topic Re: NW A45 cannot create playlist from the device in Portable Audio

NW A45 cannot create playlist from the device

noplanes — Wed, 19 Dec 2018 17:35:32 GMT

I have successfully transfered songs but am unable to create a playlist on the device. The instructions say there are two ways to add a song to playlist - neither work for me and I get an error message saying no playlists are available, please connect to compliant software and transfer playlist.

I am not looking to transfer an existing playlist, just to create one.

Re: NW A45 cannot create playlist from the device

Vanilla_ — Fri, 21 Dec 2018 14:41:38 GMT

Hi noplane,

I believe you can create playlists using Music Centre software. Have you tried this method? I found the following article explaining this topic: https://bit.ly/2Bxn16n

Let us know if this works.

Thanks,

Vanilla_

Re: NW A45 cannot create playlist from the device

Ian2019 — Thu, 01 Aug 2019 12:18:02 GMT

My NWA has over 10,000 songs on it with a 512 GB micro SD card.

Now all I want to do is create playlists using selections from them. It seems that is impossible to do? I have the Music Centre on my Windows PC but unless I copy files from it, I can't create a playlist. And if I do I can't add files to it, or edit it in any way from the Walkman. All of my files are stored on a Mac system and the Music Centre does not run on that.

In short, unless I copy files from the Music Centre on a Windows PC I can't create or edit playlists? And adding files that are already on the Walkman is impossible.

Is the above correct? I find it hard to believe. What is the point of having "add file to playlist" on the Walkman if it does not work? If so, the usefulness of the Walkman has just diminished greatly. I bought it specifically to use LDAC with the Sony WH-1000XM3 headphones. Every other device I have has a playlist function that works.

I hope I am missing something and someone will tell me how to create playlists using files already on the Walkman.

HELP!!!

Re: NW A45 cannot create playlist from the device

igiwigi — Sat, 24 Aug 2019 08:24:54 GMT

I have the same problem

I have all files on a SD card and cannot make a playlist from them in music centre.

I connect my Walkman and start Music Centre.

No luck at all.

It seems that you need the music on computer to transfer accross.

I want to make the playlist from the SD card on my Walkman using a computer and preferably Music Centre.

Any help as this is also driving me nuts.

All the best

John

Re: NW A45 cannot create playlist from the device

Ian2019 — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 10:58:47 GMT

Still the same, no progress.

I have found a sort of workaround. Which is to create a folder in the built in memory and then copy a playlist into that. Then to select that folder and use play / random / repeat and I more or less get the same functionality. I can get quite a few playlists with 100 titles in them. All are CD quality or higher, so that will have to do for now.

Is not good though and not what I expect from Sony. Am contemplating the new upcoming higher end walkman - £750 - that's a big sum for me. But if it too cannot do sensible playlist functions then I probably won't go for it. I have no intention of using Sony's Music Centre software. I already have Roon, JRiver and the like and am not switching away from them (Roon is far and away my preferred system).

Sadly, I do not expect any reply from Sony about this.

Re: NW A45 cannot create playlist from the device

igiwigi — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 11:55:17 GMT

Hi
I have found a way to create playlists.

Firstly my whole collection of music is on a “D”drive on my Computer
I point Music Centre to the collection.
Transfer all songs to the Walkman’s USB drive, so as not to block the internal memory of the walkman
I use a 64 gig card.

Once all song recognized by Music Centre go to manage songs on Walkman which you see opposite your recognized list.
This opens up and then go down to playlists and create new Or--------

once you have a playlist created go to songs in the list on your Walkman and at the end of the song on the line it is printed is a drop down and then you can add to playlist

OR---- choose a playlist you already have and do the same.
The only thing i get is song doubles for some reason when creating playlists and have to keep deleting the doubles, otherwise simple to create playlists.
All other ways are too complicated or do not work.

All the Best
John

Re: NW A45 cannot create playlist from the device

Ian2019 — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 12:01:34 GMT

Thanks John

My library is on a NAS drive and is large so I can't follow your first method. I have tried creating a playlist on Music Centre and then transferring so I can add to it on the Walkman - all I get then is "Playlist is not editable".

If the Walkman would simply allow creating of a playlist and then adding racks to it from the SD card in the Walkman, all would be well. Or alternatively using M3U files for the playlists which is more or less standard way of doing things.

Re: NW A45 cannot create playlist from the device

distyl — Sun, 10 Nov 2019 17:55:25 GMT

Hello lan2019 and everyone else contributing to the playlist problem.

I have found a very simple way to create playlists. I use a Mac, but should work the same way on a PC.

1. Create an empty text file (without any text in it) and name it anything that you want, plus the extension .m3u, for example "Classical Baroque Favorites.m3u". Make sure you save the file as plain text, not rich text.

