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mikethebike007 · 2020-02-09, 19:10

Ok, I am new to Kodi and have quite a few questions about using it as a music server that I can’t seem to get answered anywhere online. I used to use Windows Media Player and was able to play music on a small hard drive connected to my pc, via an AV processor and so listen to my music through my hi-fi speakers instead of just on a laptop. I have a huge music collection and it was until recently stored on hundreds of mp3 dvds. But I bought a 6TB drive and have put it all on there (about 4TB worth) as well as backing it all up on BDXL discs. But I soon realised that the Windows player was not up to the job, and so my research brought me to Kodi. It worked fine, it scoured the hard drive and it took about half an hour or more but it found all the music. So now on my tv screen I get Kodi/Desktop when I select NET/SERVER on the amp. But it’s not without it’s problems. I have no way to search from my amp. It gives me a menu such as Artists, Albums, Genres etc as well as Recently Added and Recently Played. But because it’s such a large collection it’s a nightmare. If I select Albums it shows the first 10 and you can then ‘scroll’ through them 10 at a time. But when you consider that the first few hundred or more start off with a ‘ or a ! or similar and then eventually get to those beginning with the number 1 you will start to see the problem. Same kind of issues with artists. I know that part of the problem is that quite a bit of my ‘tagging’ is either crap or non existent. They didn’t really use it in the early days of mp3 so lots of my stuff has no artist for example and often no track names. So I started playing around with Playlists on the Kodi app on my pc, but I find it really difficult and have so many questions about how to use it and can’t seem to find advice anywhere. All the info online seems to relate to using Kodi as an interface for various add-ons to watch tv channels and movies. So if anyone has a good understanding of how to create, edit and delete playlists please reply and I can give you more details of what I’ve been trying to do. Thanks, Mike

**Karellen** · 2020-02-09, 19:48

You could check the Kodi wiki... https://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO:Create_Music_Library

Until you fix your tagging, your experience with Kodi will be a nightmare. Also sounds like you are using a DLNA connection to access your music... another bad move. The device Kodi is installed on should be plugged directly into the TV.

mikethebike007 · 2020-02-09, 20:02

(2020-02-09, 19:48)Karellen Wrote: You could check the Kodi wiki... https://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO:Create_Music_Library

Until you fix your tagging, your experience with Kodi will be a nightmare. Also sounds like you are using a DLNA connection to access your music... another bad move. The device Kodi is installed on should be plugged directly into the TV.

Thanks, will check out the link. I know what you mean about the tagging, but as I'm sure you know, it's a very time consuming operation, and with literally many hundreds of albums with no tracks etc it's not a job that I'm considering as I doubt if I'll live long enough to complete it!! I'm sorry I don't know what DLNA means, all I know is that my pc is on the same network as all my devices, amp, tv, blu-ray, tv box etc. I'm afraid it will be physically impossible to plug my pc into the tv (dragging the hard drive and other peripherals with it...lol). I will check out the link but the main thing I am struggling with is there does not seem to be any way to either add to or delete a playlist. I have set up a few as a trial but now can't delete them! And I put a few albums together on one playlist but now I can't find a way to add other albums by the same artist to the playlist.

mikethebike007 · 2020-02-09, 20:11

(2020-02-09, 20:02)mikethebike007 Wrote:
(2020-02-09, 19:48)Karellen Wrote: You could check the Kodi wiki... https://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO:Create_Music_Library

Until you fix your tagging, your experience with Kodi will be a nightmare. Also sounds like you are using a DLNA connection to access your music... another bad move. The device Kodi is installed on should be plugged directly into the TV.
Thanks, will check out the link. I know what you mean about the tagging, but as I'm sure you know, it's a very time consuming operation, and with literally many hundreds of albums with no tracks etc it's not a job that I'm considering as I doubt if I'll live long enough to complete it!! I'm sorry I don't know what DLNA means, all I know is that my pc is on the same network as all my devices, amp, tv, blu-ray, tv box etc. I'm afraid it will be physically impossible to plug my pc into the tv (dragging the hard drive and other peripherals with it...lol). I will check out the link but the main thing I am struggling with is there does not seem to be any way to either add to or delete a playlist. I have set up a few as a trial but now can't delete them! And I put a few albums together on one playlist but now I can't find a way to add other albums by the same artist to the playlist.

Hi again, checked it out and as I suspected it is like many other tutorials that I have read online. I don't have problems creating my music library, I've done all that and gradually worked it out for myself, and I know it's not perfect because of all the tagging issues I spoke of, but if I can work out how to master the playlist thing, to create a playlist that I can gradually add to, then I can have lost of playlists for my favourite artists or genres and add to them or delete items from as necessary. But I have stopped playing around creating new playlists cos I'm not sure how many you can have and as I say I can't seem to delete the 'trial' ones I created.

**black_eagle** · (This post was last modified: 2020-02-09, 20:13 by black_eagle.)

Go to the playlist you want to delete/edit and (if using a keyboard) press the letter c. That gives you the context menu from where you can choose to edit or delete the playlist as well as some other choices. Are you connected to your amp by network cable then or HDMI ?

