VLC for Android - Category "Songs" remains empty

[Moldmaker]

I am using VLC version 2.5.17 on an Xiaomi MiMax2 running MIUI Global 9.0 (based on Android 7.1.1).
On the internal SD card I have my music collection which is about 14000 songs. When VLC scans the directory, the category "songs" remains empty. I did this many times now, sometimes I can see the list of songs during scanning, but when the scan is done, the list disappears. However, VLC shows everything in the categories artists, albums, and genres (including cover pictures). But not in the category songs.
In the previous version it was no problem. Can anyone confirm this?

Mm.

[Moldmaker]

I am going to answer it myself. There seems to be a limit on how many entries the song list can have.
When the threshold is reached, the list doesn't show anymore, but it is still there because I get results from the song list when searching the whole database.
The threshold seems to be something like 8000 entries. Is this on purpose? Can it be fixed?

Mm.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Can you try 2.9.1, please?

[Moldmaker]

I did. It behaves exactly the same way.
I also found out that the 2.9.1 has some problems with playlists with special characters (like ! or & or Rock'n'roll) in file names. Those tracks are not being listed. On the other hand 2.9.1 can open a playlist containing more than 12000 entries - 2.5.17 will crash. So that's good news.
I am reverting back to 2.5.17 and will double check it.
And the overall stability of 2.9.1 is bad. It crashes really often. (Okay, it's beta.)


Mm.

[Moldmaker]

After the update to 3.0.1 I had some trouble with the indexing, so i decided to erase all data and rebuild the database. I am very pleased with the result and I really like the m3u-playlist-support (came with 3.0.0). Now I can import externally created playlists.
But like I said in the first posting of this thread: The song list still remains empty because there are too many songs (more than 14000). Anyway, everything is being indexed and can be found. Is it possible to show all the songs? Would make VLC even better!
Thank you anyway for this fine piece of software, I really like it and recommend it.

Mm.

[Dekans]

It may just take time to load.

[Moldmaker]

That is not the case. When I rebuild the database from scratch, I can see the songs populating the song list. When a certain number of songs is reched, like a threshold (must be around 8000 songs) all entries in the song list disappear. But VLC knows all the songs. They will be found when I use the search function.
Maybe it can be fixed.

Mm.

[Dekans]

That's realy interesting, we will dig into that and test with huge amounts of media.

[kentfkruhoeffer]

Hi

Love VLC - have used it for many years, going way back to the days when it was still in beta. Never had a complaint or problem but I'm sorry to say I'm having the exact same problem as Moldmaker mentioned in his posts above. With 9,600 songs in my music library, the songs appeared in the 'songs' list normally. No problems. When I added a new folder a few days ago and hit 9,850 songs, the songs suddenly disappeared from the 'songs' list. In the 'artists', 'folders' and 'genre' categories, the songs show up as expected, so there's no problem with VLC Player reading the directory. As Moldmaker reported in his comments above, only the 'songs' list is empty. At first I thought there might be some weird file names that were causing the glitch, but having read through the comments in this thread, there appears to be a bug when you reach a certain number of songs. Okeydokey, you are aware of the issue. I know you get a lot of requests for help, but, to me, this is a biggie. If the 'songs' list is empty, how else would you shuffle your tunes? For the moment, I have gone back to using the stock media player that came with the phone, but I really prefer VLC. Looking forward to an update or reply. Good luck with the fix and thanks in advance for looking into this!

PS: I am running the latest version of VLC Player on a fast, fairly new Android phone with a 128GB microSD card. My music library contains 9,850 songs @ 115GB, if that helps.

PSS: Moldmaker reported having problems at around 8,000 songs, whilst I'm having the problem at 9,850 songs, so ... perhaps this bug is related to memory cache - rather than the actual number of songs? Just a guess, I have no clue.

[Dekans]

Thanks for feedback, I forward to the medialibrary maintainer.

[kentfkruhoeffer]

Thank you.

[kentfkruhoeffer]

To briefly follow up on the comments in this thread:

You have released two updates since my comments above, but the 'empty songs' bug has not been fixed. Anybody home? Is there any hope? Or should we just give up and switch to another player? Don't mean to be rude; I'm just askin'.

Fyi, I recently downloaded an app from Playstore called 'Music Player' - and all of my 10,250 songs appear in the songs playlist, no problem.

So ... before I (sadly) delete VLC, I wanted to ask if there's any chance of a fix. Without a 'songs' playlist, there's no shuffle, and with no shuffle, you can only play songs by artist or album, which is unacceptable.

I wanna shuffle, dammit.

C'mon guys, you can fix this, can't you?!

[Moldmaker]

I second that (no offense).

[Dekans]

Paging implementation is in progress.

It's a complicated refactoring so in cannot happen so fast, and won't be on any 3.0.x update.

I'll post a test build when I have something usable, to check if it fixes your issue.

[Moldmaker]

Looking forward to it. Thanks again.

[kentfkruhoeffer]

I'm with Moldmaker. Good luck with it ... and thanks.

[tkout]

I can not wait for this fix! Thanks for all the hard work folks.

[steffen@vlc]

I am facing a similar problem.
However, it is not the Songs list that is not populated but the Album list. The songs show just fine and the albums are recognized since they show in the artist view, they just don't show in albums.
Is this in the end maybe the same problem or would that be worth a new thread?

PS: it seems to be an entirely different problem after all. Some further fooling around including unmountig the SD card containing the data resolved the issue.

Still I would as well appreciate a solution, since I'm almost there

[Dekans]

Could you test with this build? https://www.dropbox.com/s/8s9moxw63cec8 ... 7.apk?dl=0

This is a master build with pagination in audio lists. It should help with large collections like yours.

As it's a debug build, you can install it alongside your current VLC version.
So you will have to do another scan of your device :/

[Moldmaker]

Can't download it, always stops at 8MB.
:/

[Moldmaker]

Now I got it as a complete file, but the phone tells me that the APK is damaged and won't install it.
:/

[Dekans]

Carp, you're right

I re-uploaded a build, try again with the same link please. (I tested it, it works this time!)

[Moldmaker]

It works! Thank you! Now I can simply go to the songs list and shuffle play.
It's a little unstable and crashes quite often, but maybe I am too impatient when the app is parsing the collection and does not respond in the meantime.
Great work! Hope it's in the regular app soon. Wait - I'll be using this one until it happens ...

[kentfkruhoeffer]

Congratulations, we are making progress. I downloaded the new apk today. All of my 10,700 song titles now appear in the songs playlist and can be shuffled. Well done! As Moldmaker reported above, this build seems a little unstable, but it is a HUGE step forward. Thank you (and your developer team) for not forgetting us.

Rock on, dudes!

[Dekans]

I uploaded a new build.

It fixes crash while scanning and I updated kotlin (which was causing the app to freeze)

Still the same link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8s9moxw63cec8 ... 7.apk?dl=0