Playlists deleted when library is purged.

Reproduce the problem as follows:

1. Start Songbird with an empty library
2. Select File >> Import Media...
3. Choose a folder with a subdirectories filled with audio files
4. Right-click on Playlists
5. Select New Playlist
6. Give the new playlist a name (e.g., MyPlaylist)
7. Select Library
8. Drag a song from the Library to MyPlaylist
9. Click MyPlaylist to verify that song is in MyPlaylist
10. Select Library
11. Click any song to bring focus to the Library's list of songs
12. Type Control-A to select all the songs in the Library
13. Press the Delete key
14. Click MyPlaylist

EXPECTED BEHAVIOUR
Dragging the song from the Library to MyPlaylist showed a + sign to indicate that a "copy" of the song (i.e., its file location) is being made. Pressing Delete to clear out the Library should not affect any playlist at this point.

ACTUAL BEHAVIOUR
The song that was dragged into MyPlaylist is no longer there.

Hey Dave,

What is your reason for deleting the songs from your main Library in the first place? Why can't you keep them there?

I personally prefer Songbird's current design, it seems more logical. But you can always file a feature suggestion over at Bugzilla to add information about it getting removed from playlists also..

G'day,

Actually, I'd have mostly agree with these guys. I prefer it this way, and I do something similar to you. I keep two folders "crap music" and "good music". Although, I categorise them using smart playlists (actually, by directory name). The library is designed to act as a global policy, that lets you remove some music completely, and see all your music if you wish. The benefit of designing it this way is that you can completely delete traces of a song if you wish to do so. It simply depends on your interpretation of how Library should perform (either behavior I think could be the right behavior).

However, I do agree that to accomodate users from other media players who aren't used to this behavior, that the warning message should mention the song will also be removed from playlists too. So I have posted bug 18402 in response (hopefully it will make it into Songbird 1.4, although, it may have JUST missed out). This would remove the ambiguity, so that its more clear what will happen!

Actually, just noticed that Songbird in the developer tree has hit 1.4.0 (which means its up to final testing, and is probably now considered a release candidate), so I think its too late to get a patch in there this release for that bug (might be wrong).

That being said, to be honest, I've been here for probably a year now, and you are the first I have seen to bring up this concern (and now that you are aware of the behaviour, I wouldn't imagine its a problem). I'm only a community member (so its really just my opinion, nothing official), but unlike the media management notify suggestion for instance, I wouldn't make it as high priority. I'd expect it 1.5.0 though (at this point of time, I think its VERY important that 1.4 is released, and would rather its released sooner, then pushed back).

There are rumours that some new major unreleased announcements are being made for 1.4 too.

It is a problem and will continue be a problem. Software should never lose somebody's work. I suggest everyone here look at gmail and Google Docs. You can simply tell that the developers' main concern was never losing any work that the user performed.

If Google were to write a music player, would they allow playlists to disappear?

As for not deleting the library as a solution, my solution is best: a different music player.

As for nobody else mentioning it, it is possible the people who have lost their playlists simply move on to another player without posting a message. Even though I was immensely frustrated, I felt that I should let you know.

Your program loses its user's work.

Unacceptable, sorry.

Amarok 2.2 has been released and I'm hoping they have fixed the issues that had me look to Songbird. And no, I did not tell them the issues. In my mind, Songbird is still the better product, over all, but I cannot trust it.

G'day,
Maybe its better to use a better example, because I believe you are incorrectly applying the software engineering rule.

===ALTERNATE EXAMPLE====
Instead of talking about the library, instead, lets use "folder deletion in explorer/Finder/nautilus" as an example.

Lets say I'm using OS65W00t, and have been using it for 10 years. The default behaviour for this OS, is that if I try to delete a folder which isn't empty, it stops me, forcing me to go back and delete the files inside first. So I delete the files, and then return to delete the empty folder and it works.
1) Is there anything wrong with this? Certainly not! Its just the behaviour of the program.

So, suddenly OS65W00t goes out of business, and I decide to switch to windows. One day I delete a folder, unlike OS65 though, it instead offers to delete the files and all the contents instead. I accept.
1) Is this incorrect behaviour simply because OS65 does things differently? Nope? Its fine, PROVIDED THAT OS65 WARNS THE USER THAT THE CONTAINED FILES ARE DELETED TOO.
2)Does it lose the users work when you press yes? Yes, because that's what deletion does (a clear exception to the rule)

===APPLICATION TO SONGBIRD====
How does this apply? You are coming from another player, where each playlist, is its own Library. Is that fine. Sure! Does it define the definition of a playlist? NO! A playlist is simply a list of songs.

