The VideoLAN Forums

Recently I embarked on getting my music saved and all organized in my main Flash Drive. I also created and saved some playlists in some of the folders. My main computer gives my Flash Drive a J:Drive designation.

NOW ... 2 days ago my main computer went kaput. I then switched over to using my backup computer, which I am using at this instant. My dread has now come true. My playlists that I created on my Flash Drive using my OTHER computer, do NOT work on THIS computer due to this computer giving my Flash Drive a drive designation of E:Drive ... thus, the playlist path no longer matching the original path.

So, what's the solution? Is there a way of creating my playlists so that they have, I guess you could say --- a generic / universal Drive designation to where the playlists work on ANY computer at anytime regardless of what Drive designation any computer assigns them? Or am I seeking something that isn't possible with playlists? (I had never dealt with playlists until recently.)

You can save the playlist into the external drive, than edit it as a text file to search and replace the full path by a relative path ( drop the "file://" part and replace "J:Drive" by "."

VLC 3.0 saves playlist as relative. But you can also edit the playlist file manually and make all the URLs relative by hand.

Question #1: Okay, zozizozu, Rémi ... maybe I'm doing this incorrectly. I opened up a playlist with Notepad and made those edits. However, then it saves as a Text file. How am I supposed to save it in the same xspf format as the original? Cuz as a Text file it obviously is no longer good as a playlist file. Was I not supposed to use Notepad to edit it?

Question #2: Rémi, by VLC 3.0 are you referring to an upcoming future version of VLC? If so, how soon will it be here? Are you saying that that version WILL save playlists as "relative" and ready for use on any computer without any edits required?

Question #3: Out of curiosity, what advantages / disadvantages do those other playlist formats M3U ... M3U8 have vs. xspf? I haven't tried those yet. I just went with xspf since that was the default.

Okay, after reading this --- https://www.lifewire.com/xspf-file-2622613 --- I finally managed to save my edited playlist as an xspf file by adding the xspf extension manually.

However, it is still failing to work. So, let me confirm. Okay, immediately below is one of the original URLs in one of my playlists BEFORE editing.

<location>file:///J:/Documents/Videos/80s%20Plus/Aerosmith/Walk%20This%20Way%20-%20Aerosmith%20%5BBoston%20Strong%5D.mp4</location>

Are you saying that AFTER editing, it is supposed to look like this:

<location>/./Documents/Videos/80s%20Plus/Aerosmith/Walk%20This%20Way%20-%20Aerosmith%20%5BBoston%20Strong%5D.mp4</location>

Or is that edited version incorrect? If it is incorrect, show me how it's supposed to look after the correct edit.

Just drop the first slash : <location>./Documents/Videos/80s%20Plus/Aerosmith/Walk%20This%20Way%20-%20Aerosmith%20%5BBoston%20Strong%5D.mp4</location>

XSPF can convey more infos than M3U, e.g. the tree structure of the playlist. However, XSPF is always saved using absolute URIs, even in VLC 3.0.

Trade-offs...

Hate to say it, but it's STILL not working.
Here's my entire latest edit:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<playlist xmlns="http://xspf.org/ns/0/" xmlns:vlc="http://www.videolan.org/vlc/playlist/ns/0/" version="1">
<title>Playlist</title>
<trackList>
<track>
<location>./Documents/Videos/80s%20Plus/Aerosmith/Walk%20This%20Way%20-%20Aerosmith%20%5BBoston%20Strong%5D.mp4</location>
<duration>305319</duration>
<extension application="http://www.videolan.org/vlc/playlist/0">
<vlc:id>0</vlc:id>
</extension>
</track>
<track>
<location>./Documents/Videos/80s%20Plus/Aerosmith/Love%20in%20an%20Elevator%20-%20Aerosmith.mp4</location>
<duration>321851</duration>
<extension application="http://www.videolan.org/vlc/playlist/0">
<vlc:id>1</vlc:id>
</extension>
</track>
<track>
<location>./Documents/Videos/80s%20Plus/Aerosmith/Dream%20On%20-%20Aerosmith.mp4</location>
<duration>264846</duration>
<extension application="http://www.videolan.org/vlc/playlist/0">
<vlc:id>2</vlc:id>
</extension>
</track>
<track>
<location>./Documents/Videos/80s%20Plus/Aerosmith/Come%20Together%20-%20Aerosmith.mp4</location>
<duration>224675</duration>
<extension application="http://www.videolan.org/vlc/playlist/0">
<vlc:id>3</vlc:id>
</extension>
</track>
</trackList>
<extension application="http://www.videolan.org/vlc/playlist/0">
<vlc:item tid="0"/>
<vlc:item tid="1"/>
<vlc:item tid="2"/>
<vlc:item tid="3"/>
</extension>
</playlist>
=================================

