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[ProblemChild]

I am trying to build a smartlist that picks a random sample of songs from different albums, then 'expands to full album', and sorts the albums randomly but keeps the songs together from the same album.
ie this is fine:

[album AAA][[song1]
[album AAA][[song2]
[album DDD][[song3]
[album DDD][[song1]
[album DDD][[song2]
[album BBB][[song2]
[album BBB][[song1]

I tried to do this result with these modifications, and it works, most of the time:

Code: [Select]

Sort By - Random
Limit to - 10 items
Expand to full albumsThe problem I'm having is that when my iPod is connected, the 'expand to full albums' step includes all the entries on my iPod in addition to the ones in my library, so I have every song listed twice:

E:\[album AAA][[song1]
G:\[album AAA][[song1]
E:\[album AAA][[song2]
G:\[album AAA][[song2]
E:\[album DDD][[song3]
G:\[album DDD][[song3]
E:\[album DDD][[song1]
G:\[album DDD][[song1]
...etc

The only solution I can find is to use a 2nd smartlist from the 1st one, but then I can't seem to get the albums ordered randomly.
For instance, if I use a 2nd smartlist

Code: [Select]

In playlist  - my first playlist
Volume is - E:\I get the following, which is fine except that it's not in random order, and I can't figure out how to randomize the albums yet keep the songs from that album together.

[album AAA][[song1]
[album AAA][[song2]
[album BBB][[song1]
[album BBB][[song2]
[album DDD][[song1]
[album DDD][[song2]
[album DDD][[song3]

This is driving me crazy. Hopefully I'm just missing something and it can be done easily.
Can anyone offer a solution? 

[ProblemChild]

I think I solved this, though I'm confused a bit:
I used:

Code: [Select]

Sort By - Random
Limit to - 10 items
Expand to full albums
Remove duplicates of - name

It didn't look like it worked because the results on my MC screen were like this:

E:\[album AAA][[song1]
G:\[album AAA][[song2]
G:\[album DDD][[song3]
E:\[album DDD][[song1]
G:\[album DDD][[song2]
E:\[album BBB][[song2]
E:\[album BBB][[song1]

ie
The right listing of songs, but using songs from both the iPod list and my library list, randomly.
However, after I syncd this to the iPod, everything looks fine - the iPod and/or MC understood
what was wanted. I'm still a bit puzzled about why it includes the entries on the iPod as part of
my library for purposes of creating this list, but... it works, at least on my iPod. It still isn't the best,
though, since the songs on my iPod are mp3s, converted from the lossless files in my library.
So if I listen to this smartlist from my computer, though I get the right list of songs, I'll randomly
hear the song in its mp3 format, and other times in ape/flac format.

[marko]

If you open the smart list editor again, hit the import/export button and replace what's there with this:

[media type]="audio" ~limit=10,1,[album],[album artist (auto)] ~a

you will be guaranteed 10 albums sorted randomly by album every time. (you may need to "customise current view" and make sure that the sorting options are empty in order to preserve the random element)
You can read some details about using "Limit (advanced)" if you click here

My iPod is a 5th gen 60gig variety. I have tried several things here but have so far been unable to reproduce what you're seeing re. songs from the iPod showing up in the main library listings, and I've certainly never seen that before either.
Does your iPod always take the same drive letter when you connect it?
If yes, then try disconnecting your iPod, click on audio in the tree, then search for the iPod's drive letter using:

[filename (path)]=ipod drive letter:\

do you get any results?

[ProblemChild]

Marco-
Here's what I'm seeing...Hopefully you can read it.
My 80G iPod (about 6 mo old - not sure what kind that makes it - it was 'new' when I bought it)
always takes the same drive letter - G:\.
When I try to filter my Audio list with [Filename (path]=[G:"
I get no results. I also get no results trying to do the same thing in a new smartlist.
I tried both of these methods first while the iPod was attached (when I took the image) and then after
ejecting the iPod. No results.
This is what I see (with the iPod attached)...




