standard so that other apps can easily use it in along.

I thought and created https://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=19577 for revision of M3U format support in order make things more unified and not MM relies on Addon to have support (kudos to Zvezdan effort on making things easier and save us some work).
Best regards,
Peke
MediaMonkey Team lead QA/Tech Support guru
Admin of Free MediaMonkey addon Site HappyMonkeying
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ZvezdanD
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Re: Import Playlists fail On New PC

Post by ZvezdanD »

I don't see how your suggestion could "make a things more multi platform". Wasn't the point of introducing the JavaScript add-ons in MM5 to allow multi-platform?

Your wanting to set something new as a standard is just pretentious. However, I don't see how your Mantis suggestion has anything with the issue that you named in the subject of this thread. Your suggestion in Mantis is something that I asked from MM stuff 9 years ago (https://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=11161), which is something that Winamp had 25 or so years ago and which is the main reason why I am still using it for playback. And it doesn't require that you use the extended M3U format at all, it works in Wnamp quite fine with simple M3U format as well.

You know, if you constantly undermine my efforts with my add-ons, I will just stop supporting your program and say good buy writing them, just like the OP did as an user.
Magic Nodes 4.3.3 / 5.2 RegExp Find & Replace 4.4.9 / 5.2  Invert Selection/Select None 1.5.1  Export/Create Playlists for Child Nodes 4.1.1 / 5.4.1  Expand Child Nodes/Expand All 1.1.2  Event Logger 2.7  Filtered Statistics Report 1.6  Track Redirection & Synchronization 3.4.2  Restore/Synchronize Database 3.1.8 / 4.0.1  Find Currently Playing Track 1.3.2  Queue List 1.2.1  Add to Library on Play 1.0.1  Tree Report for Child Nodes 1.1.1  Update Location of Files in Database 1.4.5 / 2.3  Inherit Child Playlists 1.0.3  Add Currently Playing/Selected Track(s) to Playlist 1.2
rusty
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Re: Import Playlists fail On New PC

Post by rusty »

Rob, Zvezdan,

I agree--Peke's bug is kind of orthogonal to the original issue raised in this thread. It summarizes a few limitations with MM's current m3u implementation (most of which have been raised in the past by Zvezdan and others).

The only way to import an auto-playlist is be importing the DB (which would be the preferred approach for migrating to a new PC) or if there was an addon that specifically imports playlists (which Zvezdan has already written for MM4 and will hopefully port to MM5 since we're not planning on writing such an addon).

-Rusty
Rob_S
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[REQ] backup and restore auto-playlists

Post by Rob_S »

I think this may have gotten lost in another thread under looking for help.

It seems very useful to have a feature to back up complex auto-playlists individually or as a group and restore them to same computer, or to import/copy them to another computer, in the original editable format

I think this needs to be independent of the entire db, which can already be backed up restored or copied.
Using 5.1 LATEST alpha or beta build on Windows 10, HP laptop, managing 13k tracks
Barry4679
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Re: [REQ] backup and restore auto-playlists

Post by Barry4679 »

Rob_S wrote: Mon Nov 21, 2022 1:23 pm It seems very useful to have a feature to back up complex auto-playlists individually or as a group and restore them to same computer, or to import/copy them to another computer, in the original editable format

I think this needs to be independent of the entire db, which can already be backed up restored or copied.
From what I can see it would be really simple to migrate auto-playlists to another MM5 installation, which has its own independent database.

It would be a bit more difficult to migrate static playlists. This is because each computer would have assigned their own ID to each of the tracks. And a static playlist is just a list of Track Ids ... So there would need for something to translate the track ID from computer A, to the ID it is known by in computer B. .. This would need to be done by tag matching, which is not a simple as you may think, due to potential tag differences, or tag duplication, or tracks missing from the target computer.

An auto playlist is just a list of rules from which a static playlist could be made ... ie. genre="jazz", artist='"Eminem" etc ... so not database dependent.

Maybe I have oversimplified things here, but I don't think there is any great impediment to what you ask about auto-playlists specifically.

I briefly looked at Zvezdan's MM4 addon. It wasn't immediately clear to me whether it handled auto playlists, nor whether it was able to import static playlists into a non-related MM database. ... Zvezdan?