2. Copy the file (or several of those files) to the /MUSIC folder in the Walkman's System Storage. Make sure you don't copy it in a subfolder, because then the playlist will show up as not editable.

3. Then use the "Add to Playlist" on the Walkman to add any song to the playlist.

NOTE:

For easy access of my playlists, I use a dash in front of the m3u filename, so all my playlists show up on top.

For example, I would name the above playlist "-Classical Baroque Favorites.m3u".

Re: NW A45 cannot create playlist from the device

igiwigi — Sun, 10 Nov 2019 19:13:53 GMT

Firstly put all of your music on a large drive .

If you have a computer put the music you have all in their correct Pop , Rock folders etc or just a single line of songs.

You could put all your music on a Terrabyte USB drive .

You can put music on any drive as long as Music centre knows where it is. KEEP IT THERE.

Go to latest MUSIC CENTRE and IMPORT all your collection into the SONG section.

So now MUSIC CENTRE knows where the collection is, be it on your computer or USB.

Transfer (TRANSFER TO DEVICE) your collection to your device SONY WALKMAN.

Scroll down to PLAYLIST and and press +CREATE NEW and name new playlist.

Go back to SONGS on PC And choose a song.

Goto the end of the song line where the 3 dots are and open by clicking on it.

You can now add that song to your newly created playlist.

You can also highlight all songs and go to the 3 dots and send the lot to playlist.

Hope this helps all.

All the Best

John

Re: NW A45 cannot create playlist from the device

ianoakley — Mon, 11 Nov 2019 18:12:45 GMT

Hi, I have exactly the same problem, I managed to add a few songs from the internal memory to the playlist then it suddenly decided it doesn't want to do that any more and I get the "cannot add to playlist" message so I can only do it by connecting to the PC.

Basically it's useless as it doesn't do what Sony claim so I'll contact them for a replacement or refund.

Re: NW A45 cannot create playlist from the device

distyl — Mon, 11 Nov 2019 18:56:56 GMT

Hello ianoakley,

I have successfully added over 500 songs in a playlist. I got an error at song number 12. I edited the playlist and changed the order of one song and after the playlist was saved, everything was fine up to over 500 songs.

I hope this helps with your error too.

Re: NW A45 cannot create playlist from the device

Ian2019 — Mon, 11 Nov 2019 22:00:58 GMT

Hi Distyl

I tried your suggested fix. Created an empty plain text file, saved it with a .m3u extension on the Mac using Word. Before saving I get a window opens asking me to select the text encoding to use - "Mac OS (default)", "MS-DOS", "Other Encoding". The last option has a list of encoding options including Unicode, ASCII and different regions. I went for the default.

If I copy it across to the System Music folder, when I try to add to playlist I get "Cannot add songs from both system storage and SD card to the same playlist" when I try to do just that. If I select a music folder on the System then it will add to the playlist in the system Music playlist. Hope that makes sense. Have not added lots of tracks to the playlist as that its not how I use the player - more or less all of the music is on the 512GB microSD card.

I then added a playlist to the Music folder on the SD card and tried to add music from the same folder (i.e. the SD card Music Folder) and then get "Could not update the playlist".

So, some progress, but not an answer yet. Thanks for the reply though, very much appreciated.

best

ian

Re: NW A45 cannot create playlist from the device

Ian2019 — Mon, 11 Nov 2019 22:07:46 GMT

Hi igiwigi

My music library is on a 4TB NAS drive connected to the computer and whole system using ethernet. around 5,000 albums, 60,000 tracks. I use Roon to manage both the library and the overall network that has several music systems attached to it. I am not going to use Music Centre to manage the library as I am almost exclusively Mac based and Roon is much more powerful than Music Centre.

I have tried doing as you say by running Music Centre on a PC on the network, copying a set of files from the NAS drive and giving Music Centre access to the files and then making a playlist. Its does not work for me - I get the same error that the playlist is not editable.

All I want to do is to copy files to the Walkman, create a playlist and create a playlist from files on the Walkman. With other music players, I create an M3u playlist, the player reads it and plays the files. Quite why the A45 won't do this is a mystery to me.

best

ian

Re: NW A45 cannot create playlist from the device

Ian2019 — Mon, 11 Nov 2019 22:08:38 GMT

Hi ianoakley

Please let us know how you get on.

best

ian

Re: NW A45 cannot create playlist from the device

distyl — Tue, 12 Nov 2019 08:08:23 GMT

Hello ian,

I only tested my fix with internal storage since I don't use an microSD card. I will buy one today, so I can investigate the issue further. I will let you know of my findings, tonight.