Also, I tried your suggestion:

Code: [Select]

media type]="audio" ~limit=10,1,[album],[album artist (auto)] ~a
and read the topic on 'limit' - thanks a lot.
But... if I build a smartlist with this expression via the wizard - ie just enter the string as a CUSTOM rule,
I get the same results as above.  If I change it to

Code: [Select]

media type]="audio" ~limit=10,-1,[album],[album artist (auto)]however, it excludes the files on the iPod.
The reason seems to be in how the wizard translates it. The 1st string is translated to:

Rules:
Media  - contains audio

Modifications:
Limit(advanced) - 10,1,[album],[album artist (auto)]
Expand to full albums

but with the second it becomes,

Rules:
Media  - contains audio

Modifications:
Limit(advanced) - 10,-1,[album],[album artist (auto)]

The 1st doesn't work, the 2nd does.
Either way I'm still left with the tracks on each album not being sorted together as one unit - I get all the tracks from an album
and the albums are randomly sorted, but so are the songs - I'd like the albums in random order but the songs kept together as a group (order doesn't matter as long as they are together as an album group). Maybe this isn't possible?

[marko]

It's definately possible, I have it working exactly as you desire, right now.
Careful with that copy/paste action. I'm assuming that the missing opening square bracket in your [code ] sections above are typos as if not, the string simply wouldn't work at all.

Secondly, I feel it's very important that you open the "Customise Current View" dialogue a ensure that the "sorting" options are blank... empty...


Next, we should look at what each search is actually doing...
You say that this works, [media type]="audio" ~limit=10,-1,[album],[album artist (auto)]
in that it excludes tracks from the ipod. apart from that, it's not going to give you what you want.
The instructions given are, from all audio, return all tracks from 10 random albums.
This gives me ten full albums, as expected, but they're jumbled all over the place, not even grouped into albums, never mind correct track order, and again, from the given string, this is what I'd expect.

This..: [media type]="audio" ~limit=10,1,[album],[album artist (auto)] ~a
works perfectly for me. No ipod tracks, 10 random albums grouped correctly in track order.
It say, from all audio, pick 1 track from 10 random albums, then expand each of those to include all tracks from each album. It works.

The problem you have is that for some reason, your ipod tracks are being listed in the results, and they shouldn't be.
You have either found a bug, or there's something rather unique about your setup that's causing this to happen.

The orange note icons you see beside your ipod tracks indicate that they have not been imported into your main library. As a test, could you try the string below and see if it helps any. It specifically tells MC to only use files from the main library database:

[Media Type]="audio" ~d=m ~limit=10,1,[album],[album artist (auto)] ~a

Use the Import/Export button on the smart list editor to replace existing text with the string above.
Also, which version of MC are you using (help > about)?

I can't help wondering if those square brackets around the Genres and albums are anything to with your ipod anomally. Do you have any regularly labelled genres you can search on to rule that out?

-marko.

[ProblemChild]

Hi Marco,
Thanks again for your help. The Smartlist 'Import/Export' button hint is very helpful, by the way - I'd assumed it was just for file io and ignored it - much faster than deleting and re-writing.
OK...
I'm using v12.0.388. For everything here I used [Genre]="Rock" to avoid any interference by the wierd bracketed names/genres, etc (they make it easier for me to quickly find certain items quickly on the iPod since they sort to the top). Also, adding the ~d=m modifier made no diffence to any of the results below, but I include it to show that it was tested.

Code: [Select]

[Media Type]="audio" [Genre]="Rock"           ~limit=10,1,[album],[album artist (auto)] ~a
[Media Type]="audio" [Genre]="Rock" ~d=m  ~limit=10,1,[album],[album artist (auto)] ~a

1. From AUDIO, typing either of the above expressions into the search/filter textbox:
This does work exactly as I need. Yesterday, when it did not seem to work, although "Customize current View" showed nothing in the 'Sorting' listbox, there was sorting occurring via the layout - I'm still not sure how to work with layouts (ie how to remove sorting), so I set the layout to 'Default', then went into "Customize current View" and removed all the sorting entries - after that everything looked great.

