M3U question

[liteswap]

Great plugin - but I have what's probably a dumb question.

I've placed my M3U files (converted from my iTunes MP3 library) in the same folder as the iTunes xml library files. ML2 reads the M3U playlists OK but can't find the files they refer to -- even though, on the front page the list of files is there and they play fine.

Is there something else I should do to import the playlists? Thanks for your help with this (probably dumb) issue.

[psycik]

No your question isn't dumb, but my m3u implementation is pretty basic. Send me one of your m3u files and I'll have a look at it... It might do something I haven't seen before.

[newyankee]

This sounds similar to the problem I have posted here:
http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?t=24586

I have attached some sample playlists in that thread.

G

[liteswap]

I think I've just figured out what the problem is: I had a look inside an M3U file for the first time and (d'oh!) they include absolute paths of the machine they were created on.

However, I run my MP3s off a networked server because it saves having several repositories, and ML2 is looking for the files locally,when it should be looking on the server. I'll see if I can't change the way the M3U files are generated, and fix it that way. Signs are that it's not an ML2 problem after all.

Sorry to have wasted a few ions...

[psycik]

Ahh, bit harder for me to deal with then sorry. I use winamp for playlist creation and then save the playlists in a location of a portable harddrive that is set up the same as my gbpvr server so all the paths will work (if you store something with winamp in the same path as the music it strips off the drive letter).

I do have an internal playlist format, but I'm probably going to do away with storing these myself and make then into play list files.

If there was a bit more call for it I could probably implement a path replace for the play list entries or some "drives to check" type code...

[newyankee]

I use mp3tag for all tagging and playlists. You can configure it to use relative paths in playlists - which is nice. If you keep the directory structure identical for any device the level and drive letter don't matter anymore.

G

[liteswap]

I'm probably doing something similar with itunesexport.exe: iTunes is now set to use the MP3s on the server, which solves the path problem since the path is the same from any PC on the network. It also saves a nightly scheduled rsync copying operation of MP3s from my local machine to the server.

Itunesexport.exe then generates the M3U files from the iTunes library xml file on the server and, since it's command line-driven, I can drop these directly into the path that ML2 uses for MP3s. That remains a scheduled operation that runs every night.

Problem sorted.

Thanks all for the help.