And here is the error that I'm getting:

File reading failed:
VLC could not open the file "E:\Documents\Videos\80s Plus\Aerosmith\.\Documents\Videos\80s Plus\Aerosmith\Walk This Way - Aerosmith [Boston Strong].mp4" (Bad file descriptor).
Your input can't be opened:
VLC is unable to open the MRL 'file:///E:/Documents/Videos/80s%20Plus/Aerosmith/./Documents/Videos/80s%20Plus/Aerosmith/Walk%20This%20Way%20-%20Aerosmith%20%5BBoston%20Strong%5D.mp4'. Check the log for details.
File reading failed:
VLC could not open the file "E:\Documents\Videos\80s Plus\Aerosmith\.\Documents\Videos\80s Plus\Aerosmith\Love in an Elevator - Aerosmith.mp4" (Bad file descriptor).
Your input can't be opened:
VLC is unable to open the MRL 'file:///E:/Documents/Videos/80s%20Plus/Aerosmith/./Documents/Videos/80s%20Plus/Aerosmith/Love%20in%20an%20Elevator%20-%20Aerosmith.mp4'. Check the log for details.
File reading failed:
VLC could not open the file "E:\Documents\Videos\80s Plus\Aerosmith\.\Documents\Videos\80s Plus\Aerosmith\Dream On - Aerosmith.mp4" (Bad file descriptor).
Your input can't be opened:
VLC is unable to open the MRL 'file:///E:/Documents/Videos/80s%20Plus/Aerosmith/./Documents/Videos/80s%20Plus/Aerosmith/Dream%20On%20-%20Aerosmith.mp4'. Check the log for details.
File reading failed:
VLC could not open the file "E:\Documents\Videos\80s Plus\Aerosmith\.\Documents\Videos\80s Plus\Aerosmith\Come Together - Aerosmith.mp4" (Bad file descriptor).
Your input can't be opened:
VLC is unable to open the MRL 'file:///E:/Documents/Videos/80s%20Plus/Aerosmith/./Documents/Videos/80s%20Plus/Aerosmith/Come%20Together%20-%20Aerosmith.mp4'. Check the log for details.

Duplication of the path is very strange, i can not help for that.
Did you try the .m3u :

The URIs should be relative to the directory containing the XSPF file. If it does not work, try 3.0.

I tried the M3U format ... AND I just finished trying out VLC 3.0.
Verdict? Unfortunately ---Failure just as with all the other attempts.

So far, in my experience, everything points to that apparently the playlist only works with the path being the absolute original path ... the Flash Drive being the absolute original Flash Drive with the absolute original Drive designation.

That puzzles me though. It contradicts what is said in that link I posted earlier: https://www.lifewire.com/xspf-file-2622613
And in this link: http://www.xspf.org/
They sure tout the xspf format's shareability and portability. And so far I haven't even been able to share the xspf playlists with myself without them failing. I don't know. Unless there's some setting that I'm not setting. But, the playlists sure work great when used from within their original path / environment.

Well, y'all are more than welcome to add it to the list of things to look into and incorporate.
For now successful portability of my playlists between different Flash Drives is eluding me.

Thanks for looking into this so far, zozizozu ... Rémi.

Sorry for that, it works for me with any version, i'm using debian and ubuntu, so i guess it's a windows issue ...

It's possible that it's not necessary a Windows issue, but rather a Windows XP issue. I have Windows XP Pro SP3.

Tomorrow Saturday I'll be going over to my sister's house where I'll use her laptop with Windows 10 in it. I'll see if that makes a difference. What will be interesting is that --- if I recall correctly, I think on her laptop, my Flash Drive gets assigned E:Drive status just like on this here (my backup) computer ... not J:Drive like on my main computer. I'm curious as to whether playlists created on THIS computer where my Flash Drive is E:Drive will also work on my sister's laptop since that one also deals with my Flash Drive as E:Drive.

I'll post the verdict tomorrow.

Oops. I didn't get to conduct my experiment. I had guests / passengers with me and they needed to leave before I was ready ... before I got around to conducting my experiment. It'll have to be conducted at a future time.

If, when moving from one computer to another, saved playlists fail because of drive assignments, the simplest solution is to assign the correct drive letter.

Three Methods: Linux, OS X, BSD -- DOS, PowerShell --Windows XP, Vista
http://www.wikihow.com/Assign-a-Drive-Letter

Win 7, 8, 10 all have Disk Management built-in; all you have to do is click the portable drive and reassign the letter.

The assignment will stick unless and until it is changed or deleted. Each time you reinsert that same drive, it will use the same letter.