Playlists all zero bytes

[nalawod]

I've been using MMA since the original beta and manually syncing my mp3's and my playlists which were m3u files. I never had any problems until now. My version installed is the latest 1.1.1.412.
I'm sure I've upgraded MMA several times since the last time I even looked at these playists and could manually access and edit them. As I'm listening to music on my phone, I'll add tracks to various playlists like "Exercise Beat", etc. Today I wan't to copy these off to add to my wife's phone so she has the current "Exercise Beat" playlist (she has all the same mp3's, etc on same path). So now I"m finding that everything I added in the last few months isn't even in my exercise beat.m3u file. The file still exists in my /storage/extSdCard/playlists folder that I have MMA pointed to but it hasn't been touched in the last 60 days (looking at last modified date) and the entries I've added are definitely not in there. Looking at the playlist from within the MMA app shows my new entries. I searched my device and now find that it's a .pla file located on my phone itself instead of on my microSd card and it's in a folder called "playlists". Looking at Options / "Choose library folders" I don't even have anything ticked on my phone storage and have the "music" folder and "Playlist" folder ticked on my SD card storage. Interesting that even set this way, it sill uses the phone storage to a folder I never setup.
Ok, I can deal with that -- but the real problem is a showstopper - the files are all zero bytes. Even if I reboot my phone and don't launch MMA at all, the files remain zero bytes. And copied to my desktop computer they remain zero in size. Is there a way to actually get the content out of these files and into my editor so I can manipulate it to match my verious device paths?

I expect you're going to say use the sync function to get it on my pc. Well, I don't want sync copying files to/from my phone as I've experienced lots of corruptioin problems with that process. And if I did sync, I'd only want it to sync the playlists, NOT the mp3's themselves. If there's a way to do that then maybe that's the solution. Bottom line, I'm mystified about how my playlists not only ended up on a different path and different file format/type (.pla instead of .m3u) than I originally had them, they are zero bytes.

Please help!!

[Lowlander]

Are the M3U or PLA files zero bytes? I doubt that MMA nanages the actual M3U files you scanned in (it may though), instead I suspect it works like MMW where once scanned the operations are in the database entry for the Playlist.

Another problem is that it's impossible to say where things went wrong as the corruption could've happened many MMA versions ago and due to the corruption no new changes since were possible.

A sync between MMA and MMW would allow you to sync Playlists from device to PC.

[nalawod]

Are the M3U or PLA files zero bytes? I doubt that MMA nanages the actual M3U files you scanned in (it may though), instead I suspect it works like MMW where once scanned the operations are in the database entry for the Playlist.

Another problem is that it's impossible to say where things went wrong as the corruption could've happened many MMA versions ago and due to the corruption no new changes since were possible.

A sync between MMA and MMW would allow you to sync Playlists from device to PC.

Let's just forget about the M3U files- that's a separate issue that they are no longer used/read by MMA when they used to be.
The PLA files are zero bytes. The PLA files dont' even exist until I start adding tracks. Even after a device reboot, MMA still shows the tracks when I look look at my playlists even though the files are zero bytes. Example, I can select some songs, create playlist "Test" from them. When viewed over my USB device connection to windows, I see the Test.PLA file in Galaxy S4 (my device)\phone\playlists\Test.pla. I've even used an android file explorer directly on my phone and it too shows zero bytes on these files. I know MMA is using this file since if I delete the file and have MMA re-browse for changed media, the Test playlist is gone. So why zero bytes? Is there any way to manually see the content of the files? I suspect MMA at some point along the way switched from managing it's own M3U files to using some Android library for maintaining PLA files...

That aside, I've tried to use MM for Windows to sync and can't get it to work. On my phone I've created a playlist "Test" with 5 tracks. I connect the usb cable. In MM for Windows, I click on my Galaxy S4-Phone.
In the Summary tab I have only "Scan as soon as the device is connected" ticked.
In Auto-Sync(-->Device) tab I have NOTHING ticked as I don't want to transfer files or playlists from my computer to my phone.
In Auto-Sync(-->Library) I have "Auto-sync new files and playlists from the device to the PC" ticked at the top of the form. I see the the folder list and have only selected "Playlists" - beneath that I do see my new playlist called "test.pla". It is ticked as is the parent "Playlists" folder. On that screen I have "Confirm updates" ticked and have un-ticked "auto-sync file metadata from the device to the PC".
In the Options tab there's nothing to touch for "Device profile" , "Auto conversion" or "File Locations". In Tagging, I have turned off every box (not to artworks or genres stuff)
In playlists I have "Sync playlists" ticked, I have Generate device playlists for atrtists,albums and location all turned off. Playlist format is set to PLA.. I click auto-sync button. It sits there for about a minute with the message "Synchronizing Galaxy S4-phone" , then completes (the text goes away from the status bar line). I never get a popup to confirm anything and no playlists show up in MM for Windows.
I suspect I can't sync playlists because the file paths on my device are not the same as those on my PC? In order to sync playlists will I need to have synced the all my music library to the phone letting it arrange the directories the way it wants to?

[ccxzayhi]

and have the "music" folder and "Playlist" folder ticked on my SD card storage. Interesting that even set this way, it sill uses the phone storage to a folder I never setup.

[nalawod]

OMG!!! After all this time of not being able to get my current playlists off of my phone because they're all zero bytes, I had an epiphony today. Perhaps (I thought), somewhere along the line during upgrades, MMA quit managing playlists themselves and started using the android system for them. So I googled "backup playlists android" and I found freeware utilities that are exactly for this purpose - this is the one I chose and it works perfectly: https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... ckup&hl=en
So WHY couldn't somebody just tell me that this is the way android media playlists work? I should have thought of this before because it didn't seem to matter where I told MMA to scan for playlists (or create them), it always used my android storage and not my extsd for the files. I'm just glad I finally found the answer and am sharing this with the community. If I'm wrong or you have a totally "within MMA" way of handling this (besides a sync which has always corrupted my files).

[funnythat]

Apart from nakawod, I am I the only one on the planet that wants to export the now default, .pla playlist format to and a .3mu file format !?
nkawod now uses "playlist backup" app - this gives a txt file with hardcoded paths. - ideally it would CREATE the .3mu and use relative paths.
And no - I do not want to use "online /cloud / whatever" - I just want to copy a playlist from one device to another.

Always hoping the digital music world comes to its senses.
Forever hoping MM can do this (on android and PC) ...