Maybe I need to expand on this to get an answer. I want to be able to use VLC's open folder function (Media -> Open Folder or Ctrl F) to point to my main music folder and use shuffle play. This folder contains about 825GB of 320 Bps MP3s, 1070 separate artist folders, which in turn hold each artist's albums (~7000 folders) which holds the audio files (~105,000) in a directory structure like below....
MP3 (folder)
Artist (sub folder)
Artist - Year - Album (sub, sub folder)
Artist - Year - Album - Track - Title (files)
Multi disc albums are stored as...
MP3 (folder)
Artist (sub folder)
Artist - Year - Album (sub, sub folder)
CDx (sub, sub, sub folder)
Artist - Year - Album (CDx) - Track - Title (files)
CDx (sub, sub, sub folder)
Artist - Year - Album (CDx) - Track - Title (files)
...etc....
I want to point VLC to the MP3 folder have have it shuffle play my entire folder hierarchy. When I try it what happens is that the first time the Playlist shows just the folder (MP3) and nothing else.
As you can see, there are no songs or time in the playlist, just the MP3 folder. If I hit play nothing happens.
If i go back and select the same folder over again it starts reading in a list of the songs from all the folders alphabetically and starts totaling up the time like I think it should. But it always stops reading the folder or adding to the play list somewhere along the B's or C's. Also it is still listing the Folder MP3 that wouldn't play the first time I chose it. And at some point it stops adding titles to the play list even though the time keeps adding up. And shuffle play never plays any song not in the playlist consequently I never get to hear anything past the Bs or Cs.
I started the process again while writing this so that I could get screen shots. In the time it's taken to write this the playlist had already stopped growing (Albert King is still the last song in the list) but the time has continued counting up from the 14:49:05 showing in the above screen shot to 153:33:09 where it seems to have stopped.
So what is happening? Is my collection just outside the scope of VLC's abilities? Am I asking too much? Is there an audio player that can handle what I want (if it want's to make a library or index it's not what I want!)?