Could not save M3U playlist that contains media with Japanese file name

[tyvlvyt]

Hello,

I could not save M3U playlist correctly that contains media with Japanese file name.
When I open the M3U file after saving it, VLC does not play anything. It just shows a blank list.

Is this a known problem?

When I open the saved M3U file by text editor, it seems there is no media file name after "#EXTINF:0,..." and before URI.
I can manually fix this problem by adding each file name to that location.

Also, this happens only on Windows and not on macOS VLC...

Thanks!


VLC 3.0.4
Windows 10

[Lotesdelere]

Yes, confirmed, I can reproduce this.

You should create a new ticket on the VLC Trac with the link to this thread.

[tyvlvyt]

Thank you.

I created a new ticket:
https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/21610

[tyvlvyt]

I created a ticket but got it closed by a developer saying:

"M3U is in local system character encoding. macOS uses UTF-8, and Windows does not. This is intended behaviour. Use M3U8 format."

But isn't it possible to specify the Japanese filename with Windows local English character encoding (like %...)?

I could not understand much why this is "intended"...

Kind regards,

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

If the URLs are input in VLC with the Japanese kanjis URL-encoded, then VLC should be able to save the playlist in M3U format as is. However, this will not interoperate with some crappy third party players that do not handle URL encoding properly.

The URLs were probably input with the Japanese characters incorrectly unencoded.

[tyvlvyt]

I created a dummy movie file called "テスト.wmv" (test.wmv) in C: root with the Windows Explorer. Then opened the file with VLC, saved a M3U playlist and it created a file below. Reopened the playlist file and nothing happened. URL seems properly encoded...

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:302,file:///C:/%E3%83%86%E3%82%B9%E3%83%88.wmv

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Cannot reproduce.

[tyvlvyt]

Well, that's strange. Which step you couldn't reproduce?

Lotesdelere on this thread said he/she could reproduce. Could you double check?

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Non-ASCII characters in file names are URL-encoded properly for me, so it works fine with Japanese, at the expense of compatibility with third party crapware.

[Lotesdelere]

Non-ASCII characters in file names are URL-encoded properly for me, so it works fine with Japanese

No, it does NOT work.
VLC can play a file named 鷲.mp3
VLC can create a playlist with the name of this file:

Code: Select all

#EXTM3U #EXTINF:112,%E9%B7%B2.mp3

But when opening this file VLC has just created, VLC does NOT play the file.

That's a fact, not theory.
Tried with VLC 3.0.5 on Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Works fine here. VLC 3.0 and 4.0 alike. I'm not going to buy and install Windows.

[tyvlvyt]

Mr. Rémi Denis-Courmont,

I really appreciate for developing this wonderful software.

If you do not have Windows, could you at least re-open the ticket on trac and delegate someone who can inspect this problem further?

Regards,

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

The code in question is not OS-dependent. I see no reason to reopen it since it is, at best, incomplete and unexploitable.

[tyvlvyt]

"incomplete and unexploitable"?
Does it have to be "complete and exploitable" to be on the trac?

"not OS-dependent"?
It clearly happens on Windows and NOT on Mac...

M3U is one of the most popular playlist formats and
I think this problem has some impact on the global user base especially if any other non-Latin languages are also affected.

Lotesdelere, could you please post your opinion? Thanks!

[Lotesdelere]

Lotesdelere, could you please post your opinion? Thanks!

I had posted my opinion but it has been removed.

It's quite simple to get your own conclusion when someone first claims he cannot reproduce the issue, and then later on admits he's not running Windows and never will.
Enough said, self explanatory.

[tyvlvyt]

Thank you very much!

Self explanatory, indeed, and very strange...

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

The variable is more likely how you create the input item than the OS. But Lotesdelere prefers to troll.