Playlists on USB music files show up as empty

[ccutaia1]

I am trying to find a file format that will work so I can play my playlists. Can anyone tell me what file formats work? I have tried creating playlists using wma. files and mp3. original formats. I have tried MU3 playlist files and UTF-8 encoding for MU3 files in from both base formats wma. & mp3. nothing works.

[akirby]

I use itunes export which I think creates mu3 playlist files and it works fine. If the format is correct it probably means the path to the filenames are invalid. I had the problem recently when I tried to export the playlists and music files separately - the playlists were blank.

 

If you're using itunes then "itunes export" - freeware - works great.

 

If you still can't get it to work I can do an export and show you the format.

[ccutaia1]

I got it, the file location of the MU3 has to be in a "forced" location and the car will pick it up.

[icee]

Manually creating music playlists for use on thumb drive

**This way of making playlists works well when you just want to add miscellaneous music files rather than full albums.
For full albums, see the album version, below.

Create a new folder on the thumb drive - call it 'music'. This folder should be the first thing you see when you explore the drive (it should not be placed inside of any other folders).
Create a new folder inside of the 'music' folder - call it 'mp3'. **This folder can be called anything you like, but make sure to change the 'mp3' portion of the folder structure to match it**
Copy all of the songs you want to have available into the 'mp3' folder

Open a text editor (Notepad will work)
Start making a list for the songs based on this folder structure:
music\mp3\

To make things easier, you can start off by duplicating, like this:
music\mp3\
music\mp3\
music\mp3\


Decide what this playlist will be called and save the file to the thumb drive as 'playlist name.m3u'. It should be saved to the same level as the 'music' folder (you should see 'playlist name.m3u' and the 'music' folder at the same time).

For my example, I'm creating a playlist called '70s Playlist.m3u'.

Using the folder structure list you already started (above), begin adding the mp3 file names, like this:
music\mp3\O'Jays - Love Train.mp3
music\mp3\People's Choice - Do It Any Way You Wanna.mp3
music\mp3\Billy Paul - Me and Mrs. Jones.mp3
music\mp3\Looking Glass - Brandy (You're a Fine Girl).mp3
music\mp3\Pilot - Magic.mp3
music\mp3\Temptations - Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me).mp3

Note: in Windows, you can right-click on a file name and select 'Rename'. Once the file name is highlighted, click copy (control-c), and then paste (control-v) into your playlist file. Make sure to deselect the actual music file afterwards so that you don't change it by mistake.

Make sure to save your playlist file. When done, you can right-click and 'open with' Notepad to modify.

Thumb drive folder structure:
>> Playlist 1.m3u
>> Playlist 2.m3u
>> music (folder)
>>>> mp3 (folder)
>>>>>> music files (mp3's)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**This way of making playlists works well when you want to add full albums and then create playlists from individual songs from those albums..

Create a new folder on the thumb drive - call it 'music'. This folder should be the first thing you see when you explore the drive (it should not be placed inside of any other folders).
Inside of the 'music' folder will be where your album folders will be placed.
Copy all of the albums you want to have available into the 'music' folder.

In my case, I'm adding these albums:
The Ultimate O'Jays (folder)
Ultimate Isaac Hayes - Can You Dig It (folder)
Average White Band (folder)
The Very Best Of 10cc (folder)

Open a text editor (Notepad will work)
Start making a list for the playlist songs based on this folder structure:
music\

To make things easier, you can start off by duplicating, like this:
music\
music\
music\


Decide what a playlist will be called and save the file to the thumb drive as 'playlist name.m3u'. It should be saved to the same level as the 'music' folder (you should see 'playlist name.m3u' and the 'music' folder at the same time).

For my example, I'm creating a playlist called '70s Playlist.m3u'.

Using the folder structure list you already started (above), begin adding the album and mp3 file names, like this:
music\The Ultimate O'Jays\O'Jays - Love Train.mp3
music\Ultimate Isaac Hayes - Can You Dig It\Isaac Hayes - Theme From Shaft.mp3
music\Average White Band\Average White Band - Pick Up The Pieces.mp3
music\The Very Best Of 10cc\10cc - The Wall Street Shuffle.mp3

Note: in Windows, you can right-click on a file name and select 'Rename'. Once the file name is highlighted, click copy (control-c), and then paste (control-v) into your playlist file. Make sure to deselect the actual music file afterwards so that you don't change it by mistake.

Note that the rename / copy / paste method works well here to make sure that the folder structure works properly. If there are any differences in the folder name or song names, the playlist won't work properly.

Make sure to save your playlist file. When needed, you can right-click and 'open with' Notepad to modify.

Thumb drive folder structure:
>> Playlist 1.m3u
>> Playlist 2.m3u
>> music (folder)
>>>> Album 1 (folder)
>>>>>> music files (mp3's)
>>>> Album 2 (folder)
>>>>>> music files (mp3's)

Edited January 25, 2015 by icee