Edited to add, you can have as many playlists as you want. They can be either ordinary playlists or 'smart' playlists built from rules.

mikethebike007 · 2020-02-09, 20:15

(2020-02-09, 20:12)black_eagle Wrote: Go to the playlist you want to delete/edit and (if using a keyboard) press the letter c. That gives you the context menu from where you can choose to edit or delete the playlist as well as some other choices. Are you connected to your amp by network cable then or HDMI ?

Ok thanks I will try that. No it's all connected wirelessly. When I set up Kodi it asked me about connecting to the network etc so I did and it all went fine. So my hard drive connects via Kodi to my amp (via my home network ie internet). The amp is then connected to the tv with HDMI. Hope that helps. I'll try the 'c' thing with one of the playlists. Cheers

mikethebike007 · 2020-02-09, 20:25

(2020-02-09, 20:15)mikethebike007 Wrote:
(2020-02-09, 20:12)black_eagle Wrote: Go to the playlist you want to delete/edit and (if using a keyboard) press the letter c. That gives you the context menu from where you can choose to edit or delete the playlist as well as some other choices. Are you connected to your amp by network cable then or HDMI ?
Ok thanks I will try that. No it's all connected wirelessly. When I set up Kodi it asked me about connecting to the network etc so I did and it all went fine. So my hard drive connects via Kodi to my amp (via my home network ie internet). The amp is then connected to the tv with HDMI. Hope that helps. I'll try the 'c' thing with one of the playlists. Cheers

Ok I've tried that and yes I get a box appearing in the middle with a few options and I have had that up before but cant make head nor tail of it. There does not seem to be any option to simply get rid of the playlist you no longer want, and as for adding something to an existing one well I've tried 'edit playlist' a few times and I can't get it to work for me. It might just be me that's a bit think lol but I'm usually quite good with tekkie stuff but this has got me beat!!

**black_eagle** · 2020-02-09, 20:29

Delete should be the bottom option. Does your window look like this ?

mikethebike007 · 2020-02-09, 20:37

Tearing my hair out!! If you go into Playlists and then you open the one you want to either edit or delete and then press C you get the menu box in the middle but the only option there that sounds of any use at all is the one that says 'edit playlist', so I click on that and then you get a page with OPEN, SAVE & CLEAR in the left column and then FILES, LIBRARY and MUSIC VIDEOS in the middle column with the tracks that are in the playlist on the right. So where do I go from there? I have tried going into files and library and selecting an album that I'd like to add. To me the only logical next step would be click on SAVE. So I do that, and it then opens up with a box showing the name of the playlist and asking me if I want to change it. So I don't change it I just click on save or finished or whatever it was, using the same playlist name. So the logical conclusion would surely be that it would have added the album you selected to that playlist? But no, when I come out of it and go back to that playlist from the start screen it still just contains the same 18 tracks as it did at first. Can anyone help??

mikethebike007 · 2020-02-09, 20:43

(2020-02-09, 20:29)black_eagle Wrote: Delete should be the bottom option. Does your window look like this ?

Wow that's bizarre! Either I'm losing my marbles or you somehow put the fear of god into my version of Kodi cos I went back and checked again and sure enough DELETE was the bottom item just like yours. I could have sworn that wasn't there before!!! Ok we are half way there, we've worked out how to get rid of them. But what about editing them, ie adding a few more albums into an existing playlist or removing an album from the playlist without deleting everything else? Thanks

**black_eagle** · 2020-02-09, 20:43

Press 'c' on the album you want to add. Up will pop a little box with an 'add' option. Select that. To remove a track in the right window, simply move to the track you want rid of and press delete.

mikethebike007 · 2020-02-09, 20:46

(2020-02-09, 20:43)black_eagle Wrote: Press 'c' on the album you want to add. Up will pop a little box with an 'add' option. Select that. To remove a track in the right window, simply move to the track you want rid of and press delete.

So, what you are saying is I think, I go into my music library, find an album that I want to add to an existing playlist, press c, and then one of the options will be 'add' and then I assume that would then take you to a page asking you which playlist you want to add to? Trying that now lol

mikethebike007 · 2020-02-09, 20:52

(2020-02-09, 20:46)mikethebike007 Wrote:
(2020-02-09, 20:43)black_eagle Wrote: Press 'c' on the album you want to add. Up will pop a little box with an 'add' option. Select that. To remove a track in the right window, simply move to the track you want rid of and press delete.

So, what you are saying is I think, I go into my music library, find an album that I want to add to an existing playlist, press c, and then one of the options will be 'add' and then I assume that would then take you to a page asking you which playlist you want to add to? Trying that now lol

Ok, tried that but it's not giving me any option to add it to a playlist. There are a number of options but the only one that is anything like what I need is 'add to favourites' but that's not really going to solve my problem of adding to an existing playlist.

**black_eagle** · 2020-02-09, 21:00

Try this.

Press 'c' on the album you want to add.

**black_eagle** · 2020-02-09, 21:01

To be clear, you have to go to the playlist you want to edit/add to, then find the album/track you want to add and press c on that to get the add option.