Playlist inconsistency MMW/MMA

[wxdude]

I have some playlists where the playlist is

Search - entire library
Match - any - Playlist is Playlist 1; Playlist 2
No limit
Sort by - Random

on MMW this works just fine

Since Beta 3078, upon syncing with MMA the resulting playlist order is

Playlist 1 sorted randomly followed by Playlist 2 sorted randomly.

It is easy to solve for my listening needs to simply shuffle the playlist on MMA, but there is an inconsistency between the two

MMW - portable
Sync via WiFi
MMA 2.0.2.1222

[rusty]

Hi,

I just tested this out with an auto-playlist consisting of two regular playlists and the synced playlist in MMA (2.0.2,1222) matches the original playlist in MMW (2024.0.0.3081).

Can you try making a small edit to the autoplaylist (e.g. click Sort by 'Random' to re-randomize it) and then resync and see if it solves the problem?

Thanks!

-Rusty

[wxdude]

The same things happens.

One critical piece I forgot to mention is that Playlist 1 and Playlist 2 are not regular playlists, but auto playlists also sorted radomly. Playlist 1 is songs rated 4 or higher not played in x days, and playlist 2 is unrated songs never played.

[Peke]

Hi,
I tested it today and results for me are same in 3078 and 3082.

[Rattrocker]

I'm having the same behavior as wxdude. An autoplaylist of mine is ordered correctly on MMW but incorrectly on MMA (and on Spotify if/when I sync the playlist there too).

Here is a screenshot of the autoplaylist's config that has inconsistent sorting:


Here is a MMW screenshot of the expected results:


Here is a MMA screenshot of the actual results:


You'll notice that this autoplaylist sources its tracks from two other playlists - "Current Favorites" and "Favorites - Top 200". "Current Favorites" is a regular playlist whereas "Favorites - Top 200" is another autoplaylist. Individually, both playlists are consistently sorted.

Here is the config of "Favorites - Top 200":


I noticed that the first part of the MMA playlist that is not order correctly matches the "Current Favorites" playlist sorted alphabetically by the artist. It seems to me that the ordering on MMA is "Current Favorites" sorted and then "Favorites - Top 200" sorted rather than having all the songs sorted together.

Syncing the "Current Favorites + Top 200" playlist to Spotify results in the same unexpected ordering as on MMA so clearly something internal to MMW is the culprit rather than it being a MMA problem.

The autoplaylist feature used to work properly until one of the recent beta builds. I'd need to go back and download a few of them to see confirm which one coincides with the order breaking.

Here are all of my screenshots, there are a few additional that I haven't embedded here:
https://imgur.com/a/IDK8Xfo

[Peke]

Here is a MMW screenshot of the expected results:

Can you change that view to Plain list view not List by Album like in your screenshot?
Additionally please check # column if Ordering is same like in MMA?

[wxdude]

I've been away for a couple of weeks but can confirm that MMW 3074 performs as expected and subsequent betas show the inconsistency for me.

Here is a screenshot of MMW 3074

https://imgur.com/Mf8r86T

and a screenshot of MMW 3082

https://imgur.com/XdbF7pG

As you can see the playlist order in both is the same.

on mma synched with MMW 3074 the screenshot shows the playlist order to match MMW

https://imgur.com/hkXAGzQ

and mma synched with 3082 the playlist order does not match at all, but it is as described in the original post as Playlist 1 sorted randomly followed by playlist 2 sorted randomly

https://imgur.com/lvEUFqp

[Rattrocker]

Here is a MMW screenshot of the expected results:

Can you change that view to Plain list view not List by Album like in your screenshot?
Additionally please check # column if Ordering is same like in MMA?

Sure thing, here is the playlist but without the grouped album art (note: some of the columns being sorted aren't visible - the ordering remains the same - Date asc, Album Artist asc, Album asc, Track # asc):


Ordering in MMA is still (consistently) incorrect even after syncing while MMW is in the plain list view.

[MMHN]

I'm having the same behavior as wxdude. An autoplaylist of mine is ordered correctly on MMW but incorrectly on MMA (and on Spotify if/when I sync the playlist there too).

[thebertster]

I am having similar issues since upgrading to MM 2024 with incorrect ordering of synced autoplaylists in MMA.

The problems occur with multiple playlists, including newly-creating playlists. I have performed a database rebuild/optimize. My library overall is ~11.5k tracks and the largest collection around 8.5k tracks.

