Issue with m3u playlists disappearing from Roon after a few hours (ref#HS2K65)

[Ben_Lukas]

What’s happening?

· Something else

How can we help?

· None of the above

Other options

· Other

Describe the issue

My m3u playlists are a sibling folder to my artist folders in my library. Roon initially shows the playlists on the app, but after a few hours they are no longer visible and I can't play them. Is it a syntax issue in the m3u files?

Describe your network setup

Roon Rock on Intel NUC reading media from Openmediavault server over wired ethernet network. 37000+ songs in a music directory are all read by Rock and played by audio devices just fine.

[DDPS]

What happens if you perform a library cleanup and then a force rescan?

[Ben_Lukas]

On the Settings menu, I selected the Library tab, and clicked the Clean up Library button. The system removed a few dozen files from the library that I had previously deleted from the file system.
Next I selected the Storage tab, and clicked the 3 dot menu. Then I selected the Force Rescan item. The system took about 15 seconds to scan my folders and shows 35452 files imported.
The playlists still do not appear on the left pane.

[DDPS]

Next up: try temporarily removing your .m3u playlists, rescan, clean your library, put them back, then rescan.

I only use m3u playlists with Roon and have some experience with some of the idiosyncrasies, so I have much more to try after this.

Also, in the playlist you’ve shown, it might not be a bad idea to remove the ’ before the .m3u extension. But that is a longshot.

Also, the format I use does not have the #EXTINF: mechanism. It looks like this:

Please keep us posted on these pages. I am just a regular Roon user like you.

[Ben_Lukas]

@DDPS

Next up: try temporarily removing your .m3u playlists, rescan, clean your library, put them back, then rescan.

Thanks DDPS for offering to help.
As for your first suggestion, I have done that many times.

I think next I will try changing the slash directions and having my file syntax match yours with …/ leading off. (I use shell scripts to change the files, so I can do many files/lines in seconds.)

[Ben_Lukas]

I changed the format to begin with …/ and the folder separators to be /.
Sample attached. After a library rescan, my expectation is that the playlists should display on the left hand sidebar. However, they do not so I am still stuck.
Note my playlists are in a folder that is a sibling to my artists.
DDPS: in what path do you have your playlists?

[Ben_Lukas]

Sample playlist snip here:
#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:190,Secret Garden - Elan
…/Shared Music/Various Artists/VA - Celtic Myst Top 100 - (5.CD)/CD.5/07. Secret Garden - Elan.mp3
#EXTINF:178,Charm City Junction - I Ain’t Gonna Work Tomorrow
…/Shared Music/Charm City Junction/Salt Box/Charm City Junction - Salt Box - 04 I Ain’t Gonna Work Tomorrow.ogg
#EXTINF:177,Fanny Lumsden - Roll On
…/Shared Music/Various Artists/the-official-americanafest174-2018-mixtape-download/fanny-lumsden-roll-on.mp3
#EXTINF:305,Doc and Merle Watson - 48 - Matchbox Blues
…/Shared Music/Acoustic Sounds Super HiRez/Doc & Merle Watson/Never the Same Way Once (May 1974)/48 - Matchbox Blues.ogg
#EXTINF:167,Alison Krauss; Union

[DDPS]

@Ben_Lukas

DDPS: in what path do you have your playlists?

My playlists are in a top level folder simply called “playlists” - a peer of other top level folders like “Non-Classical” that you see in my .m3u snippet above.

Have you tried without the EXTINF lines yet?

[Ben_Lukas]

Yes, I did eliminate the EXTINF lines as well. And moved the folder do be “Playlists” just under the Shared Music folder. Roon still not showing the m3u playlists, only the one Tidal playlist that I used as an experiment. Sigh!

Files now look like this:
#EXTM3U
…/Shared Music/Various Artists/VA - Celtic Myst Top 100 - (5.CD)/CD.5/07. Secret Garden - Elan.mp3
…/Shared Music/Charm City Junction/Salt Box/Charm City Junction - Salt Box - 04 I Ain’t Gonna Work Tomorrow.ogg
…/Shared Music/Various Artists/the-official-americanafest174-2018-mixtape-download/fanny-lumsden-roll-on.mp3
…/Shared Music/Acoustic Sounds Super HiRez/Doc & Merle Watson/Never the Same Way Once (May 1974)/48 - Matchbox Blues.ogg
…/Shared Music/Alison Krauss & Union Station/Live Disc 1/08 Cluck Old Hen.mp3

[DDPS]

If you have them under Shared Music, then you will need to traverse up only one level and then directly to the subfolders of Shared Music, and don’t need to re-mention Shared Music, so each line should look like this (note only two periods to start):

../Various Artists/VA - Celtic Myst Top 100 - (5.CD)/CD.5/07. Secret Garden - Elan.mp3
../Charm City Junction/Salt Box/Charm City Junction - Salt Box - 04 I Ain’t Gonna Work Tomorrow.ogg
../Various Artists/the-official-americanafest174-2018-mixtape-download/fanny-lumsden-roll-on.mp3

…etc.

[Ben_Lukas]

Thanks DDPS, the elimination of the /Shared Music/ level in the files did the trick. So the files look like this now:
#EXTM3U
…/KFOG Acoustic Sunrise 2009-06/Love of our Lives.mp3
…/Shelton Powe/Shelton Powe/Shelton Powe - Shelton Powe - 06 Give Me Two Wings.flac
…/Sean McConnell/Undone/05 - Hey Mary (Acoustic Version).mp3
…/Acoustic Sounds Super HiRez/Doc & Merle Watson/Never the Same Way Once (May 1974)/09 - Frosty Morn.ogg
…/Svavar Knutur/amma (Songs for my Grandmother)/Svavar Knútur - amma (Songs for my Grandmother) - 05 Álfareiðin.flac

And Roon displays the playlists:

By the way, if someone needs help with using a linux shell script used to modify my files, let me know.

Thanks again.

[DDPS]

@Ben_Lukas Glad to hear it!