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Hi XBMC friends,
I have installed XBMC-live under Ubuntu 10.04 (64bit), it runs on a Zotac Ion board.
No problems to play video and music from my Music and Video share (smb share on Ubuntu Server)
But I run into trouble when using the m3u playlists that are also on my Server.

Original playlists on the server look like this:
The Original Playlists are stored on //JABBA/Musik/Wiedergabelisten.
Under XBMC I open this playlist and saved it to a different name.
XBMC is unable to play this imported playlist, the reason is clear, because XBMC converted it into this format.
It can’t find the files in the playlist…


Yes, I used the search function in this forum an found a hint to use the <pathsubstitution> function
In a file called “advancedsettings.xml” in ~/.xbmc/userdata$
I created it with this entries:
Unfortunately it doesn’t help, the behavior is still the same with or without this file.
Is there anybody who can help ?

Many regards
Guido

Version Information, not true if it is important:
Starting XBMC, Platform: GNU/Linux. Built on Aug 19 2010 (SVN:26018)

Have nobody the same issues?

What I’ve found out is that XBMC is prefixing the path where it is finding the playlist.
My playlist is located here:
\\jabba\musik\playlists

The playlist content is:
#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:0,Alice Cooper - No More Mr. Nice Guy.mp3
\\jabba\musik\#_Clipincs\Alice Cooper - No More Mr. Nice Guy.mp3
#EXTINF:0,02 Dry County The B-52's.mp3
\\jabba\musik\The B-52's\Cosmic Thing\02 Dry County The B-52's.mp3

When using this playlist under XBMC it will be converted to:
#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:0,Alice Cooper - No More Mr. Nice Guy.mp3
smb://JABBA/Musik/Playlists///jabba/musik/#_Clipincs/Alice Cooper - No More Mr. Nice Guy.mp3
#EXTINF:0,02 Dry County The B-52's.mp3
smb://JABBA/Musik/Playlists///jabba/musik/The B-52's/Cosmic Thing/02 Dry County The B-52's.mp3

I have no explanation why XBMC add the path to the playlist itself (smb://JABBA/Musik/Playlists/)
If you remove this part ”JABBA/Musik/Playlists///” everything is fine and the playlist is working, but this is no solution.

I need somebody who can explain this behavior.

Maybe since the source of the playlist is on the NAS, xbmc assumes that from that file's point of view, each entry should be a local path.

Did you use xbmc to create this playlist?

Playlist was created with Windows Media Player and saved in the folder
\\Jabba\musik\playlists on my NAS.
On my NAS there is one share called "Musik", it have subfolders with Artists and one folder "playlists" they are used from all PC's including the newly installed XBMC client.

guidoN Wrote:In a file called “advancedsettings.xml” in ~/.xbmc/userdata$
I created it with this entries:

Code:

<pathsubstitution>
        <substitute>
     <from>\\JABBA\Musik\</from>
          <to>smb://JABBA/Musik/</to>
        </substitute>
     </pathsubstitution>

Is this the whole content of your advancedsettings.xml file?

Basically it should look like this:


But apart from this possible syntax error I noticed that it looks like the file is ignored in recent XBMC releases - mine looks like this:


Under XBMC Live 9.11 it worked, in Dharma Beta 2 it does not, although the log file says that XBMC reads from it:


But Song Info stays on display forever :-|

Yes, this is the only entry in my advancedsettings.xml file.
I gathered this information here http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Playlist

There you'll find this:

Quote:Playlists on Remote Computers
If you use playlists to play files on a remote computer, make sure the contents of the playlist file match the file structure relative to XBMC.---(ie, if your using samba, you'll need to use smb://fullpath/file.mp3).

Example: You want to play several files located in C:\music\mp3\ on your PC with XBMC.

"C:\music\mp3s\" is shared out as mp3 on your PC using PC file sharing

For that to work each item in your playlist file must be formatted thus:

smb://workgroup;someuseromepass@computer/mp3/fileN.mp3
Alternatively, there are settings in advancedsettings.xml for path substitutions in playlists. For instance, by adding <xml>

<pathsubstitution>
<substitute>
<from>C:\music\mp3s\</from>
<to>smb://workgroup;someuseromepass@computer/mp3/</to>
</substitute>
</pathsubstitution>
</xml> You could use the same playlist file on your PC and XBMC. That is, anywhere the path c:\music\mp3s\ is found in a playlist, XBMC would substitute smb://workgroup;someuseromepass@computer/mp3/

I have no idea if this entry is already supported from the Version of XBMC that I'm using (SVN:26018) Dharma
What I see is, that XBMC is adding also the path to my remote playlist and not only the path to the mp3 file itself.
That's why I'm surprised.

bobby, the info is a two-toggle state. it toggles between 'always visible' and 'visible with a configurable timeout'. you're obviously in state 1.

guidon, as previously hinted at. that is a MALFORMED advancedsettings.xml file. it needs to surrounding <advancedsettings> tag! and no <xml> tag, that's you copying verbatim from the wiki i guess.

uhhh, yes there was an syntax error in the advancedsettings.xml
I've corrected it, restarted XBMC, and it was loaded correctly.

Unfortunately the problem is still the same, playlists entries look like this:

yes, the code is written for playlists which have paths which are relative to where you host the playlist, it is not written for your use case. it's a bit weak, it should be doable to handle both.

Spiff, thank you for the explanation.

To get rid off this problem I have to store my Playlist locally.

I found this way get my windows media playlist running:

- Copy original list to \\jabba\musik (root folder from my music share)
- edit it and remove all entries with \\jabba\musik
- create new playlist in XBMC and load edited list
- save it locally (/.xbmc/userdata/playlists/music) on XBMC host

Ok, now it works !
But this is not very comfortable if there any suggestions to make it easier please reply !

Regards
Guido

spiff Wrote:bobby, the info is a two-toggle state. it toggles between 'always visible' and 'visible with a configurable timeout'. you're obviously in state

Argh, should have known that...