Engine 2.x.x playlist issue

Hi everyone,

I have a very annoying issue with my playlists and syncing to and from the P4. This is my setup: Laptop Windows 10 with Engine 2.2.2

Folder structure: D:\Denon\Library\Default and then a folder for every letter of the alphabet containing all my music sorted by artist - song.mp3 or .flac

The Prime 4 has a buildin 1TB SSD.

Now the problem: I am still sorting my collection of 11000 songs. Since there is not an easy way of importing music I use this procedure:

  • copy song to D:\Denon\Library\Default\A\
  • drag song from D:\Denon\Library\Default\A to a playlist called ‘Unsorted’

I drag a song from ‘Unsorted’ to a other playlist which I want to use, let’s say ‘Wedding’. The song is added to ‘Wedding’ and I remove it from the playlist ‘Unsorted’. So far no problem. The ‘unsorted’ playlist now contains 3021 items.

Now the issue: As soon as I connect the P4 to the computer and reboot it into computer mode, several thousand items are added to the ‘Unsorted’ playlist. This happens even without using the sync manager. Just connecting the P4 and put it into computer mode.

This happened me several times when I sync my music to the prime 4. I use the Prime 4 as slave, so nothing is synced back from the prime.

Today it happened again. I tried backing up the library before connecting and restore it after connecting, but the ‘Unsorted’ category is already screwed and stays screwed.

What can be the the cause of this? Is perhaps my ‘Unsorted’ playlist too big? Please help me, I am tired of sorting the same songs.

This is probably happening because Engine displays both the songs from your local playlist (on D:) as well as the playlist on the drive installed in the P4.

If you look to the far right of the playlist track list when the P4 is connected to to the computer, you should see the drive location of each track in the playlist.

That’s the strange thing: all songs in the library are located on the d-drive, nothing on the P4. I thought of this myself but this was not the case. I really think it is a bug.

Ok, so most likely there’s a database on the drive installed in the P4 that engine is reading when the device is connected to the PC.

If you have a spare pc, try installing engine on that machine but don’t add any tracks to its collection. Connect the P4 to that pc and see what shows. If you see the unsorted playlist full of the tracks you removed, then that’s your issue.

Unfortunately, it sounds like you backed up the collection with the unsorted folder full. You will have to reorganize the playlist, then back up the collection once complete. It would also be wise to wipe the drive in the P4 clean using the Windows file explorer before connecting to engine again. Then re-sync once collection is sorted on the pc.

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I think you are right! I have installed Engine Desktop on another PC and connected the P4. It shows the complete music database but the drive is not my d-drive but Prime 4 SSD.

I can easily delete everything on the P4. I have a full backup on my main pc. What is the best thing to do next? Format the P4 on the other pc and then a full sync from the main pc?

Okay I could not wait for a reply :smiley: So what I did was in Windows Explorer Format the drive of the P4. Then I started Engine DJ and clicked on ‘Sync Manager’, followed by ‘Export to Drive’. image

During the sync I can see this (10:23PM):

After the sync the transfer files in the database folder on the P4 were still open. I closed Engine DJ and this was the result:

Now let’s check what happens. I create a new playlist and some tracks in it:

Now sync it to the Prime. I start Sync manager, it has selected all playlists except the one I just created (in my memory this behavior was first only the changed playlists). Now I deselected everything and selected the new playlist and press export to drive image

Got this warning, not sure why? I just click ‘Yes’ image

Now I close Engine DJ. This are the database files:

Next Safely disconnect P4 by ejecting in Windows Explorer. Now I start Engine DJ, because a want to change something about the playlist. Just removed 2 tracks and added 2 other songs:

Now let’s check what happens when I connect the P4:

You can see that the tracks are added to the playlist even without exporting using the sync manager. So the databases seem to merge.

I personally think this is a bug.

When I start Engine DJ on the other computer without the P4 connected it shows the database with the source PRIME4 (the p-drive of the Prime4 in the example) and all tracks are marked red because the P4 is not connected.

Anyone at Denon reading this :sunglasses: ?

Or am I doing something wrong?

Right, this goes back to my first suspicion that you’re seeing both playlists, the changed playlist on the D drive and the unchanged playlist on the P4.

Connect the p4 to the computer and open engine. Expand the left side so you can see the removable drive in the P4 and look at the test playlist. You should only see the music that was synced prior to making the change on the playlist in your main collection on D:

It is a bug

You should file a bug report

I recall this was discussed previously

This is not correct behavior

If you start Engine DJ on a computer without its source drive, it should show an empty collection and not one with missing files

Apart from the D drive, do you have Engine folder in the C>Music drive ?

Yeah 2 folders full of files which do not seem to change frequently:

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I have created a support ticket.

Got feedback today:

Hi Sebastian,

Thank you for your reply.

Your feedback and bug has been noted. The Engine Forum is currently the best place to report all feedback, bugs and feature requests as this is frequented by the product teams directly.

​As we are merely customer support, there is very little we can do in the way of providing a fix for a bug; other than relay the feedback onto the same teams who monitor the forum.

We have changed your ticket type to a bug report to ensure this also gets sent to the right people internally. Moving forward we will close the ticket. If you have any further questions, concerns or require any additional information from our support team, simply reply to this email to reopen the ticket and we can pick up where we left off. ​ Kind Regards, UK Support Team