I am using Symfonium with only a local library, with all my music on an SD card. I just switched to a new SD card with more storage and copied all the content from the previous card to the new one.
As expected, since the media provider points to the old directory and the new SD card path has a different name, nothing happens when I click on a song as the app finds nothing.
My question is: is there a way to seamlessly transfer the library, i.e. pointing the media source to the new SD card so it can find all the song without having to resync it?
If that is not possible, and I have to remove the previous media source and do a resync (I’d be OK with that), will the metadata and playlists I made in Symfonium still work? What can I do to avoid having to rebuild them?
It’s possible to do it but there’s no quick & easy buttons to help you do so.
You’d need to make a backup inside Symfonium, then export it to somewhere you can work with. Add the *.zip extension so you can open the backup, then edit the userdata.json inside to change all filepaths. A text editor with Find/Replace function will make this simple. Re-zip and change the extension back, then restore the backup.
I know this method can preserve ratings/play count/etc. I don’t know if there is some other metadata you are referring to. You’ll likely have to add the folders to the Media Provider manually anyway for two reasons. 1) App needs to be granted permission to use the folder 2) the Provider settings are in the encrypted portion of the backup.
For playlists, best to just export them and edit the m3u8 files. See my post here.
Thank you for your answer! The transfer did work. I had to edit the json files directly in the archive, without unzipping the whole thing otherwise the restoration failed. And by including the playlists in the export and editing those too, I can also restore them as long as I delete them from the app beforehand (the restoration does not overwrite existing playlists).
Now the app works just as before, it’s exactly what I wanted!
I’m trying to do the same thing. The m3u8 files have file paths like My Music/Dropout Kings - GlitchGang (2021)/07 - I Ain’t Depressed (feat. Hacktivist) [E].flac which should be the same path on the new SD card but it won’t find the songs. Smart playlists don’t seem to be having this issue ?
Does the app have access to your “My Music” folder? (Usually given when you select the folder to add it to your library)
Off the top of my head, I don’t know how the relative paths are handled. I’m guessing the m3u8 should be outside the “My Music” folder for that path to be followed. (So that the m3u8 and “My Music” are at the same level of the file tree.)
it should have it. Like I said, I can play music out of smart playlists and I think from albums too. But any standard playlists just have the “preparing your media…” message
Just tested and it worked perfectly fine for me. Not sure what else to say.
I changed path “Music/Some/Folder/track.opus” to “Test/track.opus” with the m3u8 located outside the Test folder (located in (Music/Some"). Navigated to the m3u8 via Files view, tapped it, and it plays just fine.
Checking track details confirms that it is loaded from the “Test/track” copy and not the original path. (I did have to resync library first, but that’s only because I had just created the Test folder.)
I’m a little lost on what the exact steps were. Here’s what I did (and hopefully you can let me know where I’ve gone wrong)
Copied over my entire SD card from Card A to Card B
Put Card B in my phone + added it as a media provider (giving it access to /My Music, which is where my library is)
Allowed it to sync and add the files in
Swapped the cards back to make a backup of my data (because this is when I realised I needed to do that)
Edited the user data json file to change the SD path to the correct one
Go to my albums page, everything is there, it plays. Go to my liked songs, again, same deal. Everything has playcount data and everything
Go to playlists, smart playlists work, but regular one doesn’t
I try exporting a playlist as an m3u8 and send it to my laptop, but the path doesn’t have any distinction between different SD cards when I open it in Notepad
I’m not sure what I’m actually meant to change or do differently here to get the playlists to work right. Are you saying I have to re-add the playlists using the m3u8 files? why would that be the case?
Smart Playlists don’t use file paths, they are just a set of filters. (Unless you specifically use the path filter ) So those will almost always transfer without issue.
You’re right that the m3u8 doesn’t include the root directory so if the rest of the path is the same, it probably should still work. You’d only need to re-add it if you were editing the path.
It seems like everything you’ve done should be fine. You should probably ask in Support for more specific help. Just make sure you include debug logs or you won’t get any help there either lol.
Logs should probably include a library sync followed by you attempting to play the playlist.
) So those will almost always transfer without issue.