musicmafia Posted October 7, 2014 at 10:54 PM Report Share Posted October 7, 2014 at 10:54 PM HELP! No matter what I try, playlists will not work properly or at all on 2015 FFE with MFT. I use Windows Media Player and Windows 7. Music files are in compatible .wma format. I've tried playlist formats .wpl, .pla and .m3u I started with my old mp3 player. All songs loaded fine but indexing was very slow. A couple incomplete playlists showed but that's all. Bought a PNY 128gb USB. Sync'd all the files (@ 40 gbs) via WMP, checked the drive and no playlists were showing. Copied/pasted the playlists manually onto the USB drive (into root and into folder) and neither works. Playlist titles will show but playlists show as empty and will not play. Saw other members comments on software called SyncPlaylist. Downloaded program but it now says I need to install Java, which I've been living happily without for some time. Is this program going to solve my problems and if so is it worth the risk with java? My music is very important to me and I researched this thoroughly prior to purchase and all Ford documentation indicates that Sync (powered by Microsoft) will play .wma files and WMP playlists. This makes sense as everything in this chain is a Microsoft product. So why doesn't it work for me and can anyone share a solution? Thanks :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
musicmafia Posted October 14, 2014 at 02:24 AM Author Report Share Posted October 14, 2014 at 02:24 AM Help? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meyersnole Posted October 21, 2014 at 05:11 AM Report Share Posted October 21, 2014 at 05:11 AM (edited) Musicmafia -- I think you might be better off going to the SYNC forum to get some help for this. I use the system to play music but do not use playlists. (you will have to create a userid for this board as it is separate from this site... but that may be good as it is for all the Ford SYNC systems. Good luck! http://fordsyncforum.com/ Edited October 21, 2014 at 05:11 AM by meyersnole musicmafia and HotLap 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HotLap Posted November 19, 2014 at 08:41 PM Report Share Posted November 19, 2014 at 08:41 PM meyersnole, nice post, good folks on this forum, for sure! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meyersnole Posted November 19, 2014 at 09:16 PM Report Share Posted November 19, 2014 at 09:16 PM meyersnole, nice post, good folks on this forum, for sure! Did you get it worked out? Maybe post the solution over here for others? (Hope it is solved!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
musicmafia Posted November 20, 2014 at 01:49 AM Author Report Share Posted November 20, 2014 at 01:49 AM hey meyersnole, I managed to figure out a workaround but it's far from ideal. Its not that difficult, but very time consuming and just plain ineffecient. I have accepted that, although Windows Media Player (one of the most popular music players in the world) is a Microsoft product and Ford's Sync is "powered by Microsoft", WMP playlists are simply NOT recognized from USB by Ford Sync. During development, Ford probably could have asked Microsoft to ensure this compatibility and I'm sure some engineer at Microsoft could have hit a couple buttons and made it so, but alas it does not. For music-oriented folks like me, with huge libraries of songs and large playlists, this is a major disappointment. Here is what I am doing to get my large WMP playlists to play from USB in my FFE. Technically the WMP playlists still do not work. This method allows users to copy all the songs from any playlist and offers options to re-sort them in bulk, versus having to manually rebuild playlists of hundreds of songs. At the end of the day, you end up with Folders of songs on your USB that can be manually selected on the MFT screen. Here is what I am doing: I import my wpl playlists into Amok Playlist Copy (google it, free download, doesnt require java like SyncPlaylist). Once in Amok, I then simply choose the option to re-sort them (by number serially), then I export the renamed files into their own folders in the ROOT of my usb (not in the main music folder). I had to manually create a folder and name it to match each playlist. If you're doing this right, when you plug in your usb drive it should show your main MUSIC folder and each individual "playlist" folder: USB root: Music (folder with all the songs)Title of "playlist" folder 1 (containing the numerically renamed files)Title of playlist folder 2etc etc I cant voice command the "playlist" folders in Ford Sync BUT I can hit browse on the screen and see the list of playlist folders and I can manually choose the playlist folder and it will play just like a playlist. It is merely a folder containing those songs in a way that is read by Ford Sync but at least it works. Others say Media Monkey