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Help Playlists Keep Disappearing

After many hours of research and trial and error I am, now, enjoying playlists that don't disappear on my new Dell Venue 8 7000 tablet with Android V. 5.1 and am able to modify and transfer them for use in my Microsoft Sync equipped Ford Fusion. I will post this explanation of what to do on the two sites which were most helpful in licking the many issues which hinder what should be a much easier and well documented process.



Let's start with an obvious point. Since the problem of playlist contents which disappear, when one powers down an Android phone or tablet, has not been corrected by Google through four revisions of the operating system, I can only assume that Google has a reason for using, by default, database storage, rather than the universally accepted m3u file storage (which would have allowed for easy backup or transfer to other music programs). One factor is that Android was originally created as an operating system for phones, which are left on most of the time, and not tablets, which are turned off more frequently, I don't believe that fact is the whole reason for this design defect. I believe a clue is to be found in the fact that playlists created with the Amazon Music player don't appear on the Google Music player and vice versa. Could it be that Amazon and Google want to discourage potential customers for their digital music offerings from using the other company's music player?



As someone who has over 3,000 mp3s on my tablet and an identical number on a thumb drive which resides in the USB port of my Ford Fusion, playlists were very important. I use them in a number of ways. For example, my Beatles playlist includes all my mp3s by John, Paul and George. As another example, I enjoy a playlist which includes not only all my Dylan mp3s but, also, all my mp3s of other artists covering Dylan songs. When shuffle played, such playists enhance the choices automatically created based upon track title, album title, artist name, and genre. I would note that I, also, use playlists to work around a limit in the Microsoft Sync system. It only recognizes one genre per track. I have many jazz tracks which come from soundtracks. I can leave the genre for these tracks as soundtracks and, nevertheless, hear them mixed in with my jazz, by adding them to a jazz playlist.



Let me get to the point. Thank you to those of you who noted that the PowerAmp Android app is a full featured music program that stores playlists separately from the Android system in a manner where the playlists remain in tact after a reboot. PowerAmp will, also, take all of the playlists you create with it and convert them to m3u8 files (go into the system settings for this option). By default, it puts these playlists in a folder entitled “playlists” in the phone or tablet primary storage (as opposed to on an sd card, where the mp3s themselves are usually stored). Once created, these playlists appear in the PowerAmp playlist list and can be used by the program in the same manner as non-file based playlists. Just remember to click on the playlist (thereby loading it off the file) before attempting to modify it. I prefer to maintain my playlists using this file based system because I can, then, back them up to a hard drive. I find that PowerAmp's choice of placement for these files is a good one because Windows Explorer does not always do so well in spotting files on the sd card. If you have this problem with a playlist file in the phone or tablet storage, I find that calling up the file in PowerAmp while your device is connected to the computer will usually do the trick and will cause the file to appear in Windows Explorer.



Once I have created these files, I delete PowerAmp's database version of the playlists to avoid duplication. One way I listen to music using my Dell tablet is on my home receiver. Often, I just plug the earphone output into the auxiliary input of the receiver. However, my Onkyo receiver comes with a USB port which will accept either a bluetooth receiver or a wifi receiver. I have the wifi receiver and use it, primarily, to listen to internet radio stations. It works quite well for that use, but Onkyo, also, has an Android app, which permits me to play wirelessly from my tablet. The stability of the connection for this purpose is not as good as I would like, but I wanted to mention this because the Onkyo app does not find my PowerAmp playlists. There is a simple solution. The Android app, Playlist Backup, displays the m3u8 playlists under a tab entitled “PowerAmp Playlists”. Simply click on the one you want to stream to the receiver and then press the button entitled “Sync with System”. This will cause the playlist to appear in the list of playlists in the Onkyo app (until you power down, after which you will need to delete the emply playlist in Google Play Music before you can, again, Sync that playlist with the System).



