Engine DJ 5.0.0 — Sync Manager does not create playlist folder structure on USB / SD drives (works on SSD)

Engine DJ Software Engine DJ (Mac & PC)
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Subject: Engine DJ 5.0.0 — Sync Manager does not create playlist folder structure on USB / SD drives (works on SSD)

SYSTEM CONFIGURATION

  • Engine DJ Desktop 5.0.0, Windows 10 running in Parallels Desktop on a Mac
  • Engine OS 5.0.3 on the player
  • Collection: 26,567 tracks (2384 hr 37 m)
  • Audio files on an external drive; Engine Library database in the Windows user Music folder

PROBLEM Since updating Engine DJ Desktop from 4.3.x to 5.0.0, Sync Manager no longer recreates the playlist folder structure on USB flash drives and SD cards. The audio files are copied to the drive correctly, but:

  • the right-hand pane of Sync Manager (drive contents) stays empty after the export, including after closing and reopening Engine DJ;
  • on the player, the exported tracks appear as one single flat list. The folder hierarchy (MASTER > DEEP APERO > DEEP 1 > DEEP 1/2025) is not present.

This worked correctly with the previous version.

EVIDENCE THAT DATA IS WRITTEN Before the export the drive showed 59.5 GB available. After exporting a 359 MB playlist, Windows reported 375 MB used and an “Engine Library” folder present on the drive with the correct timestamp. The status message reads “Export completed”.

WHAT WORKS Exporting to an external SSD works correctly: the structure is created and the drive contents appear in the right-hand pane.

WHAT FAILS USB flash drives and SD cards, on several different units.

STEPS ALREADY TRIED, ALL WITH THE SAME RESULT

  • Several different USB sticks and SD cards
  • Reformatted as exFAT with MBR scheme, both from Windows Disk Management and from macOS Disk Utility
  • Completely empty, freshly formatted drives, and drives already containing a library created with 4.3.x
  • Selecting a single playlist, and selecting an entire folder with a full checkmark
  • Uninstalling and reinstalling 5.0.0, with a reboot in between
  • Downgrading to Engine DJ Desktop 4.3.4: the problem persists there as well
  • Free space was never an issue (59 GB free against 359 MB exported)

ADDITIONAL DETAIL On one drive the Sync Manager header displayed “-- MB available” instead of a capacity figure.

QUESTIONS

  1. Is this a known issue in 5.0.0?
  2. Is there a way to force Sync Manager to rebuild the database on the drive?
  3. The problem persists after downgrading to 4.3.4, which suggests that something in the library or in the drive state was changed by 5.0.0 and is not reverted by installing the older version. Can you confirm whether this is the case, and how to reset it?

I can provide screenshots of every step described above.

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Salve @Angelo_Angelo ,

your post made me curious. I checked my internal drive. It looks like you have described. EngineDJ Desktop is still synchin’ on a USB-Drive, but it already shows the same structure…

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I chose 3 playlists. I know several tracks are contained in more than one playlist. Maybe this helps you on further testing.

I really hope, you have made a backup of your SQLite-DB files. It may be possible your “rollback” from Desktop 5.0.0. → 4.3.4 'causing side fx…

Regards,

Florian

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Hi, try taking a new USB stick, format it, then create a new test playlist, insert songs that are not yet in the collection and export the new playlist to the new USB, and check if the library export works again.

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Hi Florian,

thank you for taking the time to actually test this on your own machine — much appreciated.

Two things I should have made clearer in my original post.

First: I run Engine DJ Desktop on Windows 10 inside Parallels Desktop on a Mac. You are on native Windows, so that is a significant difference between our setups and it may well be the key variable. To be clear though: I have been running Engine DJ in this exact Parallels setup for months with 4.3.x, preparing USB sticks and SD cards regularly with no issues at all. The problem appeared with the very first stick I prepared after updating to 5.0.0. Same machine, same virtual machine, same drives.

Second: the audio files do get written to my USB stick as well. The Music folder on the drive fills up correctly, just like in your screenshot, and Windows confirms the space used. What does not happen is the playlist hierarchy: after the export the right-hand pane of Sync Manager stays empty, and on the player the tracks show up as one flat list instead of the folder structure. So the problem is not the file copy, it is the playlist database on the drive.

On the rollback: your warning came too late for me, unfortunately, but you are right and I can confirm it from experience. Here is what I found, and it may be useful to others:

  • 5.0.0 with a brand new library created from scratch, two test playlists, freshly formatted exFAT/MBR stick: export fails, no folder structure.
  • 4.3.4 with a brand new library created from scratch, same two test playlists, same stick: export works, structure appears correctly.
  • 4.3.4 with my original library that had previously been opened by 5.0.0: export fails, exactly as it did under 5.0.0.

The first two points matter because the library was brand new in both cases, so the library itself cannot be the cause. The only variable was the software version.

The third point is the one I would warn others about. Downgrading alone does not fix anything. Once 5.0.0 has touched the library, going back to 4.3.4 does not restore the previous behaviour. I had a zipped backup of my library, but it turned out it had already been opened by 5.0.0 before I zipped it, so it was affected too. My only way forward at this stage is to rebuild my playlists from scratch under 4.3.4.

Exports to an external SSD work correctly in both versions, which is what I am using to keep working for now.

If anyone else here runs Engine DJ inside Parallels or another virtual machine, I would be very interested to know whether you see the same behaviour after updating to 5.0.0.

I have an open ticket with support (822993). If anything useful comes back I will post it here.

Thanks again, Angelo

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Hi, thanks for the suggestion. I have already done exactly that.

I uninstalled Engine DJ, deleted every Engine Library folder from the computer, from all USB sticks and from the external drives. I then reinstalled 5.0.0, so the library was created completely from scratch. I imported tracks that had never been in any collection before, created new test playlists with them, and exported to a freshly formatted exFAT/MBR USB stick. The export failed in the same way: audio files written to the drive, no playlist folder structure, right-hand pane of Sync Manager empty.

I then repeated the identical procedure with 4.3.4 — brand new library, new tracks, new playlists, same stick — and the export worked correctly.

So with a completely fresh library, fresh tracks and a fresh drive, 4.3.4 works and 5.0.0 does not, on the same machine. One thing worth noting about my setup: I run Engine DJ on Windows 10 inside Parallels Desktop on a Mac. Exports to an external SSD work correctly in both versions — only USB sticks and SD cards fail.

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Why do this when there is a fast native Mac client that runs extremely well? :exploding_head:

Also, this doesn’t change how Engine works. Most of the code for Engine DJ is the same across platforms.

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… itz just been my lack of knowledge :slight_smile: i thought you are running 2 independed OS-Installation… i wasn’t aware of “Parallels Desktop” is a virtualisation software for OSX or just haven’t read proper… I got more friction with Hyper-V, VirtualBox, VMware …

Why are you using Virtualisation this way? Did you virtualize an old PC of yours?

Couldn’t you export the data once from the VM and use the Mac version?

I’m really interested how the support answeres/reacts regarding the really special tec-setup…

Ntl, finger’s crossed you gonna soon find a way to use thumbdrives again…

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Dear all, I have the same issue on a Windows 10 machine. jus after upgrading from 4xxx to 5.xxx . make me creasy because it appears just before a perfromance.

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Please is ther any work around a part of buying a new expensive SSD Card? I was perfect with USB. Best regards

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Good morning,

you probably don’t like the question, i dont like the question by myself… but have you done the latest updates on Windows 10? I know it sounds like a joke, but i just checked whether Win10 is still supported and found that note.

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Regards