SqueezeCenter

[pindropsoup]

I have Squeezecenter 7.3.3-sparc-readynas addon package installed and working.

Squeezebox installed and working (nice product). I can play network services and select music from my library.

But playlists and iTunes eludes me. Please help.

All music is stored on ReadyNAS. Mapped as Drive M to all computers.

1) What is the value in putting the itunes music folder on the Readynas? I see no difference if it is stored in C: or M:.

I load up iTunes on a PC, import the music into iTunes from the M: Drive (still stored on M Drive aka ReadyNas). I create a playlist "TestPL". I select File, Library, Export Playlist and put the playlist on the M: Drive (ReadyNas). I tell Squeezecenter what directory on the M: Drive has the playlists. I've tried subdirectorys /itunes/remotePL and root M:/. I then rescan the folder (takes hours) in Squeezebox even tho I select Playlists only - it can't find playlists. The playlists are there and contains full path to the music including "M:\"

2) Why doesn't Squeezecenter see these text files (the playlists)?

3) How will Readynas know that "M:" is local to it?

4) Is iTunes really necessary? Seems like a lot of trouble just to create a playlist.

Thanks

[mavros]

These are mainly SC bugs or unclear indication to what the settings need. I have played around a lot with the settings of SC in the general, itunes and advanced tab. Also tried several playlist formats exported out of itunes and indicated at the bottom of the itunes tap in SC. To no avail you always get the same problem with or without itunes activated in SC; no playlists and some artwork missing. On the DUET you also used to get albums double with the itunes in SC settings activated but that has been solved now. Scanning playlists only goes about 7 seconds when I scan and the result 0 lists.

Maybe you will find more in the Squeezebox forum.

[pindropsoup]

I don't understand why someone went to the trouble of creating Squeezecenter for the ReadyNas without any documentation or ability to create playlists - there must be some solution I haven't found.

[rrreed]

I don't understand why someone went to the trouble of creating Squeezecenter for the ReadyNas without any documentation or ability to create playlists - there must be some solution I haven't found.

Did you try the SqueezeCenter wiki?

http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/SqueezeCenter

[pindropsoup]

Ok, some progress, but not really.

The itunes playlists are not showing up in Squeezecenter because they are TXT instead of M3U files.

In the iTunes playlist file, the Readynas location is referenced as M:\music\...\...mp3

In the M3U files Squeezecenter creates by itself the music location is /c/media/music/.../...mp3

I tried a global replace of "M:\music" with "\c\media\music" but that didn't work - Squeezecenter wants linux directory structure.

So my problems remains... everything is working great, but I don't see a way to use iTunes (on a PC) to create playlists and I don't see any easy way in ReadyNas Squeezecenter to create playlists. Basically making my library of music on the Readynas unusable via its built in Squeezecenter unless I want to play a specific album or song.

[mavros]

On the Slimserver forum there is a lot about the topic. It has really nothing to do with the NAS.

Some people have solved the problem with a very rigid directory structure (music\albums, music\playlists, music\album artwork) and claim a necessity that this music directory is on the same "server" (drive?) as the SC installation. If the music directory is on another drive than SC you have to put a shortcut in a dummy directory. I tried this and the music is found without problem but the playlist are still missing. It takes neither xml nor txt playlists. The only two formats my itunes wants to export. The only way I found to get playlists in SC is to generate them in the Widows Media Player. SC finds the wpl format in the same directory as the itunes playlists in txt and xml without problems. So you probaly can copy these wpl files to your NAS music directory an get them scanned in. This is if you have PC. With a Mac I don't know if you can run WMP on the same music directory as itunes.

[pindropsoup]

Thank you - interesting idea to use Windows Media Player instead of iTunes. But the same problem:

SC is running on the NAS (with the Music Library). If I use MP or iTunes - with imported pointers to the M drive - then they create playlists that reference music locations as M:\dir1\dir2\file.mp3

Since the ReadyNAS is a Linux device, it seems to see files as /c/share/dir1/dir2/file.mp3

It makes a ton of sense to have SC and the Music on the NAS drive, but I can't figure out how to make a playlist.

[tnorris]

You could run a cron job every x number of minutes on the NAS that "converts" the windows paths to the correct linux paths. You should just need to replace the "M:" with the "/c/share" and then replace every backslash with a forward slash. You could even make the linux version of the playlist a different (but related) name and therefore keep both usable.

[mavros]

Sometimes playing around really gets you there.

I deleted all my itunes directories (on my PC in C:\music and d:\music). These contained artwork in itunes format, exported playlists and the xml library. Only kept a music folder with my music organized by artist on d: (so not the drive where SC is installed). Started up itunes (now with a fully empty library freshly created on d:\music\itunes\itunes). Added all artist folders in one step to the library (takes a while). Added some playlists. Started SC and indicated the correct directories on d: and rescanned completely. Now everything works all playlists are there and filled!

This weekend I will try to get the same with the NAS SC and report back. It must work as the library is created on the music directory (on the NAS) so there should not be any path inconsistencies.

[pindropsoup]

Looking forward to hearing your results.

