Logitech Media Server Version: 7.9.0
Windows 7 Pro SP1 64-bit
4 x SB3, via wi-fi
Hundreds of self-created playlists, the largest (and the one I mostly play; shuffle-by-song) containing over 20,000 tracks.
Now that the problem of skipping/restarting when the LMS browser tab is opened/refreshed has been sorted out, I wish to air the two most irritating (of many) peeves I have with LMS, which have existed in all its predecessors back as far as 2007, at least. It appears that development of LMS is continuing, so I'm hopeful that at least one of the developers will read this and, maybe, finally fix the problems! :)
1. When I press 'Sleep' on the remote, 'Sleep at end of song' is the first option, and the only one I ever use these days. And it always does stop at the end of the currently-playing song. So far, so good. But next time I press 'Play', LMS plays the SAME song it was playing before it stopped, instead of the NEXT song in the playlist, as it should.
2. Whenever I reboot my PC (which isn't often, but sometimes is unavoidable), LMS appears to re-shuffle my playlist and then start again at the beginning.
This second bug is the most annoying. I usually play a playlist I call 'All.m3u', which contains the majority of my music tracks, set for shuffle by track. If I were to play it 24-hours per day, it would take over 50 days to hear everything in my collection, just once each. But because LMS reshuffles and restarts the playlist every time the PC is booted, I never get to hear my whole collection, but constantly hear the same thing I heard several days ago.
I'm sure the programmers who look after LMS development are reasonably bright, but maybe they just need an injection of fresh ideas to solve these problems. Here's a suggestion that should solve both...
When you run WordStar, it creates two temporary files (actually three, but let's keep the explanation simple) - one containing the text from the beginning of the file to the current cursor position, the other containing the text from the cursor to the end of the file. We could use this concept in LMS to solve both the issues mentioned above.
Have LMS create two temporary files: one containing the paths of all the tracks (taken straight from the master playlist) that have been played so far (in the order they were played, so you can scroll back through them as you currently can in the 'Now Playing' screen), the other containing all the tracks (paths) of those not yet played, in the order they are to be played (whether that be shuffled or straight, as selected by the user).
The currently playing track would be at the 'top' of this second file. When it has finished playing, that path would be moved from the '2Bplayed' file to the 'Played' file. This would include the situation where playing stopped after a track due to 'Sleep at end of song' being selected. So when Play is next pressed, the track to play will be the one at the 'top' of the second file, which hasn't been played before (problem #1 fixed!).
This also fixes problem #2 because, if a reboot occurs, whether intentional or unintended (e.g. because of a power blackout), when LMS starts up and Play is pressed, it starts playing the track at the 'top' of the '2Bplayed' file without reordering the tracks in any way. Of course, it's possible that track had already been partly played before an unexpected reboot occurs, but that is of little importance given that the playlist and my position in it has been preserved, and I can eventually get to hear everything in my collection, given time.
What about it, Murgatroyd?
Regards,
Daniel
(Gerroa, Australia)
Windows 7 Pro SP1 64-bit
4 x SB3, via wi-fi
Hundreds of self-created playlists, the largest (and the one I mostly play; shuffle-by-song) containing over 20,000 tracks.
Now that the problem of skipping/restarting when the LMS browser tab is opened/refreshed has been sorted out, I wish to air the two most irritating (of many) peeves I have with LMS, which have existed in all its predecessors back as far as 2007, at least. It appears that development of LMS is continuing, so I'm hopeful that at least one of the developers will read this and, maybe, finally fix the problems! :)
1. When I press 'Sleep' on the remote, 'Sleep at end of song' is the first option, and the only one I ever use these days. And it always does stop at the end of the currently-playing song. So far, so good. But next time I press 'Play', LMS plays the SAME song it was playing before it stopped, instead of the NEXT song in the playlist, as it should.
2. Whenever I reboot my PC (which isn't often, but sometimes is unavoidable), LMS appears to re-shuffle my playlist and then start again at the beginning.
This second bug is the most annoying. I usually play a playlist I call 'All.m3u', which contains the majority of my music tracks, set for shuffle by track. If I were to play it 24-hours per day, it would take over 50 days to hear everything in my collection, just once each. But because LMS reshuffles and restarts the playlist every time the PC is booted, I never get to hear my whole collection, but constantly hear the same thing I heard several days ago.
I'm sure the programmers who look after LMS development are reasonably bright, but maybe they just need an injection of fresh ideas to solve these problems. Here's a suggestion that should solve both...
When you run WordStar, it creates two temporary files (actually three, but let's keep the explanation simple) - one containing the text from the beginning of the file to the current cursor position, the other containing the text from the cursor to the end of the file. We could use this concept in LMS to solve both the issues mentioned above.
Have LMS create two temporary files: one containing the paths of all the tracks (taken straight from the master playlist) that have been played so far (in the order they were played, so you can scroll back through them as you currently can in the 'Now Playing' screen), the other containing all the tracks (paths) of those not yet played, in the order they are to be played (whether that be shuffled or straight, as selected by the user).
The currently playing track would be at the 'top' of this second file. When it has finished playing, that path would be moved from the '2Bplayed' file to the 'Played' file. This would include the situation where playing stopped after a track due to 'Sleep at end of song' being selected. So when Play is next pressed, the track to play will be the one at the 'top' of the second file, which hasn't been played before (problem #1 fixed!).
This also fixes problem #2 because, if a reboot occurs, whether intentional or unintended (e.g. because of a power blackout), when LMS starts up and Play is pressed, it starts playing the track at the 'top' of the '2Bplayed' file without reordering the tracks in any way. Of course, it's possible that track had already been partly played before an unexpected reboot occurs, but that is of little importance given that the playlist and my position in it has been preserved, and I can eventually get to hear everything in my collection, given time.
What about it, Murgatroyd?
Regards,
Daniel
(Gerroa, Australia)