The playlists are all of the form:

Search: <specific collection> (but also tried with "Entire Library" and same issue)
Match: All - Rating >= n stars
Limit option NOT used
Sort by: Random

(Side not: A UX issue I found on the MMW side is that editing the autoplaylist requires clicking in the "white space" of the UI in order for a change to "save". This caused me a lot of confusion while testing the MMA problem because changes I thought I had made in MMW had not actually taken.)

But even when I have got the playlists looking as expected (i.e. tracks randomly sorted) in MMW, when they sync to MMA, the sort order appears to revert in MMA to be "by Artist" then "by Album" then "by Track". This happens to most, but not all of these autosync playlists - the playlists which work appear to be smaller in size (<150 tracks vs >500 tracks). Recreating the playlists does not seem to help.

The problem only seems to occur with Sort by = Random. Other sort orders (including "Random Album") appear to work correctly.

[wxdude]

nm

[wxdude]

I thought I had the steps to replicate my issue figured out in my previous post but I was wrong...I think I have it figured out now.

I have three randomized playlists where each is a combination of 4 auto-playlists that are also randomized.

Playlist 1 = Playlist A + Playlist B
Playlist 2 = Playlist A + Playlist C
Playlist 3 = Playlist A + Playlist D

If I sync only Playlist 1 to MMA, everything is normal. Playlist 1 on MMW is randomized and the playlist order is the same on MMA. The same holds true for the other two playlists as well, as long as only one playlist is synced.

If I sync Playlist 1 and Playlist 2 to MMA, Playlist 1 on MMW is randomized and the playlist order is the same on MMA, however Playlist 2 on MMA is sorted as Playlist A (randomized) followed by Playlist C (randomized) which is a completely different order than MMW.

Syncing Playlists 1, 2, and 3 to MMA results in the same issue. Playlist 1 is in the correct order, Playlist 2 and 3 are not.

Removing Playlist 1 from the sync list results in Playlist 2 now in the correct order while Playlist 3 is still in the wrong order.

Other playlists with sort orders other than random do not seem to be affected.

[ChoppedBroccoli]

I am having the same issue with MMW 2024.0.0.3082 and MMA (Pro) 2.0.2.1222 (This is a regression for me as this was working before earlier in the year)

All playlists are sorted correctly on MMW, so that is working fine for me.

I have noticed behavior that is inconsistent with keeping the sort from MMW smart playlists in MMA. It looks like regular playlists order keep sorted fine. Some of my smart playlists keep sorted and some do not, with no clear pattern.

I did a series of tests which should help MM developers track down the problem.

The smart playlist I used for testing has the following sort order:

Code: Select all

genre a-z, album artist a-z, album a-z, track# a-z

1) Delete the smart playlist on the MMA device and resync to force. Same problem - the playlist is resynced and once it is in MMA the sort is incorrect.
2) Delete the affected playlist on the MMA device, but this time before resyncing change the sorting on the smart playlist in MMW by removing the "track #a-z" part of the sort. Force resync. The problem is resolved, and MMA shows the smart playlist sorted correctly.
3) Re-add the track# a-z to the MMW smart playlist and resync. The problem returns and the sort order is incorrect in MMA

Some regression seems to have been introduced related to the maximum number of sort options in a smart playlist or track #a-z specifically not translating on sync to MMA.

Hope this helps and please keep us posted!

[adakwa]

I held off till today upgrading to MMA 2 because I preferred the previous version. Now that I did, I have this playlist not sorting correctly issue. This mainly bothers me for tons of auto-playlists that I have sorted by rating (highest to lowest) and then by date added (highest to lowest). At first glance, it looks like MMA is reversing the order of the playlists from what is on MMW (also just installed MMW 2024). So whereas the highest rated songs should be at the top of the list, they at the end? This happens even for newly created playlists.

**Update: My hunch is that MMA is reversing sorting keys for auto-playlists. Example:

Say, auto-playlist on MMW sorts by
1) Rating Z-A and then
2) Date added Z-A.

When you sync to MMA, MMA would sort first by date added, and then by rating -- reversing the criteria order (whether Rating is first or Date Added is first). For each of these, it will also reverse the sort order i.e., whether it is Z-A or A-Z.

So the result will be that MMA sorts by
1) Date added A-Z and then by
2) Rating A-Z.

I imagine this could happen if the algorithms / code that does the sorting on MMA accidentally got reversed.

[spiky]

Hello! My playlists are in their correct, manually set orders in Media Monkey on desktop, but they sort alphabetically when synced to my Android phone.

I want them to retain the order they have on desktop.

I installed the latest version of desktop MM (lifetime gold) and Android MM (with Pro) today.

How do I do this? Is there a setting somewhere to tell MMA to respect the order given?

I do not use any automated playlists, these are all manually ordered.