Playlist Backup is, also, the starting point for creating my Microsoft Sync playlists. Microsoft Sync, requires a number of modifications to the m3u8 playlist files. First of all, Sync does not appear to recognize the m3u8 file extension (which is UFT based instead of ansi). The settings in Playlist Backup allow you to change the backup extension from the default .”txt” to “.m3u”. You can, also, change the place where it stores the backup from an obscure sub-directory on the sd card, to the above mentioned playlist folder on the phone or tablet's primary memory. From there, move the playlist to your windows desktop for further modification using Windows Explorer. Once there, you will notice that the file gives the playlist name followed by “.msu8”. This is extraneous and not the file extension, which is now m3u. Simply delete “m3u8” from the playlist title. Then, open the playlist file with Windows Notepad, set to open all files in ansi (rather than UFT or UFT8 format). Once it is open, you will see a simple list of the playlist mp3s with each preceded by detailed directory information. The initial details specify where the file is on your android device. In my case this descriptor reads as follows: “/storage/sdcard1/”. This descriptor tells android that the mp3 is on your sd card. However, Sync, uses relative rather than fixed storage descriptors so you need to delete these descriptors in front of each mp3. This can be speedily done using Notepad's “Replace” feature under edit. Just leave blank the space where it asks what you want to replace the descriptor with. Android uses forward slashes “/” to identify its file structure (e.g. Music/Bob Dylan/I Want You.mp3). Microsoft, which made Sync, uses backward slashes “\”. This substitution is, again speedily and accurately accomplished using Notepad's Replace feature. Contrary to what some people have posted, Sync appears to have no problem dealing with a complex file structure so long as the correct descriptors are used. The only manual step I take, is to hit the enter key after each mp3 so that you get a vertical file list of the mp3s. You are then hitting save to save the revised playlist in ansi m3u format. The format looks like this in Notepad:



Music\Bob Dylan\I Want You.mp3

Music\Bob Dylan\Lay Lady Lay.mp3



I use the primary folder entitled “Music” because I keep a backup of my entire mp3 collection on a hard drive and I was able to move the entire library to a new thumb drive or onto my tablet simply by using Windows Explorer to copy Music folder. Once the Music folder is on the thumb drive, just place a copy of your playlists in the root directory of the thumb drive. It works great!



Enjoy
 
Upvote 0
I use iSyncr (a good way to sync iTunes with Android), and this page on their site explains how to solve the issue of playlists disappearing -- even if you don't use iSyncr.

I have problems with my playlists, what should I do?
Your device has an internal cache where it stores this information. Sometimes this cache gets out of sync. You can delete this cache by looking for an application called "Media Store" (or similar) in "Settings->Applications->Manage Applications". You may have to press the menu button and change the filter to show all applications. Once you find "Media Store", open its options page and select "Clear Data". Then reboot the device to force the cache to be rebuilt. Take a look at this tutorial for more information on how to refresh the media database.​

Wait for a period of hours before trying to use your device to allow the database to rebuild.
 
Upvote 0
After many hours of research and trial and error I am, now, enjoying playlists that don't disappear on my new Dell Venue 8 7000 tablet with Android V. 5.1 and am able to modify and transfer them for use in my Microsoft Sync equipped Ford Fusion. I will post this explanation of what to do on the two sites which were most helpful in licking the many issues which hinder what should be a much easier and well documented process.



Let's start with an obvious point. Since the problem of playlist contents which disappear, when one powers down an Android phone or tablet, has not been corrected by Google through four revisions of the operating system, I can only assume that Google has a reason for using, by default, database storage, rather than the universally accepted m3u file storage (which would have allowed for easy backup or transfer to other music programs). One factor is that Android was originally created as an operating system for phones, which are left on most of the time, and not tablets, which are turned off more frequently, I don't believe that fact is the whole reason for this design defect. I believe a clue is to be found in the fact that playlists created with the Amazon Music player don't appear on the Google Music player and vice versa. Could it be that Amazon and Google want to discourage potential customers for their digital music offerings from using the other company's music player?



As someone who has over 3,000 mp3s on my tablet and an identical number on a thumb drive which resides in the USB port of my Ford Fusion, playlists were very important. I use them in a number of ways. For example, my Beatles playlist includes all my mp3s by John, Paul and George. As another example, I enjoy a playlist which includes not only all my Dylan mp3s but, also, all my mp3s of other artists covering Dylan songs. When shuffle played, such playists enhance the choices automatically created based upon track title, album title, artist name, and genre. I would note that I, also, use playlists to work around a limit in the Microsoft Sync system. It only recognizes one genre per track. I have many jazz tracks which come from soundtracks. I can leave the genre for these tracks as soundtracks and, nevertheless, hear them mixed in with my jazz, by adding them to a jazz playlist.