Re: NW A45 cannot create playlist from the device

Ian2019 — Tue, 12 Nov 2019 10:22:03 GMT

Hi Distyl

Almost all of my music is at CD quality or higher - up to 24/192 FLAC/WAV and some DSD. 16GB of internal storage does not hold too much of that. With the 512GB card I can get around 10,500 tracks, which is great - I do a lot of travelling and with the WF and WH-1000 XM3 it makes a great little system. With the exception of the playlist issue I am happy with the player.

If you can figure out how to build a playlist on the fly from the microSD card I will be really happy.

best

ian

Re: NW A45 cannot create playlist from the device

igiwigi — Tue, 12 Nov 2019 11:35:00 GMT

Hi M8

I have just successfully taken the Orwellian big brother volume cap off the NW 45 and WOW ,what a difference all round the volume has gone up to great levels and also the quality . The stereo separation is also much better as the normalizer etc. Takes five minutes to go from a weedy thin sound to big sound with quality not imagined.

Now good as any £500 player.

I only play wave files and large sd card Lovly jubbly!!!

Get a good VPN like Express, worth the money and download HD files f**e

Re: NW A45 cannot create playlist from the device

distyl — Tue, 12 Nov 2019 13:15:57 GMT

Hello Ian2019,

I have checked with SD Card and here is my conclusion:

All songs that reside in System Storage can be added to all playlists that reside in System Storage\MUSIC.
All songs that reside in SD CARD can be added to all playlists that reside in SD CARD\MUSIC.
You cannot add songs that reside in System Storage to a playlist in SD CARD\MUSIC and vice versa.

I can only think of two points to check:

1. Make absolutely sure that the playlist is in the \MUSIC folder and not inside a subfolder,
because then you will get the error that “the playlist is not editable”.

2. Here is how I create the blank playlist m3u file:
Run TextEdit. You can find it in Applications. It will startup with a new file.
Check under the Format menu. If the "Make Rich Text" menu item is shown, that means that your file is already in Plain Text mode. If the "Make Plain Text" menu item is shown, click on that to make the file Plain Text. Just save the file with default settings and rename it changing the extension to m3u.
You can also save it right on the SD CARD\MUSIC and rename-duplicate-rename on the SD CARD.

Actually I tried creating the playlists directly on the SD CARD with a card reader and works flawlessly.

It tried that method repeatedly, creating many playlists both in System Storage\MUSIC and SD CARD\MUSIC and never failed.

I don’t think there is a way to create a playlist on the fly (if you mean on the player), but there is no need to do that, if you use my method. Once you create an empty playlist on the Mac, just duplicate it as many times as you want, rename each duplicate with a meaningful name and copy them all to the player. That way you can have as many extra playlists as you want ready to be used. If you want to change the name of a playlist, you can do it directly on the SD CARD whenever you connect your player to the Mac.

Hope it works for you too. It worked in my player every time without an error, even on the SD CARD\MUSIC.

Good Luck!

Re: NW A45 cannot create playlist from the device

Ian2019 — Tue, 12 Nov 2019 13:56:58 GMT

Hi distyl

Thanks for your efforts on this, very much appreciated. I followed your instructions very carefully, when it came to save the file textedit reported that it would be in Unicode (UTF-8). I created a playlist, saved it to the local hard disk and then copied it to the Music folder on the microSD card. Then did another and saved that directly the the microSD card. On both occasions the card was in the player.

Both give the same result "Could not update the playlist". GRRRR.... When I created a playlist and saved it to the system Music folder and then added files to it from the system memory that worked OK. It takes a long time to do it, but that works. If I try to add a track from the system memory to the playlist on the microSD card I get the "Could not update the playlist" message.

The microSD card has around 8GB free on it, internal /system memory has around 2GB free. Firmware is 1.10. System is an iMac on Mojave 10.14.6. Am waiting a while before going to Catalina as it seems somewhat unstable with some apps.

So am stuck.

Thanks again for trying - why it should work OK at your end and not here is beyond me. Only possible variable that I can see is using Unicode as the plain text format.

best

ian

Re: NW A45 cannot create playlist from the device

distyl — Tue, 12 Nov 2019 14:21:37 GMT

Ian2019, do you by any chance have another SD CARD sitting around just to try from scratch?

1. PLAYER: Format the SD CARD. THAT's IMPORTANT (to format it in the player first).

2. MAC: Copy a couple of music folders in SD CARD\MUSIC.

3. MAC: Copy a blank playlist in SD CARD\MUSIC

4. PLAYER: Try to add a song to the playlist that you have just copied onto the SD CARD.

Mac @ work El Capitan, mac @ home Catalina, both work fine. It should work from any OS anyway. It is just a plain text file. NW-A45 firmware v1.1