Auto Playlist help

[Bigginge]

Hi, can you help me with how Auto Playlist logic works please?

For example, I have 2 playlists #Hifi and #Phone that I want to each have a different set of 200 songs. I've put in criteria that make sense to me but am getting exactly the opposite result, i.e. they are both selecting the same 200 songs. Criteria are attached in screenshots. https://photos.app.goo.gl/E6TnfnXMokqeHnJ27 https://photos.app.goo.gl/7jbuVuvHs8otWens9

I'm sure the answer is simple but I'm just not seeing it at present.

Thanks, Mike

[Lowlander]

Unfortunately we don't see the Criteria for the second Playlist.

The problem though is that this doesn't work well with file limited AutoPlaylists. It's easy to exclude a static Playlists as it has a known set of files to exclude. With a limited AutoPlaylist this is a random set of files. So when you call that AutoPlaylist it may show a set of files, then when you can the AutoPlaylist excluding it, it may call a have a different set of random files on it.

[Rob_S]

To understand better, we would also have to see the criteria of the playlists which you are excluding and including.

For some reason, looking at the results list, it almost appears that nothing is being excluded. Also, I wonder why if you are using "Random" the results list is identical.

Even if nothing were being excluded, random selection in this playlist should result in s different list.

[Lowlander]

That would need to be Random track (auto-refresh), otherwise you're working with a cached list.

[Bigginge]

Thanks for getting back to me guys.

I do take the point about using random but it's important to the way I play music. I guess it depends on exactly when MM resolves the criteria in each and every playlist.

Not sure why you can't see the 2nd playlist but it shows #Phone criteria are identical to the #Hifi criteria with the exception of "Playlist is not #Phone" is replaced by "Playlist is not #Hifi.

I've attached some additional screenshots of the underlying playlist crieria as suggested. It may seem complex but the principles are simple:
1. when a track has been played it goes into Pending for 30 days before being eligible for inclusion in #Hifi or #Phone again
2. every track has a rating and the rating is used to limit the number of plays any track can have, higher rating gets more plays (and I reset this every year or so once every track has been played), *5, *4, *3, *2 and *1 select all tracks of the corresponding rating that have been played less than the limit set for each rating, *in play groups all of *5, *4, *3, *2 and *1 together for ease of reference
3. within the points above, which tracks get played today should be random and not based on any prescribed order
https://photos.app.goo.gl/VR1WevPDgVG5CXJt6
https://photos.app.goo.gl/o5RCq9UQHYdtmcDd6
https://photos.app.goo.gl/yFMv4KGvwvRrcWMq6

I use #Phone to sync with my phone so Random Track (auto refresh) would generate unnecessary syncing I think, I have though changed #Hifi, which I stream from MMW, to Random Track (auto refresh) and that has reduced the overlap to anything between 15 and 30 tracks, so improved but not quite what I was trying to achieve.

Don't know if it helps but I first found this problem with a similar group of playlists last year but it diminished and eventually seemed to disappear so I didn't think about it again. I've just changed the #Hifi and #Phone playlists as i now stream #Hifi from MMW when at home and play #Phone from my phone when out and about. Maybe it'll disappear again over time but I just can't make sense of it.

Thanks, Mike

[MattTown]

Mike,
I also use structured auto playlists for a similar purpose, but not as sophisticated as this so I'll be keen to find out why this is not working.
Lowlander's point about forcing refresh via Random track (auto-refresh) might be one component of why you're seeing two lists with the same contents, even though they should be mutually exclusive.
I would like to see more description on how Auto Playlists do their thing as well - with some hints for best practice maybe.
To that end, I note that your playlist definitions start with things to not include, which basically means that the logic starts with your entire library and gradually takes away files. Might it work better if you started with your main list of files (*in play) and then excluded files via not in (eg not *Pending)? Worth a try.
Cheers
Matt

[Bigginge]

Just gave this a try Matt. Still have an overlap but much reduced to around 15-20 rather than the full 200 I got on earlier attempt.

That's manageable so I'll stick with it, though I'm still mystified as to why there should be any overlap.

Thanks, Mike

[Bigginge]

One last throw of the dice, put the mutual "not in the other playlist" criteria first. Perfect, no overlap at all. As far as I can tell all other criteria are also being processed properly now too.

Given that's the only change I made autoplaylists are clearly sensitive to the order of the criteria in some way that isn't documented in the wiki guide. Don't know if this is something support are aware of / can explain?

Mike

[Lowlander]

Please provide your database file with the original AutoPlaylist problem setup for analysis to Support.

[Bigginge]

Thanks Lowlander, raised Ticket #5987.

Mike