I’m trying Symfonium for my official Subsonic (6.1.6) server and noticed that I have to use “compatibility mode” which is making syncing extremely slow for massive library like mine. For context, I have over 125,000 songs in my Subsonic library.
I was wondering if there’s a way to fix this by allowing the app to browse my library using folder/directory structure instead of relying on meta data. Browsing this way would actually be ideal for me since I have my music neatly organized by folders. I noticed that there’s a “Files” option in Library view but I just see “No media providers. Check your filters.” there even though all my songs/albums/etc load just fine in other views.
Other Subsonic apps such as DSub and the official Subsonic app allow browsing via folder structure by default so it would be amazing if there was a way to achieve this in Symfonium too.
What would be wonderful is that Subsonic fixes the API to either add the missing functions or implement the search3 endpoint as the others (Maybe if you are a paid user you have a way to reach their support and request that).
File mode does not work on 80% of the servers so I do not support it (for the moment) as I can’t detect server type in many cases and in all cases only using that would lead to only be able to use 1/100th of the features of the app. (You might want to open a feature request to add support for that)
You might want to try Navidrome as a server and see if it better suits your needs.
If you only want file mode Symfonium have nothing to add to other apps so it might not be the app for you with this server that does not offer quick sync API.
Thank you for the quick response. I totally understand the challenges you must be facing with supporting such a large number of servers.
Regarding File mode - if this was to be implemented for Subsonic, would it actually solve the slow sync times and enable Symfonium to essentially function similar to the other Subsonic apps? I understand that we’d be losing out on most of the features you have implemented but I’m 100% okay with a simple file browser for my Subsonic library since no other app even comes close to the UX polish you’ve built with Symfonium. BTW - I’m actually a Googler and I have to say that your implementation of Material You is fantastic! Fantastic work mate!!
For context, I’m a bedroom DJ thus I have a fairly unusual way of organizing my library relative to others who simply want a quick way of managing their person music library. I keep my music organized by genre and type of release (album, EP, single, compilation, bootleg, etc). This is all done via folder structure. Example:
music / electronic / techno / albums / [artist - album - year - label]
Subsonic (official) is literally the last music streaming service that allows for browsing via folder structure as all the others that I’ve tried (including Navidrome) simply rely on meta data.
If File mode does indeed solve my issues, I’m happy to open a feature request for it.
File mode would only be file mode So no library views, no offline usage, smart playlists, proper offline media, …
And since as you said Navidrome for exemple does not support it, it would give empty results for some users as I can’t detect that upfront leading to more support.
But I can add support it’s not difficult except bad server / support handling.
File mode is supported in Symfonium for Emby / Kodi / Jellyfin and Plex that also support custom tags and better music tag parsing that would allow you to have both world (Using moods, styles, …).
Maybe you can explain to Google Play Store team, that since they do not offer proper trials for paid apps, paid app via In App purchase will have a high uninstall rate because of people who do not convert to paid (Android users prefers tons of ads), this does not mean that the app is bad and should be downranked to hell …
Same for niche app that Google wrongly index and leads to high uninstalls when shown in wrong category and are then punished for their indexing issue.
Regarding File mode limitations - in DSub and other Subsonic apps, you get functionality such as library views (via folder structure), media downloading (caching) for offline play, and auto playlists such as “Recently added” and “Recently played”. So it’s essentially 1:1 feature wise with Symfonium (minus smart playlists which official Subsonic doesn’t support) but defaults to folder structure instead of tags (although there is a “Browse By Tags” option in DSub too):
Regarding Play Store - I can pass the feedback but I’m not sure how much good it would do. I’m not on that team and Google is a huge company so the internal politics here are not very conducive to cross org feedback.
Symfonium is offline first multi provider. Everything works without access to the server.
None of those apps will allow you to browse a folder offline is you did not browsed it before.
This is not possible without a way to sync the data and this is a really different approach it also allows very fast and efficient browsing.
Symfonium can also easily play your 125 000 songs with a personal mix.
So the function may look the same, but internally are not at all the same, and Symfonium can not provide it’s library mode without proper data sync.
About Google don’t worry I know how it works, even when talking to high level person in Play Team they do not really know or understand how it works I love when a top manager send me a screenshot with a dogfood Play Store version from her team saying that’s not what we see, when I have dozens of real Play Store screens from real users …
So as I said I can add file mode but it will be file mode, not library mode inside Symfonium.
But I’ll need an access to your server or mode details about how you have it setup.
Tested on the demo server from subsonic the top level folders are artists with the api and with both those apps.
When people start a purchase flow for the first time they see this first before any price or details or anything and a lot of people are afraid to click thinking the app will take all their money without their consent.
The wording is absolutely insane and I understand people not clicking.
Actually was able to repro on Airsonic, the API returns artists (and the api description says: Returns an indexed structure of all artists.) but it’s actual folders despite the naming and doc. I guess Subsonic demo server use artists as root folders. Navidrome returns actual artists as API description and not folders hence why nothing matched your request.
That’s correct - official Subsonic is basically setup to have artists as folders at the first level directory, and albums as folders at second level. The demo server is also setup this way.
Regarding the Play Store terms being confusing and potentially negatively impacting your conversion rates, this is likely due to Google legal teams being extremely strict and harsh with their governance. I’m sure the Play Store team doesn’t love it either, but they have to run with what legal says. But I can submit feedback and see what happens.
I totally understand, this is more a wording or a momentum issue here. This happens before the user see the price or the purchase details (single purchase, subscription, …)
Since they added this I got frequent mails asking for the price of the purchase and sending me the screenshot of that screen telling me they are afraid of clicking the button.
The screenshot is from an UK user from 4 days ago. His mail was:
Thanks for coming back to me. I’m in the UK in London. It does not tell me the price before purchase. When I click purchase I cannot see a price before agreeing to purchase. Please see the attached screenshot.
(The impacts are not “potential”, I’m lucky that a lot of users really love my apps and send me mails to ask for details, but I’m sure a large part don’t bother too).
The related issue is more technical and related to indie devs, but In App purchase API does not allow to have Play Store automatically managing each country taxes and return the adjusted price in the API. So either we need to set the final price for 137 countries and manage manually all the taxes to try to get the proper end price in our pocket and we can show the real final price to the user or we can just get the price we set but the taxes that Google will add to that price is not accessible and so the price we display does not correspond to what the user sees after … (It’s hard for Indie dev, specially when we can’t set price as precisely as Google, like in the US it’s one price when the taxes are different by states)
Anyway just some rant about the hard life of indie devs on Play Store since 10 years
If you can pass the info it’s nice but I do not have hope anymore.
About the root issue, it will be present in next release, but the API name and docs are really broken, so let’s hope they do not change at some point their internal to do like Navidrome and return what it says it should do.
(Maybe if you are a paid user you have a way to reach their support and request that).
So no library views, no offline usage, smart playlists, proper offline media, …
