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[Solderman]

As far as I can tell this problem is not related to my earlier posts regarding wrong tags or changed or missing files, which could be explained by 3rd party software. I examined the source file and all the tags and its file name are correct. I have no reason to think MC is changing them.

I also examined the original *.m3u8 file and the file(s) seem to have the correct info in them. I inspect the playlist file with Mp3Tag 3.01.

The bug appears to be that, after importing the playlist, MC sometimes wrongly repeats the file name and the artist in the next entry. The rest of the fields appear correct. The filename is correct. So the correct song plays but it's just MC's database has partially wrong info.

Uploaded screenshot, there are at least two files there showing the error. Playlist was loaded in a prior (but recent) version of MC. Suggestions to reproduce the issue? Thanks.

[BigSpider]

What is the content of the m3u8 playlist, perhaps you could let us see exactly what is there before and after import.

[Solderman]

I've uploaded the *.m3u8 playlists.
metal.m3u8 is the "before"; this was generated in BeaTunes.

metal-from-MC.m3u8 is an export from the MC. I took a quick look with Mp3tag and did not see an issue with the two files in the original post. Note files won't have same contents as I routinely delete listened-to songs from the playlist that is in MC.

I can do troubleshooting and collect logs if you like, suggest a troubleshooting test.

[BigSpider]

Are you using the latest version of JRiver MC?

Check under the artists heading in the tree for buckethead and look through the tags displayed for each of their albums to ensure that the correct data is being shown in the standard view window.

[Solderman]

Yes, using 26.0.73 (32-bit).

Buckethead looked ok, but found something odd with the Johnny Rebel: in artist view, due to errors in the album, one song has album "It's the attitude stupid" with only 1 song, the rest of the songs in the album are grouped under "It The Attitude Stupid" (7 songs); the song in the "metal" playlist doesn't show at all! It should be song #10 and won't show up in a search at all. For politeness reasons, I cannot type the name of the song here 
The problem child song's tag has the first album spelling.

It occurred to me to look at the 2nd duplicate case in the playlist: The 69 Eyes "Smashed and Trashed" in the album view looked ok. The song below should be System of a Down "Suite-Pee"; now I look up System of a Down in album view and not the same, there is a 2nd album but a totally different name. However, like the 1st case, there is no entry for track named "Suite-Pee" (should be Track #1). I look in Windows Explorer and it is in the expected directory.

So, two files that don't show in the MC database...odd. Want me to look for more in the playlist? Thanks. Again, the playlist was imported into an older version, but original PL dated Dec-13-2019 so not that ancient. Again, I'm willing to try re-import or whatever, but didn't want to do anything drastic until you give word.

[BigSpider]

Seems to me that you have a few files with incorrect album tags which just need correcting. If you have been deleting or moving files using windows explorer that can also lead to some confusion because MC will not find them where it ecpects them to be.

[Solderman]

I deleted everything (from the database), then reimported everything, then playlist. Problem remains.

[RoderickGI]

Stop looking at the files in Windows Explorer. Learn to use the Explorer function in MC, in the left Navigation Bar > Drives & Devices > Explorer. Just use that very carefully and learn how the Mode and Checkbox work. You can do a lot of damage in there, but it allows finding and checking file tags when the files appear to be "lost", or not in the Library. You can easily confirm if they are in the Library by changing the Mode.

Stop deleting files and re-importing them. I say that so often. It almost never fixes any problem with files in MC, especially when the problem is just the tags in the file. Learn how to use MC to find incorrect tags and fix them. It isn't that hard. Re-importing files just re-instates the problems that existed before.

Stop looking at Playlists to try to resolve issues. Sure, sometimes they are useful and the best way to do things. However, in your case here I believe that you need to learn to use Views, and to customise them to show what you need to see, because Views show the actual files that you have, while Playlists only show the files in the Playlist. So it would be easy to have a Playlist that you thought had a full Album in it, but it did not.

I have no idea why you posted an image of Playing Now in your first post. That isn't your Playlist. It is Playing Now, which is a special case of a Playlist, and is dynamic in MC. It isn't like a Playlist in iTunes or other applications. It may well show the issue, but it certainly may not. It does show a certain lack of understanding of MC, I'm afraid.

Don't inspect Playlist files with mp3tag. Use a text editor, such as Notepad, or better yet, Notepad++. It is a great free text editor. Okay, I am a bit biased on this one, as I don't use mp3tag and do use Notepad++, so I don't know that mp3tag doesn't reformat or alter the files when viewed or saved. I could look I guess... not now though.

