Playlists

[Rudedog]

I know this subject has been done several times but I'm on the verge of giving up and I really hate being beaten so i thought I'd ask..

I've searched on here and found some info plus on several other VW sites (UK & US), I've used what has been shown and tried and tried but I still can't get the playlist to play the songs on my SD card.

I have songs on my SD card grouped into artists then their albums, all are mp3 and play without issues including the album art..

Currently my 'fix' is to have a folder called '1-Playlist' that just has a duplicate of each song that I would like to use in a playlist, it works but doesn't sit right when I know there is a proper way of doing this.

So far I have created a M3U file which is seen on the infotainment system under the Playlist genre but when I try and play it it says 'no playable files'.

I'm stumped... as far as I know I've gone through and tried every combination of file address for the M3U playlist songs (I'm saving from iTunes on a MacBook).

Help.. has anyone managed to get this work?

Bit peeved that VW don't even give you a clue as to how to do this.

[fredgroves]

When you have the sd card in your pc, does the m3u file work to play the music from your computer?

[fredgroves]

And post a copy of the contents of the m3u file on here and let's see what it looks like. Is the m3u in the same directory as the music files or elsewhere?

[Rudedog]

Yes if I double click on the saved M3U file on my MacBook it opens iTunes and plays it (I guess it could be playing it from my laptops hard drive and not he SD card, but then how do you create a M3U playlist from the SD card?).

The M3U playlist file is saved to the root of the SD card along side the artist folders.

Unfortunately because I've tested and tried every combination of file address I don't really know what example to post, I know that the direct copy of the Mac playlist doesn't work.

I'll try and copy the file that has all of my test samples, when testing I've made a big assumption that the system will go through the list and find/play any that work and not just stop on the first line if it's wrong.

[fredgroves]

I think it's to do with the way the file path is written in the file.

Post an example line from the m3u in here.

I spent ages trying to make this work when I got my first golf.

[Rudedog]

Sorry for the delay.

Below is a copy of my 'test' m3u file where I tried to replicate all of the possible file paths that I found on the web on various sites saying that they had the answer.

My SD card is called 'VW Music' and then the individual artists sit within this then each artist has their albums then tracks.

I'm using iTunes on a MacBook.

I hoped that at least one of these worked and then I could change all of the others to match.

EXTM3U
#EXTINF:298,Sexy Boy - Air
Moon Safari/02 Sexy Boy.mp3
#EXTINF:226,Kelly Watch the Stars - Air
Moon Safari\04 Kelly Watch the Stars.mp3
#EXTINF:393,Life Is Sweet - The Chemical Brothers
Life Is Sweet.mp3
#EXTINF:236,Let Forever Be - The Chemical Brothers
05 Let Forever Be.mp3
#EXTINF:290,Hey Boy Hey Girl - The Chemical Brothers
The Chemical Brothers\Surrender\09 Hey Boy Hey Girl.mp3
#EXTINF:324,Are Friends Electric - Gary Numan
Gary Numan/The Pleasure Principle/Are Friends Electric.mp3
#EXTINF:201,Dans La Radio - Jacques
/Jacques/Jacques EP/Dans La Radio.mp3
#EXTINF:143,Equinoxe - Part 1 - Jean Michel Jarre
../Jean Michel Jarre/Equinoxe/01 Equinoxe - Part 1.mp3
#EXTINF:223,Das Modell - Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk\Die Mensch-Maschine\Das Modell.mp3
#EXTINF:259,Electric Café (2009 Remaster) - Kraftwerk
D:\Kraftwerk\Electric Café\07 Electric Café (2009 Remaster).mp3
#EXTINF:372,The Robots - Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk\The Man Machine\01 The Robots.mp3

[fredgroves]

OK so that's missing any paths to the files.. If you put that m3u in the same folder as all of those mp3 files, it would work

[Rudedog]

OK so this is bit I don't understand, surely the playlist sits on the root of the SD card with the artists/albums below it.

Are you saying to put a copy of the playlist within each artist folder?

Or do I have to take all of the individual tracks out of their album folders and run the playlist from one big folder that only has tracks listed?

My aim was to avoid duplicating the tracks on the SD card.

One other basic question... does the type of backslash make a difference? / or \

What makes it a pain is that I can only test each change in the car.

[fredgroves]

For that playlist to work the mp3 files need to be in the same directory as the m3u.

To enable the m3u to be wherever you like you need to use relative paths.

There is probably some app you can use to make these playlist but I don't use apple...

[Rudedog]

Thanks, and I think that's the issue unfortunately....

It should be simple and I'm sure once it's cracked it will be plain sailing, shame no one on here has gone from a Mac without having to buy a conversion app.

Looks like I'll end up sticking with my 'playlist' folder and just having duplicate tracks...

Many thanks for your help