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Author Topic: Prevent songs from being removed from playlists  (Read 2434 times)

flac.rules

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Prevent songs from being removed from playlists
« on: December 20, 2016, 03:05:10 pm »

MC automatically removes files from playlists that it cannot find (or at least seems to do), is there a way to prevent this without locking and unlocking the playlists all the time.
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blgentry

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Re: Prevent songs from being removed from playlists
« Reply #1 on: December 20, 2016, 03:50:36 pm »

MC is probably removing the files from it's library entirely.  The disappear from the playlist because they are no longer part of your library.  I would guess this might be happening for files that are on drives that are missing (unplugged) or unavailable (a NAS that's turned off for example). 

By default, MC is set to remove any missing files.  You can change this option at:

Tools > Options > Library & Folders > configure auto import > tasks > Fix Broken Links

I recommend the "No" setting.

Brian.
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flac.rules

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Re: Prevent songs from being removed from playlists
« Reply #2 on: December 20, 2016, 04:26:47 pm »

I don't think that is the problem, at least not directly. It seems to sometimes(?) be caused by users not having the access to the files in the playlist on a client computer, or some such circumstance (i have not pinpointed it exactly), but the files are in the library. (and I as a general rule don't want the files removed from the playlist even if they are purposly removed from the library)
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blgentry

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Re: Prevent songs from being removed from playlists
« Reply #3 on: December 20, 2016, 04:44:31 pm »

Playlists are built on top of the library structure.  So a song can not be in a play list if it's not in the library.  In technical terms every file in the library has a file ID number.  The playlists reference these ID numbers.  So if the file is gone, it has no ID number and the playlist has nothing to reference; just a "dead" ID number that no longer is tied to a file.

As for why you are seeing what you are seeing, I'm have no good ideas.  Maybe if you do some experiments and describe what you see someone else will have a good idea or two.

Good luck.

Brian.
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flac.rules

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Re: Prevent songs from being removed from playlists
« Reply #4 on: December 21, 2016, 01:50:22 am »

Even a "dead" ID is better than nothing, because then you have an opportunity to recreate the playlist, which might be the results of quite a lot of work. Is there a way to default to m3u-files instead? They retain the info about the song, even if the list cannot find it.
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blgentry

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Re: Prevent songs from being removed from playlists
« Reply #5 on: December 21, 2016, 06:09:18 am »

You're asking for something strange because something odd is happening on your system.  If you can figure out what's going on, then you'll solve the problem without trying to do something MC wasn't designed to do.

Do you know about the client/server bug of editing while clients are connected?  I *think* you can lose all edits when clients are connected.  It's one reason I will not presently use MC in a client/server setup.  Here's the original thread about this from several years ago.  It's rather complicated and I don't pretend to fully understand it:

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=75183.0

Good luck.

Brian.
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flac.rules

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Re: Prevent songs from being removed from playlists
« Reply #6 on: December 21, 2016, 10:45:04 am »

You're asking for something strange because something odd is happening on your system.  If you can figure out what's going on, then you'll solve the problem without trying to do something MC wasn't designed to do.

Do you know about the client/server bug of editing while clients are connected?  I *think* you can lose all edits when clients are connected.  It's one reason I will not presently use MC in a client/server setup.  Here's the original thread about this from several years ago.  It's rather complicated and I don't pretend to fully understand it:

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=75183.0

Good luck.

Brian.

Yeah, MC is doing something odd, thats why I want a setup that prevents big consequences of MC doing something odd, I don't find that very strange. (regular m3u-playlists are for instance working that way, so its not that far out there). Trying to recreate unwanted data loss has its inherent risks, and even if i was able to do it, I would like the system to be more robust, if some other similar oddity pops up later.

Maybe i should move away from the client/server setup though, it is not the only problem it (seems) to have caused for me. May I ask how you handle several users in your case?
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blgentry

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Re: Prevent songs from being removed from playlists
« Reply #7 on: December 21, 2016, 02:36:02 pm »

I'm "lucky" in that I only use a single instance of MC at the moment.  I'm planning to expand this in the future.  My plan isn't 100% set yet, but I'm thinking I'm going to do a brute force copy of my primary library to a second library on a second machine.  This will conveniently act as a backup of all of the media and the library data as it will be sitting on a second hard drive attached to the second computer.  I'm going to work out a sync system that updates media and library entries periodically.  Probably just a couple of rsyncs.

This has the added benefit that the network has no influence on the ability to use the system.  Unlike a client server setup, the network and the original computer have nothing to do with playback on the second computer.  So it's very fault tolerant and truly a stand alone setup.  This has disadvantages too.  It's just what I'm planning on currently.

Brian.
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