4.6.2.0 kills my playlists

[brentrad 1]

I have the same issue after upgrading to 4.6.2.0:  all my playlists went blank. All of my playlists were created using the Emby UI, none were imported from another program.

After reading this thread, I just did the metadata scan from Playlists, and 3 of my 4 playlists are back (yay!) However, before I discovered this issue with playlists, I had added one track to my "Favorite Tracks" playlist - it overwrote the playlist with just this one new track. The physical xml playlist file now only includes data for this one new track when you edit it in Notepad.

I didn't make a backup of my playlists. (I will now, but...too late.) Is there any way to recover my missing playlist or am I SOL and have to recreate it from scratch?

 

[Carlo 4331]

Hi, no it's not likely to be able to recover the file since it's been overwritten unfortunately.

Wish we had better news to tell you.

[brentrad 1]

Well that sucks.

I just spoke with my wife, and she told me that Emby has also deleted all her downloads of music albums. Grrrrr. She didn't sync any playlists, she just had gone through the music library and clicked Download on a bunch of albums. Now they're all gone from her phone (Android), or at least they're not viewable via the Emby app. But looking at her available space on her phone, and the space being used vs free space, I'm wondering if the music files are there, but we just can't see them. Same on my phone. Where does Emby keep its downloads on Android 11 phones (both are Pixel 3a) so I can check to see if those files are still there? Our phones are both only 64 GB in storage space, so I can't afford to have two copies of each file on them...

[Carlo 4331]

@ebr do you know the location where this would be?

[Luke 37233]

Default location is in the app's private data folder, which is next to the logs folder:

 

[Meerkater 1]

Hi,

I'm having the same problem. I have 2 playlists that worked before the update. Now they are no longer working. Scanning the library and refreshing metadata doesn't work. I can find the playlists in the folder:

C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\Emby-Server\programdata\data\playlists

It is using absolute paths.

How can I resolve this?

 

playlist.xml

[Carlo 4331]

Does this playlist show up in your server log file if you search for it?

[braigo64 6]

Count me as another one with playlists showing up empty. I added a song to one to see what would happen it now its the only song that shows for that playlist. Hoping it didn't overwrite the whole thing like a fellow user mentioned further up. Refreshing metadata hasn't helped.

[Carlo 4331]

If these are music playlists as a test you can make a copy of these playlists, rename them to the playlist name you want and try adding them to your music library.
Then do a scan of the music library and see if they get picked back up that way.

I would make a copy of any playlist to have on hand as any testing/changes can rewrite them.

[jmariani 11]

1 hour ago, braigo64 said:

Count me as another one with playlists showing up empty. I added a song to one to see what would happen it now its the only song that shows for that playlist. Hoping it didn't overwrite the whole thing like a fellow user mentioned further up. Refreshing metadata hasn't helped.

Plus one here, exactly the same scenario, symptoms and behavior. But on a Mac.

Additional. Adding a track on these playlists overwrites them and you lost everything.

 

Edited June 28, 2021 by jmariani

[Luke 37233]

Hi, please try refreshing the metadata on one of these playlists and see if that helps. Thanks.

[jmariani 11]

It helped, ONLY if I didn't add an item to the playlist after the upgrade.

[braigo64 6]

Refreshing the metadata of each playlist has not helped at all. The tracks still don't appear. I'll try making copies of them tomorrow.

[Carlo 4331]

Hi, can you upload one of these playlists for us to look at?

[Luke 37233]

@braigo64 ?

[braigo64 6]

Doesn't matter. Emby has blanked out all the playlist files. They all look like this now:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?>
<Item>
  <Added>11/29/2015 3:14:31 PM</Added>
  <LockData>false</LockData>
  <LocalTitle>Christmas Mix</LocalTitle>
  <RunningTime>0</RunningTime>
</Item>

 

[Luke 37233]

On 7/14/2021 at 9:15 AM, braigo64 said:

Doesn't matter. Emby has blanked out all the playlist files. They all look like this now:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?>
<Item>
  <Added>11/29/2015 3:14:31 PM</Added>
  <LockData>false</LockData>
  <LocalTitle>Christmas Mix</LocalTitle>
  <RunningTime>0</RunningTime>
</Item>

 

@braigo64 what was in them before? Are you sure the paths in the playlist exactly match the paths used in Emby library setup to create the library?

[braigo64 6]

A whole bunch of songs. I don't know what paths were used because I never looked at the actual files. I created all of the playlists and added all of the songs through the Emby Android app on my phone by either going to an album or song and using the Add to Playlist menu option.

[Painkiller8818 203]

Ok i see not everyone has empty playlists (empty in emby but not inside the xml file)

To those where the playlists still exists (xml file) and you see the songs with the path still in there i have another try to get it back.

- Copy your not working playlist to desktop or somewhere else.
- Delete your playlist in emby.
- restart your emby server (or just service)
- recreate your playlist with a slightly different name (eg. feelgood-songs to feelgood-music)
- check the location and if the new playlist exists
- replace the content of your playlist with the content of your old playlist and make sure you edit the local title to match with your new playlist name
- do a metadata rescan on your playlist in emby

this could help you to get your old playlists back to work

The reason why i say rename the list a bit is because i personally run into a similar problem where albums from a specific artist couldn't refresh any changes, so i renamed the spelling of the artist (Folder) a bit and everything worked again.


Please give it a try and give us a feedback.

 

Edited July 25, 2021 by Painkiller8818