Playlists on Linkstation

[xanth]

Its been a long day, I started as Windows only newbie, have now managed to update firmware on Linkstation MiPSel to Openlink 0.52b and finally got the stable binary (from Linkstation Wiki mipsel-mt-daapd-0.2.1.1–1) to run automatically and can now run all my music off the M1001 SB wihtout any PCs running. 😀 Did require a little help from a Linux literate friend.

However I cannot figure out how to setup playlists (simple ones only to start with). I guess that the file references have to be Linux. All my files have been set up for WMC and are all MP3 in a folder structure on the Linkstation. I am still using the 2.4.4 version of firmware on the SB.

I am probably being stupid but I have been searching the internet all evening to try and understand this and failed miserably. ❓

Any help welcome.

Colin

[rpedde]

There are several ways to do this.

One way is with smart playlists. You can edit these from the “smart” tab on the web admin page. There is a wizard there to make basic playlists, or you can make more advanced playlists by directly editing the playlist data using the synax described here

Another way is with .m3u playlist files. These are files that contain a list of files to include in the playlist, one per row.

An example might be:

/share/hdd/data/public/mp3/Antiloop/Antiloop/01 Intro.mp3

/share/hdd/data/public/mp3/Antiloop/Antiloop/02 In My Mind.mp3

/share/hdd/data/public/mp3/Antiloop/Antiloop/03 Purpose In Life.mp3

— Ron

[xanth]

I tried the Smart Playlists thing, but because I also have Firefly installed on the host computer it created the playlist for Firefly. I will eventually put another version of MT-DAAPD or Firefly onto the Linkstation but I am not that confident about compiling the binary yet.

I also tried tried the M3U file exporting from WMP 10, which didn’t work I also edited it using notepad to simply have the one entry per line. I put this in my music directory.

\willy_wonkamusicMusicAnimalsThe Most of the Animals1 - House Of The Rising Sun.mp3

\willy_wonkamusicMusicAvril LavigneLet Go3 Sk8er Boi.mp3

\willy_wonkamusicMusicThe Beach BoysSummer Dreams [UK]13 Good Vibrations.mp3

\willy_wonkamusicMusicThe BeatlesBeatles Red Disk 113 - YESTERDAY.mp3

\willy_wonkamusicMusicThe Beautiful SouthBlue Is the Colour1 Don't Marry Her.mp3

I also forced a rescan by rebooting the linkstation, but still could not see the playlist. Is there a particular directory on the linkstation I should use in this configuration?

Sorry if I am being dense, but this is really puzzling to me. The file worked directly in WMP10.

Colin

[rpedde]

@xanth wrote:

I also tried tried the M3U file exporting from WMP 10, which didn’t work I also edited it using notepad to simply have the one entry per line. I put this in my music directory.

\willy_wonkamusicMusicAnimalsThe Most of the Animals1 - House Of The Rising Sun.mp3

\willy_wonkamusicMusicAvril LavigneLet Go3 Sk8er Boi.mp3

\willy_wonkamusicMusicThe Beach BoysSummer Dreams [UK]13 Good Vibrations.mp3

\willy_wonkamusicMusicThe BeatlesBeatles Red Disk 113 - YESTERDAY.mp3

\willy_wonkamusicMusicThe Beautiful SouthBlue Is the Colour1 Don't Marry Her.mp3

Those paths are windows paths. That playlist would work on firefly for win32, but not on your linkstation. Unix doesn’t do unc.

For win32, you’ll also have to have firefly running as a user that can read those files… the default user (LocalSystem) doesn’t have network rights. You can go into control panel -> admin tools -> services and look at the properties on the firefly service and set it to log in as you (with your username and password). Stop and start the service, and that will give it rights to see those files.

You can force a rescan to pick that up by either waiting 10 min, or by using the rescan button in the web interface, or by deleting the songs.db while the server is stopped.

That should do it, though.

[xanth]

Its gradually becoming clearer. If I want to have a M3u playlist with Linux file types, where in the heirarchy would MT-DAAPD expect to look for it?

The format on the Linkstation starts with root then mnt then hda (in unix) and then it goes to the shares. I have three shares one for music called music and then it it a conventional set of folders : music>artist>album>mp3 tracks

MT-DAAPD sees this fine and I have deleted and added tracks to prove it, I can browse all the functions on the soundbridge also. I tried a unix version of M3u (I think) on the first level directory as:

./Music/Animals/The Most of the Animals/01 - House Of The Rising Sun.mp3

./Music/Avril Lavigne/Let Go/03 Sk8er Boi.mp3

./Music/The Beach Boys/Summer Dreams [UK]/13 Good Vibrations.mp3

This didn’t work and I couldn’t even see the playlist title so I guess this is the wrong location.

So is there an obvious location? Do I need some sort of My Playlist directory? Would it be better to use absolute paths?

Colin

[xanth]

Found out how to do it. I finally figured out where the MT-DAAP config file was and read it. Realised that M3U processing is switched off by default in this build. Removed the comment string and set M3U processing and rebooted. The file in my previous post then worked immediately.

Many thanks for a superb toy. I will probably update to Firefly when the Soundbridge 2.5 software goes to issue. But for now 0.2.1.1–1 does everything I want. Will Firefly binaries be posted at a future stable release as 0.2.1.1-1 has been at the Linkstation Wiki?

Colin 😀

[rpedde]

@xanth wrote:

Will Firefly binaries be posted at a future stable release as 0.2.1.1-1 has been at the Linkstation Wiki?

I don’t know, as I don’t coordinate those, but I would guess that someone would step up with those one a stable shipped. (which should be soon).

[Author]

Posts