AutoPlaylist Limit By "Sort Order" not working correctly [#19250]

[PoopertonThePious]

Hello!
I was trying to create an autoplaylist with the following criteria:
-Rating >= 3.5 stars
-Number is known (I call the Custom 1 field "Number")
-Artist Doesn't Contain "Bill Engvall"

-Limit to 100 files selected by "Sort Order"

-Sort By Number Z.A

Essentially I want the top 100 highest "Numbers" sorted from highest to lowest.

The strange part is it seems to work for part of the list? My highest number in my library right now is 775, and it correctly lists songs with Number 775 down through 616. Then suddenly it jumps down to Number 81! Skipping hundreds of numbers that should definitely be in the list before this one.

I've tried using a different limit amount, but it's the same. About 4/5ths of the way down the list, it suddenly jumps a huge amount of Numbers.

I thought perhaps it was something to do with my custom field, so I tried it with sorting by "Episode #" field instead. That produced the same result.

It seems to order the list correctly if I don't limit the amount. But as soon as I put a limit on it, it starts skipping numbers. If I limit it to 1 file, it only has Number 81!

Am I using this incorrectly? Or is this a bug?

[Peke]

Hi,
Custom fields are Alpha numerical sorted fields (String based not Number based).

Solution for you would be to zero pad numbers eg. 0001-9999 and that way sort Z..A should work normally.

Also try File -> Manage Library and enable only Rebuild full index.

[PoopertonThePious]

Hi,
Custom fields are Alpha numerical sorted fields (String based not Number based).

Solution for you would be to zero pad numbers eg. 0001-9999 and that way sort Z..A should work normally.

Also try File -> Manage Library and enable only Rebuild full index.

Thanks Peke! Is there any way to designate a custom field as number based instead of string based? I can definitely try zero padding the numbers, although I'm not exactly looking forward to doing it for 700+ files

[Peke]

Is there any way to designate a custom field as number based instead of string based?

No, but I added that as suggestion for MM 5.1 https://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=19250

[Barry4679]

Custom fields are Alpha numerical sorted fields (String based not Number based).

Custom fields are not alpha sorted.
There is some logic in there to sort them numerically.
See here.
I know this because I asked for it to be added during the alpha phase of MM5.

Thanks Peke! Is there any way to designate a custom field as number based instead of string based? I can definitely try zero padding the numbers, although I'm not exactly looking forward to doing it for 700+ files

Hi Pious

Are your Custom tags sorted "correctly" in a List View, like in my picture above?

Maybe the special numeric logic hasn't been implemented inside a playlist. This is something that they could look at .. Ludek .. ?

Pious, do you use the BPM tag?
This is a proper numeric tag, and it is a tag the MM5 does not update.
You could transfer your number into the BPM column.
Does the BPM column sort "correctly" in your Playlists?

If that achieves what you want, you could transfer your number into the BPM tag with a single SQL query.
If you don't know SQL I could send it to you ... but first you should test if your number in the BPM tag is going to achieve what you want for your playlists

BUT THE REAL FIX is if they give us some proper numeric Custom tags.
This is needed so that we can use the arithmetic operators with custom tags ... ie Custom01 <= 10
That kind of thing is impossible at the moment; a limitation which sux.
This request is being "monitored", but isn't receiving any love.

[Peke]

Custom fields are not alpha sorted.

THX for correction, it happens when you think one and type other

[PoopertonThePious]

Hi Pious

Are your Custom tags sorted "correctly" in a List View, like in my picture above?

Maybe the special numeric logic hasn't been implemented inside a playlist. This is something that they could look at .. Ludek .. ?

Pious, do you use the BPM tag?
This is a proper numeric tag, and it is a tag the MM5 does not update.
You could transfer your number into the BPM column.
Does the BPM column sort "correctly" in your Playlists?

If that achieves what you want, you could transfer your number into the BPM tag with a single SQL query.
If you don't know SQL I could send it to you ... but first you should test if your number in the BPM tag is going to achieve what you want for your playlists

BUT THE REAL FIX is if they give us some proper numeric Custom tags.
This is needed so that we can use the arithmetic operators with custom tags ... ie Custom01 <= 10
That kind of thing is impossible at the moment; a limitation which sux.
This request is being "monitored", but isn't receiving any love.

Sorry for the late reply, I wasn't getting notifications for some reason.

Barry, yes that image you posted is exactly how my custom field seems to be sorted in the playlist.

I don't currently use the BPM tag as far as I know, I suppose I could use that in the meantime. I'll give it a try with a few different numbers and make sure it sorts correctly in my auto-generated playlists.

I do know SQL, I'm just unsure of exactly where I would run the query to populate the BPM field. Is there a feature in MM to run a custom script/query like that?

And yeah I was noticing that as well with the custom field not being treated as a number. The conditionals you can apply are a bit more limited.

Is there any way to designate a custom field as number based instead of string based?

No, but I added that as suggestion for MM 5.1 https://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=19250

Thank you Peke for opening a suggestion on this!

[Barry4679]

I do know SQL, I'm just unsure of exactly where I would run the query to populate the BPM field. Is there a feature in MM to run a custom script/query like that?

Hi Pious,

long lag, I know.

Try this addon.

Is good for ad hoc queries, including updates.

Did you ever solve your original query? It still happens on the latest release.
If yes, I will try testing it here.

[PoopertonThePious]

I do know SQL, I'm just unsure of exactly where I would run the query to populate the BPM field. Is there a feature in MM to run a custom script/query like that?

Hi Pious,

long lag, I know.

Try this addon.

Is good for ad hoc queries, including updates.

Did you ever solve your original query? It still happens on the latest release.
If yes, I will try testing it here.

Hi Barry!
I'm so sorry I didn't see this for so long. No, I haven't solved my original problem.
Yes, the issue is still happening to me. I noticed it was marked as "unable to reproduce", but it doesn't seem like the reproduction steps were the same. The image in the issue show just a small number of rows correctly sorting.

But the custom field incorrectly sorting really only occurs when I add a limit to a playlist that relies on the sorting of that custom field, like limit 100 or limit 50. The sorting works fine without the limit. But as soon as a I add a limit, it jumps hundreds of numbers.

I haven't had a chance to try the SQL trick you mentioned. If I get some time I'll give it a try, but for now I just have been not using that playlist I created.