I agree with Rob, ie. that a playlist export|import facility would be a good Addon. I have seen lots of incidents here were people have been disappointed to find that they have lost all their playlists due to some misadventure. A playlist export facility may not make that problem entirely go away, but MM5 could make a micro-sized playlist export as it closed down ... which would be available in instances of db corruption.
Want a dark skin for MM5? This is the one that works best for me .. elegant, compact & clear.
Lowlander
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Re: [REQ] backup and restore auto-playlists

Post by Lowlander »

It's the reverse.

A regular Playlist can be exported and exports as just a file list, which can be imported into any other installation as long as Paths match. A regular Playlist export as a list of IDs would only work if you're importing into a copy of the database. Otherwise file ID's would not match between databases. If Paths are different, but universal for all files (ie. D:\Music instead of C:\My Music) you can use any text editor (like Notepad) to fix this with Replace.

AutoPlaylists on the hand are database ID based. So for each field you include in Criteria the AutoPlaylist would use the database ID's for value. This differs from database to database. So to export you'd need to translate all the Criterias to actual values, and on import back to matching database IDs.
Barry4679
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Re: [REQ] backup and restore auto-playlists

Post by Barry4679 »

Lowlander wrote: Mon Nov 21, 2022 9:51 pm AutoPlaylists on the hand are database ID based. So for each field you include in Criteria the AutoPlaylist would use the database ID's for value. This differs from database to database. So to export you'd need to translate all the Criterias to actual values, and on import back to matching database IDs.
I see zero evidence of that.
As I said, I may be over simplifying, but before posting I did try making few Auto PlayLists. None of the criteria were stored using database IDs. All were just strings, and therefore not dependent upon the database where they were created.
I think that the complexity of exporting and importing these is overstated.

OTOH the database tables for static playlists contain IDs only, but as you indicate it would easy to join to the Songs table, to export track paths. So, simpler that I was suggesting, provided one alters the export, to account for any path structure differences.
Want a dark skin for MM5? This is the one that works best for me .. elegant, compact & clear.
ZvezdanD
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Re: [REQ] backup and restore auto-playlists

Post by ZvezdanD »

As I said several times already, my Restore/Synchronize Database add-on could export/import auto-playlists in MM4 (and static playlists as well) and its port for MM5 is planned.

No, the export/import of auto-playlists is not that simple as you think and its complexity is not overstated. That is because the rules for auto-playlists are in almost all cases related to some kind of ID that is specific to the particular database. Not a database ID, but a data ID.

For example, if I have an auto-playlist with a criterion: "Artist" "is" "Pink Floyd", that criterion is not stored in the database as such. When you add the first track to the database with a new artist, the Artists table is filled with a new record, one field of that record is "Artist" with its name, and the other field is "ID" that will get its unique id. Let say that I just have added one track by "Pink Floyd" to the empty database, and in that case that artist will get the ID = 1. So, if I create the previously mentioned criterion, it will be stored in the database something like this: "Artist ID" "is" "1". However, if I have another database where the tracks from the same artist are not added to the database first, but after other artists, then that artist ("Pink Floyd") will not have ID = 1, but any other value.

There are just a few auto-playlist rules that are not based on IDs, like "Path" "is/begins/ends/..." or "Rating" "is...".

All of this is already implemented with my add-on. It could find the corresponding IDs just fine, even if you want to export/import data from/to non-related databases.
Magic Nodes 4.3.3 / 5.2 RegExp Find & Replace 4.4.9 / 5.2  Invert Selection/Select None 1.5.1  Export/Create Playlists for Child Nodes 4.1.1 / 5.4.1  Expand Child Nodes/Expand All 1.1.2  Event Logger 2.7  Filtered Statistics Report 1.6  Track Redirection & Synchronization 3.4.2  Restore/Synchronize Database 3.1.8 / 4.0.1  Find Currently Playing Track 1.3.2  Queue List 1.2.1  Add to Library on Play 1.0.1  Tree Report for Child Nodes 1.1.1  Update Location of Files in Database 1.4.5 / 2.3  Inherit Child Playlists 1.0.3  Add Currently Playing/Selected Track(s) to Playlist 1.2
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