Last Saturday, I noticed a newly created performance SSD lacked many playlists. Luckily, it still had all of the music, plus I have others created at different times. When I got back to the mother Engine DJ collection on the desktop I found that those playlists had also vanished from the collection. I use a script to keep manual backups of the Engine Library folder, so I replaced the butchered library with the backup, voilà. Then, I plugged in the performance SSD and went to the Sync Manager panel without actually syncing. Lo and behold, I watched the playlists vanish. Ok, so rinse and repeat, I made a video.
At 0:01 you can see under Genera in the left collection panel there are smart playlists such as Acapella, Acoustic, Ambient, … Disco >class, Disco >cNu, … I plug in the performance SSD and press Sync Manager. It may be a bit hard to see because Sync Manager blurs the background, but at 0:23 many of the Genera playlists vanish. The only way to get them back is from a backup.
I’m going to wipe the performance SSD and see if a fresh sync goes well. Unfortunately, this is a bit disconcerting. I do hope I have missed out on some logic.
Oh, sorry. Thanks for taking the time. Thought it was available via the link without being publicly listed. Should be there now. https://youtu.be/bI_my6Kocqw
This is baffling. I’ve used Engine DJ for over four years and this is my first problem.
Here’s an image for reference.
Left panel is the desktop collection playlists. Middle panel is the Sync Manager display (all playlists show in the desktop and attached SSD columns). Right panel is the desktop playlist after attaching the SSD and what is on the SSD after syncing, even though the Sync Manager panels still show all of the playlists. The desktop playlists sometimes remain after syncing, but I can’t get all of them on the attached performance SSD.
Between attempts, I reload the Engine library to get back to having those playlists.
All playlists show when I select the desktop computer as source over wi-fi on an SC6000.
If I don’t sync, they are fine on the desktop computer and I can work with them as usual.
Deleted the /Engine Library/ folder on the attached performance SSD and synced from square one (takes an hour). The same result.
Loaded Engine DJ 4.3.0 on my Macbook (with Sequoia). Sync Manager proceeds quickly, but only loads one! track to the attached SSD /Engine Library/Music/ folder.
Thus, I assume there is a glitch in the library file(s) and was moving backward sequentially. 27 Feb syncs more of the playlists, but is still missing a big chunk. If I go back far enough I’ll be using 4.0.0. Perhaps it’s more stable.
Maybe I use too many smartlists? I load tracks in a Source group with regular playlists by vendor (Beatport, Bandcamp, etc.) and most everything else falls into smartlists based on the ID3 tags. The Engine LIbrary is a curated subset of my larger iTunes digital collection. My conclusion is there are fundamental problems and even if I get sync working right, I won’t trust it.
My next step is to give Lexicon a try and see if that might be the better place to manage everything. I assume it will write the performance SSD for Engine OS and I can skip Engine DJ desktop. Christiaan has a beta that supports djay Pro, which will be an added bonus. If Lexicon works out, I can separate from iTunes. That will be a joyful day.
Yikes. I don’t use smart lists and can’t help you much further. I have seen issues where a playlist had the wrong flag in the isPersisted or isExplicitlyExported columns in the database and flipping the value helped move things along. That might be worth a try (be sure to back up your DB (just make a copy via Finder or Explorer) before trying this if you want.
You can’t go back to 4.0 without wiping your main DB as the schema changed with 4.2 or so.
Also, in many ways, Lexicon is a far superior product in a lot of ways and I’m glad their pricing seems to have gone down.
@Reese, All of my collection is on one desktop drive. I only sync to attached SSD and some of those smartlists are written to the SSD. As I go back in time, more of them export.
@djliquidice Thanks. I’ll have a look at those columns. Yes, I have backups upon backups. The schema changes with 4.1.0. Else, I would have tried 4.0 with my current database. I can go back there with backups, but that is long ago and I’ll have to rebuild from there. Maybe Lexicon can export to different releases. Years ago when I tried Lexicon I much preferred the editing interface (cues, loops) with Engine DJ. But I wasn’t also using djay Pro then.
The scary thing is the sync with 4.3 only copied one music file and stopped.
BTW- I also ran “Library Optimization” and nothing changed.
Interesting, there are many deleted playlists in the Playlist table (in m.db). Some of them have the same name as the smartlists because I deleted the regular playlist and made a smartlist with the same name to replace it. Looks like isPersisted (“0”) flags them as deleted. Too bad there’s not a pack routine.
Subscribed to Lexicon. BTW, AI found me a 20% off coupon, so the yearly rate is USD136, not bad at all.
Imported the Engine Library and synced it back to Engine DJ. I chose to make the smartlists into regular playlists for the synced back version.
Engine DJ still failed on sync to an external SSD. The Sync Manager panels shows all of the playlists plus the smartlists and other playlists that were deleted. I’m wondering if there is a cache file for Sync Manager storing that? I don’t see it in the SQLite database. The Engine Library on the SSD was deleted, so there was nothing there to read them from either.
So, I used Lexicon to make an Engine OS “device/USB” in the format that Engine DJ writes. Engine Library/ folder with /Database2 and /Music subfolders. It works! Well, there are few tiny bugs. Twenty-three of 2329 tracks are not found (red). Delving into the SQL database and looking at the /Music/ folders and files, I see that Lexicon is not trimming spaces from ID3 tag data which are concatenated to make the folders and store the path to the file. I fixed a few of those with my SQL editor, but it will be better to clean those up in the Lexicon Library. I’ll also submit an error report on that.
Maybe I’m just used to it, but I still like the cue and loop editing in Engine DJ desktop better. But, I admit I’ve only peeked at the Lexicon editor. Overall, the interface looks slick.
I’ve corrected the not found tracks exported to the device/USB (Engine OS players) by Lexicon. The errors being that Lexicon doesn’t trim trailing spaces from the Album field and that field is used as one of the folders in export. Engine OS (i.e. exFAT) doesn’t like a path with trailing spaces in the folders. One file had a “?” mark in the name, a no-no in exFAT.
All is well, in the nick of time.
@Reese, if you wish, you may close this as solved by Lexicon. If you want me to open a ticket for support to look into this, let me know.
