Playlist Issues after Library Move

Hello:

I have run into a strange issue with my playlists after trying to move my music folders to a new internal drive. Details below:

Core Machine (Operating system/System info/Roon build number)

ROCK version 1 build 175 on Intel NUC6i7

Network Details (Including networking gear model/manufacturer and if on WiFi/Ethernet)

NUC connected to LAN

Audio Devices (Specify what device you’re using and its connection type - USB/HDMI/etc.)

Multiple Roon Bridge devices

Description Of Issue

Roon has been working well. The machine had one internal M.2 storage device and the library files were contained on an external USB drive.

I installed a second internal M.2 storage device. It showed up as expected and was formatted. After the device was formatted, the following steps were performed:

  • In settings disabled the new internal drive
  • Stopped Roon
  • Copied music files/folders to the new internal drive (same folder structure as USB drive)
  • Started Roon
  • In settings disabled the USB storage and enabled the new internal storage
  • After the files were scanned, I could play music. All playlists were functional also. All looked good

However, after I rebooted the system I noticed that a number of playlists had 0 files. Others had fewer songs than before the reboot.

I now, restored from a backup from a day or so ago. After the system came up, the new internal drive was disabled in settings and the USB was enabled as expected. I now performed the same steps as above and ran into the same behavior. As soon as the system is rebooted songs disappear from the playlists.

Currently, I have restored everything and performed the steps again but have not rebooted. Things are working as expected.

Based on reading various discussions on the forums, I am following the correct procedure and everything should work properly. Can you please let me know if I am missing a step? Why do the playlists lose songs after I reboot? If you require any additional details, please let me know.

Thanks for your help!

Zubair

Hi @Mohammad_Anwar,

Welcome to the forum and thanks for reaching out to us here. This behavior does seem strange indeed. Can I please ask you to provide the following additional information?

  1. A screenshot of your current Roon Settings -> Storage tab that outlines both storage locations

  2. To reboot your ROCK machine and note the exact local time + date in your country when you perform this action (e.g. 10:20PM on 9/23/19)

  3. Manually send me the logs from your Roon folder by using these instructions after the reboot. The best way to get them over to me would be via Dropbox / Google Drive / send.firefox.com

  4. Provide the name for a few examples of playlists that jumped to 0 songs.

  5. Restore your library from the backup and send the logs once more after the restore has completed.

Thanks for getting back to me, @noris.

Here are the details you requested:

  1. Current Storage settings - Screenshot attached:

  1. I rebooted the machine at 9.51AM Pacific Time 9/24/2019

  2. Here is the link to screenshots and log files on Dropbox:
    https://www.dropbox.com/sh/adait4qqetpwjkn/AACP8fL0_-dcJQRvpDE5muJXa?dl=0

  3. Example playlists:
    a. ‘08112017 Hi Res’ went from 42 songs to 5 songs - this is unique as it does not go to 0. All others that do lose songs go to 0
    b. ‘01092015 Tom Petty - Hypnotic Eye’ went from 11 songs to 0

Please note that I was thinking about what may be different about some of the playlists and I think the ones that get impacted are the ones that were originally imported from .m3u files when I set up the system a while back. The ones that do not change were created in Roon. Maybe that will help narrow down the issue?

  1. Logs added to the same Dropbox folder as above

Please let me know if you require additional details or there are issues accessing the Dropbox folder. Thanks for your help!

Regards,

Zubair

Hi @Mohammad_Anwar,

Thank you for putting together such an organized diagnostics package, I have created a ticket and have requested feedback from the technical team regarding logs. I will be sure to let you know once I hear back, I appreciate your patience in the meantime!

Thank you!

1 Like

Hi @Mohammad_Anwar,

I appreciate your patience here while QA had a chance to review this issue. Since the playlists is a .M3U playlist file, it is possible that the files being referenced are absolute path instead of relative path. By this I mean, we believe that your .M3U references the exact location of the previous drive instead of the new one and rebooting your ROCk causes the files to not be found any longer.

