Problem with Playlists using a Ford Sync equipped car

[luebster]

Here's the setup:
1. I have a car with Ford Sync.
2. I have an iPod Nano, which I've been syncing playlists with MediaMonkey, but it's on its last legs.
3. I have a portable USB HDD, which I've configured to sync two playlists with MM.

Playing music in the car from the iPod has been flawless. Albums, Artists, and most importantly Playlists work perfectly. However, it's only 4GB and is starting to show its age. I'd like to start using my portable USB HDD.

I configured MM to sync the same playlists to the HDD. Music plays perfectly in the car. I can search by artist, album, genre, song - basically any tag-based criteria.

The problem I'm having is with the playlists. Ford Sync says "incompatible playlist format." Sync supposedly supports m3u playlists and I've confirmed that's what's been exported to the HDD by MM.

Does anyone have any insight?

[Peke]

Try to contact Ford and ask them to send you example of Playlist (even it contain two files) so that we can get Exact format of Playlist and see if we already addressed and fixed this problem.

[luebster]

It seems playlists must be in simple m3u, not extended. I found a create playlists from child nodes script, but that's not exactly what I need. What I need is a way to sync a device and have it's playlist be simple. Seems there should be a checkbox in MM for this.

If you have any thoughts or pointers to the right direction, it would be much appreciated.

[nohitter151]

It seems playlists must be in simple m3u, not extended. I found a create playlists from child nodes script, but that's not exactly what I need. What I need is a way to sync a device and have it's playlist be simple. Seems there should be a checkbox in MM for this.

If you have any thoughts or pointers to the right direction, it would be much appreciated.

There will be an option for this as of the next version of MM.

[luebster]

Awesome. Thanks!

[Guest]

I also just purchased a SYNC equiped ford vehicle, and had the same error message about incompatible play lists. All I had to do was move the playlists created on my USB drive from the playlist folder that was created by MediaMonkey to the root drive and they work fine now.

[luebster]

I also just purchased a SYNC equiped ford vehicle, and had the same error message about incompatible play lists. All I had to do was move the playlists created on my USB drive from the playlist folder that was created by MediaMonkey to the root drive and they work fine now.

Interesting....I'll try that this weekend.

[nohitter151]

I also just purchased a SYNC equiped ford vehicle, and had the same error message about incompatible play lists. All I had to do was move the playlists created on my USB drive from the playlist folder that was created by MediaMonkey to the root drive and they work fine now.

You can change the sync location for the playlists in the device options to the root of the device.

[luebster]

I also just purchased a SYNC equiped ford vehicle, and had the same error message about incompatible play lists. All I had to do was move the playlists created on my USB drive from the playlist folder that was created by MediaMonkey to the root drive and they work fine now.

Perfection. Thanks! And to a previous poster, I simply configured the sync to put the playlists at the root.

Now if only when I play songs from the USB device it would track play counts and last played timestamps...

[Guest]

I purchased a dedicated USB drive and as long as I leave it pluged into the car the SYNC system remembers the time stamp for the track playing when it was turned off and the played tracks. If you remove the drive and change the content, it will re index and loose all the stored info. I originally had issues with it repeating shuffled songs, but then realized all I had to do was tell it "repeat off" and that seemed to solve the problem.

[luebster]

I purchased a dedicated USB drive and as long as I leave it pluged into the car the SYNC system remembers the time stamp for the track playing when it was turned off and the played tracks. If you remove the drive and change the content, it will re index and loose all the stored info. I originally had issues with it repeating shuffled songs, but then realized all I had to do was tell it "repeat off" and that seemed to solve the problem.

I guess what I'm after is MediaMonkey updating its data when I sync the USB device back with MediaMonkey, which is how it works with my iPod.

[duff151]

How do you configure the sync to put the playlists at the root drive?

[nohitter151]

How do you configure the sync to put the playlists at the root drive?

Tools > Options > Portable audio/devices > Select device, Configure > Device configuration tab > Check copy playlists > Options > Change destination directory to blank.

[Teknojnky]

I guess what I'm after is MediaMonkey updating its data when I sync the USB device back with MediaMonkey, which is how it works with my iPod.

The reason this works on the ipod is because it uses a database and tracks plays.

generic usb drives do not.

even if somehow MM looked at the 'last accessed' time of the tracks, it does not know if the track was played, skipped or just scanned, nor how many times it was played.

So basically, if you really want play stats synced back, you will have to get a bigger ipod.