The path inconsistencies is the SC doesn't use drive letter or back slashes like the PC does.

[delange]

The SC setup for iTunes is really easy. One thing you need to do though in your overall setup is to make sure that the iTunes folder is also on a share on your NAS. By default, iTunes stores this information in My Documents\My Music\iTunes on your PC. In here, iTunes stores the database, artwork, etc. The complete folder structure must reside on a share on the NAS. You can just copy it over.
On your PC, map the share that contains this folder structure. Make sure you reconnect to that share after a restart (checkbox somewhere in the drive mapping form).

Next setup iTunes to use the library on your NAS. Press and hold the shift key on your PC while you start iTunes. iTunes will present you a form with a few buttons. Here you need to click “Choose Library...”. Point to the “iTunes Library.xml” file located on you NAS.
You should do this on all your PC’s accessing this iTunes library.

In SC, go to settings. Click the iTunes tab and set the following:

1. enable Use iTunes (checkbox)
2. Point “iTunes Music Library.xml Location” to the location of your “iTunes Library.xml” file on you NAS.
3. Point “iTunes Music Folder” to the folder that contains your music.

That’s it. You should now be able to use your iTunes playlists on your SqueezeBox’s. The iTunes playlists will have the “iTunes: “ prefix by default. You can change that in the SC settings if you like.

My SC settings are:

In my setup, I have mapped drive X to the iTunes file structure (that contains the xml file) and drive Y to the music share. Each time my PC is rebooted; I first open a file explorer to these two drives and close them right after. That will force windows to logon to the mapped drives. I do this before I use iTunes so that the information is available to iTunes.

[mavros]

Just a brief report of my weekend experience on the topic. Delange has more or less explained how to get the lists once you have a library on the NAS. How you get it there he did not explain if I understand correctly. I tried out a few things and finally succeeded in getting an SC scan with all my music on the NAS in as well as the itunes playlists as described by Delange.

First thing I did is probably irrelevant. I activated itunes on the NAS services menu (right below the SC sevice) and checked if that worked. When you open itunes on a PC connected to the network you indeed get apart from your normal music and playlists in the library the music on the NAS as separate server (the same as when you connect an ipod or a Hifidelio music server).

Second as described above open itunes while pushing shift but not pointing to a library on the NAS (as it doesn't exist yet) but creating a new empty library on the NAS at \media\music\itunes. I then tried to add the music by highlighting all artist folders on the NAS and in itunes using file->add folder to library. This works but it goes extremely slow. I broke this off after the first album which took 7 minutes or so to load and left itunes.

Despite the more or less empty itunes library I then did a scan on SC with the NAS IP-address:9000. I did the scan with the use itunes option in SC hooked of. Pointed to the new itunes library directory and music folder on the NAS and after 2 hours 15 minutes ( for 1300 songs, 1020 or so albums) got music, artwork and playlists in SC. Especially the the Artwork scan step takes ages.

I still don't understand why it didin't work previously. The fresh itunes library even empty might be the key.

[pindropsoup]

Definately getting closer. The last two posts were very helpful. Thank you.

I had the iTunes Library on the NAS - I thought. I did it by setting it in the iTunes Options, but that doesn't seem to do anything. Pressing Shift on iTunes startup fixed that.

My music library is very large.


I also didn't have iTunes running on SC - I enabled it under plugins and restarted SC.

The scan ran all night - but still didn't find the playlists.

I changed the iTunes Prefix to Itunes as in the picture above and changed the reload interval to 43200 - but those settings didn't stick.

I exported a Playlist from iTunes to see if that makes a difference and rescanning. Is it necessary to export each playlist?

[delange]

I noticed that you also configured your music library under the Basic Settings in SC. If you use iTunes you may omit that part because SC is able to read the iTunes xml file. There is no need for SC to scan your music folder too. So, in Basic Settings, you should leave the entry “Music Folder” empty. See picture for details:



You may notice that I have configured the entry “Playlists Folder”. This is only required if you plan to use playlists that are not from iTunes. For example: this is how I tune into radio stations. I have a couple of playlist files that point to a radio station stream on the internet.

You do need the iTunes plugin checked (on). But you also need to configure this plugin. See the picture in my initial post. You need at least to have the field “iTunes Music Library.xml Location” and “iTunes Music Folder” filled in. Remember that these two links are pointing to locations on your NAS (because you copied the iTunes folder structure to your NAS). I’m sure you did this but if you make changes to settings in SC, you need to click the “Apply” button on the bottom of the screen.

You surely do not need to export your playlists. SC is reading the iTunes xml file and this is where SC is retrieving your playlist information from. If your playlists do not show up on your SB players it means that there is something wrong with the SC configuration.

[pindropsoup]

I gave up on my iTunes DB and deleted it - suspicious of corruption.

Used Shift on start to create a new database.

Created smaller library from scratch with 2 playlists - each with 8 songs.

Cleared lib and rescanned on SC.



Still not finding any playlists. Worse, when I go into home/artists or home/albums - nothing is there.

It says it imports stuff but there doesn't appear to be Anything in the SC "Music Library".

Here are the iTunes settings:


Any more ideas?

Thanks