Can't Refresh SD Card - Old Playlists Always Remain

[roryok]

Hi Guys

Long time reader, first time poster. I'm having a really irritating problem with my Hero (running Android 2.1 / villainRom9.0.0)

When I sync playlists to the device using any app (SongBird, DoubleTwist, JRiver Jukebox, etc) It has no problem adding and playing the music, finding the new MP3s etc. However, all the old playlists remain on the device long after being deleted. This is very annoying, and makes it practically impossible to use as I could have 3-4 different versions of a playlist and only one works. I can manually delete all these old playlists but it takes time, and I want it to update automatically.

Things I've tried:
SDRescan: No effect.
MusicScanner: Locks up, no effect
using AndExplorer/LindaFilemanager to do an SD card refresh : No effect
Writing my own APK to run
sendBroadcast(new Intent(Intent.ACTION_MEDIA_MOUNTED, Uri.parse("file://" + Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory())));
... No Effect.
Turning off the phone and rebooting: No effect.

I'm going a little crazy here, I've tried everything sane and reasonable and nothing is working. All I can find online are instances where SDrescan worked for people or they did a factory reset (crazy)

Can anyone shed any light on this?

 

[Chroma]

I can tell you this, for sure. DoubleTwist adds another playlist everytime you sync. Your only option is to manually delete the older versions of the playlists. DoubleTwist is actually a bad syncing program, as of right now.
I don't know about the rest of the programs you're using.

I instead use Missing Sync for my music, and it will update the playlists on the phone, not add a second one.

Also, if you're (inadvertently) added more than one version of a playlist. Your phone will see them all, no amount of refreshing will fix that problem. It sounds like your problem is syncing.

 

[roryok]

But I've gone in and deleted the M3U files. In fact, I've deleted the entire music folder at least twice and started over, and the original playlists are still there.

From what I understand, Android keeps a cached list of all the media files (including playlists) which is updated by the media scanner. Is that correct?

I'll avoid doubletwist from now on, but I don't think syncing is really my problem. My problem is that android still thinks my old m3u files are there and won't check to see if they've been deleted...

 

[Chroma]

Oh,I see. Are you using the stock music app? Sometimes I see this with meridian, but not as bad as your experience.

 

[roryok]

No, I'm using meridian latest free version. I just checked the stock music app and its the same problem.

 

[roryok]

I don't get it. Everything - EVERYTHING I've read suggests that unmounting and remounting the SD card causes a re-scan, but it does not. I know it doesn't, because it won't rescan either when I connect via USB, when I turn off the phone, or even when I unmount and physically remove the card.

 

[roryok]

I fixed it. I wrote an app which deletes any playlists from MediaStore which do not have associated M3U files on the SD Card.

You can download the app and the source code here:
Clearing out deleted playlists in android roryokblog