Now, in Songbird, when you DELETE music from your main library, you also delete it from your playlists, because the playlists are simply pointers to files within the library.
1)Is there anything wrong with treating playlists as a list of pointers to the main library? No! The definition of a playlist just states its a list of files.
2) Is it ok if there is a proper warning that the same files from the playlists will be deleted too? YES. (This is the bug, its a documentation bug)
3) However, with a proper warning is place, are there advantages to this method? Yes. I used to have a car PC, with plenty of playlists. I constantly moved files around, etc. The end result was 20 playlists in Winamp where only half the files worked. The end result was messy. Why would you want playlists full of music you no longer have in your library.
4) Are there disadvantages. Yep, some people aren't used to it.
5) Can the software engineering rule be applied here? In a way, the warning doesn't state that the music in playlists will be deleted. However, technically, you do click a remove button. The behaviour is predictable by people aware of it (and thats the problem)
6) Is there an advantage to having a library which contains all music? Yes. It ensures there is a one stop place to grab all media.

====THE FIX====
1) You need to recognise, not everyone wants your behaviour. I didn't (it drove me mental). So there should be an option to change it so that users such as yourself, can set your behaviour if you wish.
2) Apply my bug (Its already been looked at an marked Triage ASAP), so that users understand the behaviour properly.
3) Improve the Getting started guide, to include this.
4) On the gui, use the collapse/expand triangles to make playlists be a second level of library (so its more obviously a subset).

This way, everyone wins. You get the behaviour you want, and people like me get my behaviour.

====== SO IS IT A DATA LOSS BUG=====
I'd agree with you, yes. But I believe its a documentation error, not a design flaw (different doesn't always mean buggy).

Both ways have different benefits (and, both ways can emulate the other anyway).

Just my thoughts. Either way, they are triaging my bug (you'd have to agree that a warning would be highly beneficial).

Again for what its worth, iTunes does not warn you that they are removed from playlists either when deleting from the library (which is what the Songbird team parities when designing Songbird). And Apple is usually pretty good at doing things properly. Also this the first report on GS that has considered this a problem. So it seems like a pretty small flaw to me. But even the small ones count, so I wouldn't mind if playlists is added to the remove dialog, it would be a nice addition.

Songbird is deleting my playlists both smart and regular.

I thought it was just when I close it but I just got back after leaving my computer idle for a little while with Songbird open and the two playlists (one smart one normal) I jjust made are gone.


Any ideas on how to stop this?


I'm running 1.2 on Windows XP

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled
Songbird deleting playlists.

Hi,

Here is what I would like to see as the fix:

1. When I delete the Library, have a dialog prompt asking, "Would you like to delete your playlists as well?"
2. Allow the user to answer "Yes" or "No" along with a "Remember this answer" checkbox.
3. (Optional) Tally the Yes/No results and see what your users are actually doing. ;-)

Regarding, "Music no longer in the library."

I would not want that. Hardly any sane person would want that. But that does not mean the computer should second-guess the user. (Music files could be relocated on the computer. The playlist [being a collection of songs in the form of file references] is still valid and an expert user could update the path prefixes accordingly.)

One solution is to tell the program to iterate over the list of files in the playlist and remove files that no longer exist. The program can perform this update automatically upon start-up, or when idle.

Further, the program can prompt the user, telling them what is about to happen, "Files in the playlist cannot be found. Remove them from the playlist?" With the typical dialog that gives the user to answer "Yes" or "No" along with a "Remember this answer" checkbox.

--

In other words, your solution says, "Hey, user, you are going to lose the playlists you spent hours working on and there is nothing you can do about, except not do what you would like to do. You might want to export your playlists first. Oh, wait, sorry, you can't do that, either. My bad."

The solution I propose says, "Hey, user, what your doing is cool, but means losing your playlists. You want to keep the playlists around, and yet still remove the library?"

--

This then becomes a feature that iTunes, as you noted, does not have.

Just out of curiosity though, what advantages does your way of managing playlists allow over the current way?

Because call me crazy, but unless I am missing something, I don't actually see any benefits over the current way..

All my playlists have disappeared and every time I remake one, upon restart of songbird the playlist is gone. This is really aggravating. I am running the most recent version of songbird on a Ubuntu 9.04 laptop. I'm looking to..


A) Make the playlists stick


or,


B) Do a complete reinstall of songbird. Currently I go into synaptic package manager and select "complete removal" then I reinstall but upon loading songbird is the way I left it (i.e. broken + same skin + tweaks applied.

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled
Playlists wiped from songbird... new playlists won't stay.