However...
2. Creating a new smartlist and entering the same expressions via the Import/Export textbox:
This also works, in that it retrieves the albums, shows the tracks grouped together and with the albums sorted randomly - but the entries from my iPod reappear. I also found a few other things -
First, there are certain albums for which this does not happen - ie the iPod tracks do not appear; This is repeatable - when the same album happens to come up randomly later on, it still looks fine. I have spent some time trying to figure out what makes these albums different, but I can't find anything.
Second, in addition to the iPod entries, there are also sometimes .cda entries.
Finally, if instead of using "Expand to Full Albums" (-a) as a modifier, I just change the filter modifier's 2nd argument from 1 to -1, as in:

Code: [Select]

[Media Type]="audio" [Genre]="Rock"           ~limit=10,-1,[album],[album artist (auto)]
[Media Type]="audio" [Genre]="Rock" ~d=m  ~limit=10,-1,[album],[album artist (auto)]
I get even different results. None of the iPod/CDA tracks appear, but everything is complely unsorted and ungrouped. I have my ten albums and every track, but the tracks are all over the place!
If I eject the iPod, close and restart MC, I get the same results except that the iPod tracks are absent - ie using smartlists I still see .cda tracks.

Here's an image showing both an album with all its tracks displayed correctly, and beneath it an album (most albums) with both iPod and .cda tracks included.

[marko]

Problem Child,
I'm sorry, but I'm clean out of ideas.

There's definitely something wrong. Those iPod and .cda tracks simply should not be there and I've no idea as to why they're cropping up like that.

Can anyone else out there think of anything?

[gappie]

ive been trying several times to reproduce what problemchild sees in his db. and i can not reproduce it.
problemchild,  do you have an other pc at hand to load the library in? just to see where it goes wrong, the lib or the program. or maybe someone else could try to load your lib. i could. it is intruiging.

gab

[ProblemChild]

Sorry I wasn't home yesterday to respond to either of you -
I will set it up today and let you know what happens. I appreciate
all of your help..

[SwellGuy]

ProblemChild,

It looks like the files on your iPod got imported into the main library. This can happen if you have the option "Automatically import files into Media Library" (Tools > Options > General > Importing & Tagging) and you play a song located on the iPod with MC. Playing that song adds it and all the songs listed with it to Playing Now and the "Automatically import..." setting tells MC to import anything that makes it to Playing Now into the main library.

You can clean this up by turning off that setting and deleting all the iPod files from the library.

We're taking a long look at the usefulness of this setting...

Rick

[P.S.] After cleaning this up, you won't need the database limit in your Smartlist at all. Main is the default.

[Alex B]

"Automatically import files into Media Library"
... We're taking a long look at the usefulness of this setting

I have not found it useful. However, isn't the default value "disabled"?

I guess many users think that this option is related to Auto-importer. You could add a tooltip like "this will import any unimported file that is added to Playing Now".

In general you could go through the options and add helpful tooltips. This is not the only option that needs explanation.

[SwellGuy]

The default is disabled and we agree, it is probably confused with Auto-importer. We have made some changes to this functionality in todays build.

[marko]

ProblemChild,

It looks like the files on your iPod got imported into the main library. This can happen if you have the option "Automatically import files into Media Library" (Tools > Options > General > Importing & Tagging) and you play a song located on the iPod with MC. Playing that song adds it and all the songs listed with it to Playing Now and the "Automatically import..." setting tells MC to import anything that makes it to Playing Now into the main library.

You can clean this up by turning off that setting and deleting all the iPod files from the library.

We're taking a long look at the usefulness of this setting...

Rick

[P.S.] After cleaning this up, you won't need the database limit in your Smartlist at all. Main is the default.

If that was the case, would the file icons not be blue?
As can be seen in the screenshot, they are orange, which led me to believe that they were not imported into the main database?

[gappie]

If that was the case, would the file icons not be blue?

just what i thought. 

[ProblemChild]

I don't have a lot of time this week but today I did setup a different desktop machine and run the library - I did NOT get the same results. The same smartlists in this same library looked fine - no bizarre entries at all. 'Auto import files..' is disabled (and until you described it I did confuse it with the folder auto-import so thanks). Tomorrow I'll take a closer look at everything, and I'm also going to completely reinstall iTunes - this bizarre behavior began around the time I upgraded to 7.5. Also I'll do a complete virus/adware scan - I keep fairly close tabs but something gets through. Thanks for all the help.

[ProblemChild]

Just to follow up - I reinstalled everything and did a complete virus check and found nothing.
If anything turns up later I'll post it, and until then just put up with it.
Thanks again.