ID3 Tags not read when case is incorrect in network paths in a playlist (1 Viewer)

mrceolla

Portal Pro
December 11, 2010
136
12
MediaPortal Version: 1.2.3

Description
I started a forum thread some time ago that hasn't gotten much response.
https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/...se-doesnt-match-actual-file-path-case.106277/
I have a very large and old playlist that has been copied around and manually edited for years. Somehow the case on most of the paths to the songs has gotten messed up. When this happens, MP cannot read the ID3 tags.
My music files are on a network share. I don't recall having this problem when they were stored locally. Yes I used the same playlist when the files were in both locations. I just did a find/replace to fix up the paths.

Steps to Reproduce:
  1. Create a playlist that includes UNC paths such as //MACHINE-NAME/path/filename.mp3. Create this playlist any way you would like.
  2. Manually edit the playlist to alter the case of the paths to the file and/or the filename itself. Do this for only the first few files in the playlist so you can see that it has no problem reading the tags from the remaining files.
  3. Play this playlist in MP.
You'll see the ID3 tags for files in the playlist whose case is incorrect will not be read. The most obvious indication of this is that the track will not show a runtime in the GUI. It will play the file just fine, but no tags are read.
 

nfox

Portal Pro
August 22, 2006
163
24
London
Home Country
United Kingdom United Kingdom
Having done a quick test I can confirm this works:
N:\Music\Butthole Surfers\Brown Reason to Live\02 - Hey.mp3

But this doesn't:
\\HTPC\Media 2\Music\Butthole Surfers\Brown Reason to Live\02 - Hey.mp3

And neither does this:
n:\music\butthole surfers\brown reason to live\02 - hey.mp3

So for me UNC paths don't work at all, and neither do local paths with capitalisation that doesn't match that used by Windows.
 

mrceolla

Portal Pro
December 11, 2010
136
12
Thanks for the input nfox.

Some of my UNC paths do work though. Hmmm.

I should expound on one item in my previous post. The most obvious indication of the failure to read ID3 tags is that no track time displays in the playlist list. It does show track time once the file starts playin in the 'current song info area'.

nfox, when you say does and doesn't work, do you mean does and doesn't read tags or not play at all?

Either way it sounds like you confirm this needs some investigation???
 

nfox

Portal Pro
August 22, 2006
163
24
London
Home Country
United Kingdom United Kingdom
To clarify: I have several playlists (all using UNC paths) and they all play, and like you the Playlist screen shows no track length. Also, if I go to the Now Playing screen there is no info shown at all: the fields for Track Name, Artist Name, Album Title, Year and Next are all empty, as well as the Top Album Tracks and Similar Tracks.

The only way to get this info to show is either to avoid using a playlist and select the tracks individually, or to edit the playlist to use a non-UNC path and correct capitalisation (as detailed above).

And yes, it would be good if this could be fixed as I prefer using UNC paths as my music files get moved from time to time (I keep running out of space, add discs, and so on) and I would like not to have to edit the playlists every time that happens:)
 
Last edited:

sush40

New Member
October 23, 2012
4
1
38
Manchester
Home Country
France France
I noticed this bug as well, I use my playlists a lot so it's a bit annoying. ''Now playing" shows the tags only when I play files from my library, but not when I select a playlist.

It works perfectly fine with the old version of MP!! (1.1.2) so I re-installed this version, but I wish this could work on the new MP.....
 

mrceolla

Portal Pro
December 11, 2010
136
12
Hi folks,

I've created a script that should help you to correct the case of your playlists, and more. My playlist is a web URL based playlist so I need to do some additional cleanup and used to do it all with a bunch of manual find/replaces in a text editor. Now this does it all for me. Just edit the script to suit your needs. It should be mostly self explanatory.

The machine that runs this script must have access to the file locations. This is so the file can actually be read and the correct case can be determined.

I'm no vbscript expert. I just googled for what I needed. I left in some additional code that I found for reference since I thought I may use it some day.

Happy New Year!
 

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  • CleanPlaylists.zip
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