Let me get to the point. Thank you to those of you who noted that the PowerAmp Android app is a full featured music program that stores playlists separately from the Android system in a manner where the playlists remain in tact after a reboot. PowerAmp will, also, take all of the playlists you create with it and convert them to m3u8 files (go into the system settings for this option). By default, it puts these playlists in a folder entitled “playlists” in the phone or tablet primary storage (as opposed to on an sd card, where the mp3s themselves are usually stored). Once created, these playlists appear in the PowerAmp playlist list and can be used by the program in the same manner as non-file based playlists. Just remember to click on the playlist (thereby loading it off the file) before attempting to modify it. I prefer to maintain my playlists using this file based system because I can, then, back them up to a hard drive. I find that PowerAmp's choice of placement for these files is a good one because Windows Explorer does not always do so well in spotting files on the sd card. If you have this problem with a playlist file in the phone or tablet storage, I find that calling up the file in PowerAmp while your device is connected to the computer will usually do the trick and will cause the file to appear in Windows Explorer.



Once I have created these files, I delete PowerAmp's database version of the playlists to avoid duplication. One way I listen to music using my Dell tablet is on my home receiver. Often, I just plug the earphone output into the auxiliary input of the receiver. However, my Onkyo receiver comes with a USB port which will accept either a bluetooth receiver or a wifi receiver. I have the wifi receiver and use it, primarily, to listen to internet radio stations. It works quite well for that use, but Onkyo, also, has an Android app, which permits me to play wirelessly from my tablet. The stability of the connection for this purpose is not as good as I would like, but I wanted to mention this because the Onkyo app does not find my PowerAmp playlists. There is a simple solution. The Android app, Playlist Backup, displays the m3u8 playlists under a tab entitled “PowerAmp Playlists”. Simply click on the one you want to stream to the receiver and then press the button entitled “Sync with System”. This will cause the playlist to appear in the list of playlists in the Onkyo app (until you power down, after which you will need to delete the emply playlist in Google Play Music before you can, again, Sync that playlist with the System).



Playlist Backup is, also, the starting point for creating my Microsoft Sync playlists. Microsoft Sync, requires a number of modifications to the m3u8 playlist files. First of all, Sync does not appear to recognize the m3u8 file extension (which is UFT based instead of ansi). The settings in Playlist Backup allow you to change the backup extension from the default .”txt” to “.m3u”. You can, also, change the place where it stores the backup from an obscure sub-directory on the sd card, to the above mentioned playlist folder on the phone or tablet's primary memory. From there, move the playlist to your windows desktop for further modification using Windows Explorer. Once there, you will notice that the file gives the playlist name followed by “.msu8”. This is extraneous and not the file extension, which is now m3u. Simply delete “m3u8” from the playlist title. Then, open the playlist file with Windows Notepad, set to open all files in ansi (rather than UFT or UFT8 format). Once it is open, you will see a simple list of the playlist mp3s with each preceded by detailed directory information. The initial details specify where the file is on your android device. In my case this descriptor reads as follows: “/storage/sdcard1/”. This descriptor tells android that the mp3 is on your sd card. However, Sync, uses relative rather than fixed storage descriptors so you need to delete these descriptors in front of each mp3. This can be speedily done using Notepad's “Replace” feature under edit. Just leave blank the space where it asks what you want to replace the descriptor with. Android uses forward slashes “/” to identify its file structure (e.g. Music/Bob Dylan/I Want You.mp3). Microsoft, which made Sync, uses backward slashes “\”. This substitution is, again speedily and accurately accomplished using Notepad's Replace feature. Contrary to what some people have posted, Sync appears to have no problem dealing with a complex file structure so long as the correct descriptors are used. The only manual step I take, is to hit the enter key after each mp3 so that you get a vertical file list of the mp3s. You are then hitting save to save the revised playlist in ansi m3u format. The format looks like this in Notepad:



Music\Bob Dylan\I Want You.mp3

Music\Bob Dylan\Lay Lady Lay.mp3



I use the primary folder entitled “Music” because I keep a backup of my entire mp3 collection on a hard drive and I was able to move the entire library to a new thumb drive or onto my tablet simply by using Windows Explorer to copy Music folder. Once the Music folder is on the thumb drive, just place a copy of your playlists in the root directory of the thumb drive. It works great!



Enjoy
Seriously not reading all this for a Playlist disappearing and shoulnt have to on a 700 dollar phone... I just won't ever shut my phone off
 
Upvote 0

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