Unable to Import M3U Playlist into Roon (ref#H3TEW5)

Support
1

What’s happening?

· Something else

How can we help?

· None of the above

Other options

· Other

Describe the issue

Sorry, this is a DeepL translation.
I've been struggling with the import of playlists for days. Al last I just tried the following.
1) Exported a playlist from Roon as m3u file
2) Deleted the playlist in Roon
3) Copied the playlist exported under 1. into the music folder (my watched folder)
4) Nothing happens, the playlist is not displayed in the „Playlists“ section of Roon.
The checkboxes in the Storage Section are set to Yes and I have also tried a „Force rescan“
Have I overlooked something important or does the import generally not work?
As an aside. When exporting an m3u playlist, the music files in the list are also exported.
Could it be that Roon, instead of importing a playlist and displaying it under “Playlist”, tries to import the audio files listed inside the playlist, detects that they already exist and therefore does nothing?

Describe your network setup

DSL 100, FritzBox 7590, CAT 6 cable

2

You will find that the path format in Roon’s exported M3U files is not universal… you will need to ensure that the path properly reflects the directory traversal indicators (like double for slash double dot, etc) that make the file syntax relative to the directory that you have it in.

3

Just in case you haven’t seen it:

If you need help figuring out what goes wrong in your case, you would have to provide a minimal non working example (that ideally follows the rules outlined in the guide I linked above).

PS: Exporting playlists. as you wrote. also exports the music files. After that. the paths in the exported m3u-file likely do not match the the paths inside your library and that’s why nothing shows up.

4

First of all, thanks for your support and apologies for my poor English. Over the past few days I’ve read pretty much everything I could find here about import and export of playlists, including the “Importing Playlist” threat. So much for the theory, but in practice nothing works for me.

My directory structure is as follows: Watched Folder/AlbumArtist/Album/Track.
Two examples

Music/Gil Scott-Heron/Secrets/05 Better Days Ahead.flac
Music/Lee Clayton/Naked Child/02 I Ride Alone.flac
Two tracks that reflect my condition :wink:

I create a playlist called PlayThis, export it and then delete it.
Next to the exported tracks (which unfortunately cannot be prevented) a playlist with the name “PlayThis.m3u” is written in a folder called Playlists.

The exported playlist looks like this.
…/Lee Clayton/Naked Child/1-02 I Ride Alone.flac
…/Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson/Secrets/1-05 Better Days Ahead.flac

It is unlikely that Roon will import the playlist if I copy it to My Music (watched) Folder. So I removed the double dot flash …/ in front of each line.

Lee Clayton/Naked Child/1-02 I Ride Alone.flac
Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson/Secrets/1-05 Better Days Ahead.flac

This playlist “PlayThis.m3u” was copied to my watched folder (music) and nothing happens. Force rescan - nothing happens.
QUESTION: what should happen anyway? I would expect a new (=old) playlist with the name PlayThis to appear in the Playlists section of Roon. Am I getting something wrong?
Against my better judgment, I then copied the playlist file with the prefix …/ into the Music Folder

…/Lee Clayton/Naked Child/1-02 I Ride Alone.flac
…/Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson/Secrets/1-05 Better Days Ahead.flac

As expected, nothing happens.
Then I tried this one:

/Lee Clayton/Naked Child/1-02 I Ride Alone.flac
/Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson/Secrets/1-05 Better Days Ahead.flac

Nothing happens with this either.
Finally, I created a subfolder called Playlist in the Music folder and copied the untouched exported original into it

Music/Playlists/PlayThis.m3u

If Roon has the Playlists folder on radar, this should also work. But it does not.
This is actually all quite simple, what am I doing wrong?

Roon Server version 2.0 (build 1462) production

5

You will need the ../ in front of each line if you are putting the file in a /playlist folder, for sure.

But pay attention to this - when you export from Roon, it does other things to make a playlist that is not universal…according to your post, you have a track like this:

Lee Clayton/Naked Child/02 I Ride Alone.flac

But when Roon exports, it puts extra junk in the path to denote a disc number, like so:

Lee Clayton/Naked Child/1-02 I Ride Alone.flac

That stuff will need to be taken out to match the path of your file exactly at the filesystem level. This is what I was loosely referring to when I said “the path format in Roon’s exported M3U files is not universal.”

To test this, make an .m3u file in your /Playlists directory (which must be a peer of your /Music directory) that has only this and see how it works:

../Lee Clayton/Naked Child/02 I Ride Alone.flac

Hope this makes sense.

6

Oh dear, I must be blind on both eyes. Thanks a lot I will try that soon.

7

.. = parent directory
. = this directory

so try with entries starting with ./ if the m3u-file is placed in the watched folder. Use the double dot if the file is placed in a “playlists” sub-folder.

8

Hey @Karl_Worm,

Ben with the Technical team here - it looks like you’re in excellent hands so far, we don’t have any additional troubleshooting steps to add at this time, let us know the results of the suggestions above. Thank you! :raised_hands:

9

Oh yes it’s the disc number in front of the track number that I missed. Please excuse my inattention. That was my mistake.
Thanks a lot for your help.

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10

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