Synicing iTunes and Squeezebox playlists

[adavis521]

Dear smart folk,
I have a question that I thought you all may be able to answer. I run Squeezebox (SB) on a DS server and would like to have the playlist I create on iTunes available in SB. I like my SB to run off the server so that my computer can be off, but I like iTunes to run off my computer so I can play it anywhere me and my laptop go (for example, I have a music folder on both my laptop and the server), therefore I do not want to have iTunes run off the DS. I hope this makes sense to people and if you could answer in as simple language as possible it would be greatly appreciated as while pretty savvy, I am definitely not a techie. Thanks so much...

Adam

[pafff]

Hello Adam

I have been trying to import automatically my iTunes library for more than a year now... and never got it to work correclty.

The only really 100% working solution with which all my songs (including the ones with "é" "ü" etc. in their filenames) are recognised and all playlists are correctly imported is to forget the iTunes plugin and convert manually all playlists into a format SBS understands. But maybe it would work if you don't use special characters.

Now according to the SBS forums there is a chance that SBS 7.6 solves these problems. I hope...

Regards
Patrick

[baskaran]

I verified that SqueezeboxServer 7.6.1 on Mac OS X handles accented european language characters without any problem. I hope Synology brings their version up-to-date with the 7.6.1 soon.

[pafff]

...I think it has always handled accented characters well on Windows. As far as I know, the problem was only present on some Linux systems, like the DS.

According to the official SBS forums and to the Synology hotline (which I find excellent) it should work now (>=7.6.0) on Linux systems, so let's hope. This is actually my last hope, if it doesn't work it won't be long before my DS210j will be relegated to a backup disk and SBS runs on a cheap netbook under Windows...

Patrick

[pafff]

Update, after testing the SBS package 7.6.1:

- the problem is not solved in the official Synology package 7.6.1
- with the Windows version, everything works correctly

*frustration*

Patrick

[baskaran]

Very unfortunate, indeed. I have confirmed that Synology package 7.6.1 does not handle accented characters in playlists. It just skips those playlists.

[baskaran]

I spent the last several hours investigating what was causing SqueezeBoxServer(SBS) to skip playlist entries with UTF-8 characters. I have found the cause and I have a fix!

It looks like this is caused by SBS code not detecting that the current locale was UTF8. Here is how you can fix it on your NAS.

1. Log in to your NAS via telnet or ssh as admin user.

2. cd /volume1/@appstore/SqueezeCenter/Slim/Plugin/iTunes

3. cp Importer.pm Importer.pm.backup

4. edit Importer.pm using your favorite editor and remove the block of code starting with line that contains "if ($] > 5.007 && $file && Slim::Utils::Unicode::currentLocale() ne 'utf8')" to the line just before the line that contains "# Bug 5339'. In SBS 7.6.1, these are lines 251 to 273.

5. Do a full scan of the library.

6. Send me a PM if you have any questions.

[phinfo]

Hello,

I am using LMS 7.7.1 on a DS212+

From two weeks I am trying to import directly my iTunes playlist without any success.
No problem to scan and import my music, I have only a problem with playlist import.

Setup:

Playlists Folder is on /volume1/Syno/Itunes where the file "iTunes Library.xml" is stored
Itunes flag is set to yes "Use iTunes"

If I export manually the playlist with itunes export in *.m3U file is works......(http://www.ericdaugherty.com/dev/itunesexport/) it works correctly.

But I want to do it without any manual actions....

Any ideas ?
Thanks for your help.
Pierre

[baskaran]

This problem is back in Logitech Media Server 7.7.1. You need to apply the same fix to get it to properly import iTunes playlists created on a Mac.

[lopasilver]

I have found a fully working method, but you have to use LMS iTunes plugin :

I discover that the 10th line of the file "iTunes Library.xml" was not pointing to the right music folder. The sub-folder "Music" is missing :
<key>Music Folder</key><string>your_path_to_itunes_folder/iTunes%20Media/</string>

Simply type '/Music/' at the end of this path :
<key>Music Folder</key><string>your_path_to_itune_folder/iTunes%20Media/Music/</string>

Save the xml file, and do a full rescan.
It works for me for weeks, you can play now all your iTunes playlists.

You have to do it again if iTunes modify the xml file, not a big issue