Volumio 3 issue: music library folder names do not work with special characters anymore

Help and Support Help
#1

I have a USB stick attached to my RPi with a lot of music, ordered in directories and sub-directories.
This worked perfectly in Volumio 2.
I could use the music library and play them, play entire folders, add to queue etc.

Now in Volumio 3 nothing works.
First, the folder structure stops working after clicking through a few levels, then it sees only one folder named “???”.
And when entering that folder, there are 4 random songs (out of thousands).
But even in the levels above (that still show up normally), nothing works. I cannot play a song or add it to queue. A notification appears of the action, but nothing happened.

(Note: This is observed using many methods: using WebUI, my app, app of Joni, typing REST API commands in browser)

#2

How exactly is your music structured? I can try reproduce the issue then.
(Give a example of the path when it happens, “music lib → usb → some folder → folder - folder - folder”, with the real folder names if possible)

Too much nesting is bad in many cases, i know alot of software that gets confused or plain malfunction when the path is too long or contains special characters.

E: for me the browsing works completely normal within my library, and i can play/add queue etc same as with volumio 3

#3

…the path is too long or contains special characters…

Well, both of these are applicable in my case I guess :joy:

I now formatted the USB stick and am copying everything onto it again to see if it makes a difference.
The folder structure in Volumio 2 looked like this after clicking music library (from Volumio’s POV)
USB
—> D0BA-303A (Volumio created this automatically, below is my own hierarchy)
—> —> Example1.mp3
—> —> …
—> —> Example5.mp3
—> —> Music (This folder does not show up)
—> —> —> Music1.mp3
—> —> —> …
—> —> —> Music5.mp3
—> —> Songs (This folder does not show up)
—> —> —> Songs1.mp3
—> —> —> …
—> —> —> Songs5.mp3
—> —> temp
—> —> —> 中文歌 (This folder and contents does not show up)
—> —> —> —> (A lot of songs and more folders with folders and songs (with special characters))
—> —> —> 英文歌 (One folder shows as “???”, I assume it is this one)
—> —> —> —> (A lot of songs and more folders with folders and songs (with abc-letters))
—> —> —> —> When I open the ??? folder, 4 random songs of this folder appear
—> —> —> 純音樂(This folder and contents does not show up)
—> —> —> —> (A lot of songs and more folders with folders and songs (with special characters))

So after typing all of this, the reformatting and copying finished, after trying there is some difference. Some observations:
→ D0BA-303A changed, this is probably just a random name given by formatting
→ Playing / adding Example1.mp3 to Example5.mp3 now works.
→ Music and Songs folders still don’t show up
→ Inside temp there is still only one folder named ???, however inside now it seems to show all songs instead of just 4 random ones
→ One of the songs that has the character ñ shows as "… seorita … " (You can probably guess where it would have been)
→ Playing songs in this folder worked once, then it did not anymore. But…
→ After that one time, I changed the three folder names to abc characters to test if it would repair the structure, but it did not.

I suspect Volumio creates a cache of the library, therefore there did not seem to be a change in the structure and the songs inside ??? also did not work anymore. (If true, this would be quite annoying, because changing something in the USB would not show up)

So I will now try to reformat and use abc characters from the start, and see if it then picks up the correct hierarchy.

1 Like
#4

Ok, I think I more or less figured out the behaviour.
Main issue is that Volumio 3 lost support for special characters.

→ Every special character in a folder name is turned into a ?
→ Two folder names that have the same length of special characters both become ? of the same length, thus only one folder with that name is shown. And clicking it will lead to one of the folders.
→ However, the content of it is displayed correctly (in principle) and can be played
→ Special characters in a song name do work and can also be played

→ Also, empty folders are not displayed at all. But not sure if this was also the case with Volumio 2.

As for why only 4 random songs were shown at first I don’t know, perhaps the USB got corrupted when upgrading.

EDIT: the ñ was my own fault, probably does work

#5

So I also changed the topic title now

from:
Volumio 3 issue: music library does not work (hierarchy display broken and function broken)

to:
Volumio 3 issue: music library folder names do not work with special characters anymore

Could a mod add this to the list of to be solved issues?

#6

Bump

#7

Bump

#8

Still not added:

https://community.volumio.org/t/volumio-3-issues-hints-and-solutions/51707/3

#9

Ping @gkkpch @chsims1

#10

bump bump bump

Yes, it has not been added, like quite a lot of other posts, we just don’t have the time to do them all (mods are all volunteers with another job).
It does not necessarily mean the developers don’t look at your post, but the “to be solved” issues" list, as you call it, is separate and not a “to-do list” for them.

So, take a breath, some things just need a little time to investigate and solve. Don’t forget we have holidays season here.
And if nothing is happening at all after a couple of weeks, then ask for dedicated support below and refer to this topic.

1 Like