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Full Version: External M3U Music Playlists Not Scanning Into XBMC - Bug?
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Hi all,

Longtime user here. I just upgraded from Frodo (Aeon Nox 4) to Gotham 13.0 (Aeon Nox 5), and am having a problem with externally-created M3U music playlists. My M3U playlists are originally created by J River Media Center, and saved in the appropriate XBMC userdata folder. In Frodo, when I accessed one of these playlists, XBMC would "scan" the songs into the library and everything was fine. In Gotham, when I open one of these playlists, XBMC does not scan the contents (no cover art, fanart, tag info), and when I click on one of the tracks in the playlist I eventually get an error: "one or more items failed to play". The paths in the playlists are relative, not absolute, so that is not the problem. In fact, when I go to "Info" of one of the tracks in the playlist, XBMC shows the correct relative path.

I thought maybe this was a problem with Aeon Nox 5, but I also have the same issue using Confluence.

Bug?
Bumpity, bump. Can someone test external M3U playlists in XBMC and let me know if they have this same issue?
I tried to test this on a different computer today, and I am having the same problem.

Should I repost this in the General Help and Support forum instead of Windows? I am unsure if this problem is Windows-specific.
Further info and testing: If I access one of the external M3U playlists in XBMC, open the XBMC playlist editor, add a new track, and save it, this track can be played by XBMC. But not the others in the playlist.

When I open the M3U file in notepad, I can see that the externally-added tracks have a different filepath format than the 1 that XBMC added:

Externally-added tracks:
Code:
#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:565,So What - Miles Davis
\\SERVER\Music\Library\Miles Davis\Kind of Blue\So What.mp3
#EXTINF:358,'Round Midnight - Miles Davis
\\SERVER\Music\Library\Miles Davis\'Round About Midnight\'Round Midnight.mp3
#EXTINF:337,Blue in Green - Miles Davis
\\SERVER\Music\Library\Miles Davis\Kind of Blue\Blue in Green.mp3

XBMC-added track:
Code:
#EXTINF:05. Freddie Freeloader - Miles Davis
smb://SERVER/Music/Library/Miles Davis/Kind of Blue/Freddie Freeloader.mp3

If I then manually edit (in notepad) one of the externally-added tracks to the format of "smb://SERVER" instead of "\\SERVER\", XBMC is able to process it properly.

This playlist worked fine in Frodo, so has the format requirement for an M3U playlist changed now to require "smb://"?

My playlists are generated by J River Media Center, which is unable to produce this format.

Any help would be appreciated.