can sync m3u playlists to usb, but so far I cant get m3u playlists to work from USB on Sync. I dont use itunes either. My portable library is @ 5000 songs, all 320-400kb WMA (Windows Media) files. My main library is @ 100,000 songs in FLAC format but most of my playlists are from the portable library via WMP. It would take forever to rebuild the playlists. The workaround is okay but I am definitely still dreaming of an easier way to play and sync my WMP playlists from usb. My MP3 player is big and heavy (60gb) and doesnt work well with Ford Sync. USB is so much more convenient.It is very unlikely Microsoft will ever hit the magic button to make this happen, although I'm guessing that other WMP users are frustrated if attempting to use USB drives versus dedicated portable music players. meyersnole 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meyersnole Posted December 12, 2014 at 02:31 AM Report Share Posted December 12, 2014 at 02:31 AM hi musicmafia Just getting back into the forums as football season has had me chasing my team all over the East coast. :shift: Wow, this solution seems MUCH less than ideal. I can tell you that I use MediaMonkey on my PC and it is a fabulous product (upgraded from the free version because I liked it so much). One of the very cool things it will do is take a list of music and convert it to another format and compress. I keep my almost my entire library in FLAC (currently 8,602 files taking up 200.7GB of disk space) that I centrally store on my Synology NAS -- so that I can access that from my computer or my TV or my Squeezebox. I know that I can create play lists with it pretty easily, so I will try and take a crack at it sometime this week and let you know if it works and if it might be worth it for you to do something similar. I probably will have some questions for you though (I don't use play lists), but I will put them in this thread. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meyersnole Posted December 13, 2014 at 05:13 AM Report Share Posted December 13, 2014 at 05:13 AM hey meyersnole, just did a reply so you would see this. Having a bit of issues getting MediaMonkey to recognize my USB drive as a portable device... if I can get this to work, then it will be a real easy process. In the meantime, have you seen this post? http://fordsyncforum.com/index.php?/topic/2079-mft-with-usb-drive-tips/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meyersnole Posted December 13, 2014 at 06:38 AM Report Share Posted December 13, 2014 at 06:38 AM OK... I was able to get the playlist to work (I think). I have to hit browse, but then I see the 2 playlists that I created and when I select them then I see the songs that are in the playlist. Anyway, I used mediamonkey to create these by doing the following: There are a few autocreated playlists, I just used 2 to try this. Select the playlist I wanted -- this creates a list of songs on a tab... I select all of those songs and go to the toolbar and select Tools... Convert...Format (this allows me to copy my FLAC files to the USB stick as MP3s. I selected Convert Files to new destination and made the destination the drive letter of my USB stick with the option <Filename> (Looks like N:\<Filename>) this is important because I am going to export my playlist to the drive next and need the filenames to match. Depending on how many songs are in your playlist, this may take some time as you are converting each file and writing to the USB stick (not exactly a fast access unless you have a USB 3 stick) Next I go to the list of playlists and right click on the playlist and select Export M3Us/Create Playlists... the first time you do this you will need to go into the options. Make sure you have to following selected: Export to single folderAll sub-levels of nodes (not sure if this matters but this is what I have)ANSI check the box for Replace paths in .m3u files; keep the default for the first part, change the second part to \ Hit OK Right click on Export M3Us/Create Playlists... (again) and this time select the first option Export as m3u Save as what ever you want to name the file, select your USB drive as the destination. Then just open that file with notepad and ensure that it wrote it correctly. Repeat as many times as the number of playlists that you want to create on that drive. Important: Remember that you have to have all your tags correct and complete to be recognized by Sync (PITA)... More on that topic can be found here: http://fordsyncforum.com/index.php?/topic/2079-mft-with-usb-drive-tips/ Hope this helps. There is an easier way to do this in MediaMonkey, I just did not get my thumbdrive recognized. If by some chance you can, check this out: http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=73522 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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