As a follow-up step, can I please request that you look over our playlist documentation (<-clickable link) and confirm that your playlist is referencing relative path instead of the absolute path of the previous hard drive? If you are not sure, you can also send me the .M3U and I can take a look.

Also, can you please clarify as to how you copied the music files/.M3U playlist files over from one hard drive to another? Did you use another PC to facilitate this transfer process? If so, can you provide the information of the PC’s Operating System and which App you used to copy the files? Did you use Windows Explorer / OSX Finder?

Thank you for the follow up.

I only used the .m3u files when I originally installed Roon a year or so ago. The .m3u files were generated on either a PC or a Mac. I do not recall exactly what system they originated from. I edited the playlists using a text editor to use the relative path to the files on the USB drive on the Roon system. I copied the playlists to the USB drive in a monitored folder ‘Playlists’. Once the playlists were imported the .m3u files disappeared and the system functioned as expected. All playlists were accessible in Roon. Note that at this point I did not have the internal storage in the system and was only utilizing the USB storage location.

Unfortunately, I am not able to locate a backup of the original or edited .m3u files but I will continue to look.

When I installed the new drive some weeks ago, I did not utilize any of the .m3u files as I assumed the existing playlists in Roon would just work after the restore as they were already functional in the system. I copied the music files by first copying the folders from the USB storage location to a Mac (using Finder) and then from the Mac I again used Finder to copy the music folders to ROCK’s internal storage. Note that no .m3u files were utilized at this stage. After the restore I disabled the USB drive and enabled the internal storage. After the scan everything was functional, I could play songs from the playlists. The issue of songs disappearing only arose after the system was rebooted.

The reason I mentioned the .m3u files was because the playlists that lose songs are only the ones that were originally imported using the .m3u files as explained above.

Please let me know if you have any follow up questions. I will continue to look for the original .m3u files.

Regards,

Zubair

Hi @Mohammad_Anwar,

I have been discussing your case further with QA as to clarify the issue, they have informed me that when the .M3U playlist files are not present, Roon shouldn’t be able to see the playlist files. Performing a reboot after restoring the backup is likely triggering a rescan of your storage locations and when the .M3U playlist is not found, the files don’t get attached to the previous playlists.

I have a few follow-up questions:

  1. Have you been able to locate the old .M3U file from your USB drive? Are the .M3U playlist files perhaps still saved on the old Internal Storage drive?

  2. What happens if you try to create a Roon copy of the playlists affected by this issue or add them to a new playlist? Does that remain stable between reboots?

  3. If copying the playlists does not help, would you be able to record a video of the issue pre and post reboot and send it to me?

Thanks for the follow up.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to locate a backup of the .m3u files.

When I had originally used the files for the import, they disappeared after the import and all the playlists worked fine. If the .m3u files need to stay in the folder, why does the import process remove them automatically? If the files not being there was an issue, the playlists would have lost songs as I have in the past forced a rescan numerous times. The songs would have disappeared from the playlist after a reboot at that point too.

I will have to try out the suggestion in item 2 when I get a chance. I am currently out of town.

Regards,

Zubair

Hi @Mohammad_Anwar,

The import process shouldn’t remove the .M3U files at all, just import them to the Roon database. I’m looking over diagnostics again and I see that your playlist files were previously listed under the InternalStorage/Playlists/ folder on your ROCK. Can you check to see if your playlists are still there?

What I suspect is going on here is that these playlists are either using absolute path and the drive change allowed them to not be found or that the relative path you have set does not match the exact folder contents of the new drive.

I would try to locate these playlist files to see if you can make out the Absolute or Relative path and then make sure that the new drive is following the same structure. If this still does not help, I would go on to option #2 of trying to save these playlists as Roon playlists after a restore.

I am finally back in town. Sorry for the delay in responding.

I looked in the Playlists folder both in the current InternalStorage location and the previous USB drive location and unfortunately, the files are not there any more (both folders are empty). I have not been able to locate them in my older backups either.

At this point, I am going to try and recreate some of the playlists. If I find the original playlist files, I will let you know.

Regards,

Zubair

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