Understand that importing Playlist files can alter metadata (tags) for existing files in the Library. If the tags are correct, then you import a Playlist that has incorrect tags, your file tags can be updated to the incorrect values. For example, the "metal.m3u8" Playlist you posted in the zip files above includes the [Artist] and [Name] tags/fields. If they were wrong in that Playlist, then MC would be updated with the incorrect values. I haven't checked if anything was wrong in them. I leave that to you. But if those Playlists come from iTunes, check carefully, as they can have fields in the wrong order. The "metal.m3u8" Playlist does look to be formatted correctly though.

EDIT: Quick check. The Playlist file looks okay.

Note that there is no m3u8 extended Playlist export format in MC, and the m3u8 format does not include fields. If you want to compare apples with apples, and show fields, use the "M3U Playlist (extended)" format. That would have been another way to confirm the values of the [Name] and [Artist] fields in MC.



As BigSpider says, you have some tags wrong inside the files. Fix them in MC and all will be good.

But there could still be an issue with importing Playlist files. You could be completely correct in this statement:

The bug appears to be that, after importing the playlist, MC sometimes wrongly repeats the file name and the artist in the next entry. The rest of the fields appear correct. The filename is correct. So the correct song plays but it's just MC's database has partially wrong info.

I just can't tell from what you have posted, and neither could JRiver. I can't even see the full filename of the "E:\MUSIC\INBOX\1001 Albums\0873. System Of A Down - System O" example, where it does seem that the [Name] and [Artist] fields have been incorrectly updated, which a bad Playlist file import could do, as per above. But the "metal.m3u8" Playlist you provided doesn't have the error. You need to document exactly the steps you take to reproduce the problem, so that if it is a bug, JRiver can reproduce the problem and fix it.

I think this problem could occur if you accidentally selected two files in mp3tag when you updated the [Name] (also known as Title) and [Artist] fields. But you say you checked the tags in the file using mp3tag, so they should be correct. MC shows that they aren't anymore, in your image.

Also, terminology. Your image shows that the [Name] and [Artist] fields are repeated, not the file name and artist.

[Solderman]

I'm going to try and make a test scenario maybe like this: I will make a toy library and playlist and install MC on a PC that doesn't have it at all.

Proposed test #1: from scratch, import into new library. Check for the "missing files" problem.

Proposed test #2: import the playlist. Check for the repeating data problem.

Test system is 64-bit, windows 8. But, even before using MC, there is something odd: I edited a new playlist with just 4 files. MP3tag would not find one file, the file is there and I can't see any naming problem. Ancient Winamp has no trouble importing my "library" but when I try to play the above file (in the playlist), it just skips over it. In Wordpad, one of the files has weird characters. It doesn't help matters that I used Word to change the directory names in the test playlist file.

Could all this be a character encoding issue? Not sure how to proceed, but clearly there is something sick in the playlist and/or the file names. Spaces in file names don't help matters

Worth noting: The playlists I import into MC come from (usually) BeaTunes. Long ago, I would sometimes have some type of error using *.m3u files, which was resolved by switching to *.m3u8 format.  I don't remember the exact error, but I think MC was not finding some file names. Again, character encoding?

While the playlist remains a mystery, the test bed installation of MC did correctly import the entire library, including the "problem" files that aren't in my library on my "real" system.

[RoderickGI]

Word isn't the best tool for editing plain text files and being sure that the character encoding is what is expected. Notepad or Notepad++ would be better.

There were problems with the "M3U Playlist (extended)" format in the past. Try then again, if you want to see metadata in them. Besides, it sounds like MC isn't finding file names again, so maybe they weren't the issue. Now mp3tag isn't seeing one file, and Winamp can't find the file referenced in the Playlist. This doesn't sound like a MC problem.

Weird characters, or special characters with accents and the like, should be handled by MC and other applications just fine. What are these weird characters you see in, I assume, the file name? Also, Wordpad isn't much better than Word. Try Notepad++. I linked to the website above.

Yes, some of this could be a character encoding issue. Not all though. The "metal.m3u8" Playlist is encoded in UTF-8-BOM, while the "metal-exported-from-MC.m3u8" Playlist file yu exported from MC is encoded in plain UTF-8. Notepad++ allowed me to quickly see that, and convert it if I wanted to. My exported Playlist files are encoded in ANSI.


If the "problem" files imported in this test MC Library, but not in your original Library, have we talked about the "Bad" file and "Removed" Databases?

[Solderman]

Now I'm getting confused  ?

Clearly there is a problem with me trying to make a test playlist, probably due to the character encoding of my files and/or the editors I've used.

With my test bed, I did note that the two files that my real MC did NOT import, do import just fine onto the test bed MC.

Let me poke around with the playlist and see if I can verify what character set is used, as well as what errors are being caused. Curiously, I'm pretty sure these files should only use "normal" characters...which is all the odder that I saw a strange character there.