Can't get iTunes Mini Player to play the correct songs

[godbout]

Hi,

 

Probably not a bug but me doing something wrong. It's been happening for a long long time but I guess it's time to solve the issue!

 

I keep having a multitude of Alfred Playlist, which now first pollutes the new iOS 10 Music app with the New Added section, but also prevent the iTunes Mini Player to work correctly. When I pick up an album for example, another one is playing, from another Alfred Playlist. So every 2 days I have to delete all the playlists manually. I thought first that it was because my iMac and my Macbook are using the same Alfred playlist names, but actually with the options sync, there's only one playlist name possible.

 

Anyway, not sure how to solve that. To summarise the main issue is this: I choose something to play through the mini player and iTunes plays something else, which comes from another Alfred Playlist list, from the past.

 

Any idea where I'm being dumb?

[Vero]

Hi,

 

Probably not a bug but me doing something wrong. It's been happening for a long long time but I guess it's time to solve the issue!

 

 

Good morning,

 

The first thing I'd suggest doing is update to the Alfred 3.1 pre-release (which you can do by going to Alfred's Update tab, choosing "pre-releases" from the dropdown at the bottom). The reason for this is that Apple has re-enabled the ability for third-party apps like Alfred to enable/disable the Shuffle option in iTunes. For the past few years, this wasn't possible, but a recent update to iTunes has sneaked it back in.

 

Once you've done this, see whether the correct tracks are playing when you select them. It's likely that previously, you just had Shuffle enabled, resulting in iTunes starting tracks other than what you expected.

 

Let me know how you get on with the latest update

 

Cheers,

Vero

[godbout]

Hey Vero, thanks for the answer. Did the update, but didn't do the trick. Actually it's been an issue for many years to me, I've just really never bothered to write a post

 

The reason why it's not the correct music played is I think because I end up with many Alfred Playlist in my iTunes. I have to remove them manually quite often. I start using Alfred Mini Player on my iMac and it creates a playlist. Then maybe later I use it on my MacBook and there it creates another Alfred Playlist, but ends up playing the wrong one. Do that for a few days and you have 10 Alfred Playlist, and you can never listen to what you're asking :|

[Vero]

Hey Vero, thanks for the answer. Did the update, but didn't do the trick. Actually it's been an issue for many years to me, I've just really never bothered to write a post

 

The reason why it's not the correct music played is I think because I end up with many Alfred Playlist in my iTunes. I have to remove them manually quite often. I start using Alfred Mini Player on my iMac and it creates a playlist. Then maybe later I use it on my MacBook and there it creates another Alfred Playlist, but ends up playing the wrong one. Do that for a few days and you have 10 Alfred Playlist, and you can never listen to what you're asking :|

 

 

You can simply turn off the Alfred Playlists by unchecking the box in the preferences, and your albums should play as expected, as the generated playlist only makes a difference in a small number of cases.

 

Let me know how you get on

 

Cheers,

Vero

[godbout]

I've tried this before, but if I uncheck the box, then Alfred only plays 1 song of the album. Is there something I'm missing there?

[godbout]

:|

Really coming from the fact that I use 2 Macs. Surprised no one else has this issue. 

[Vero]

:|

Really coming from the fact that I use 2 Macs. Surprised no one else has this issue. 

 

 

Indeed, no one else has encountered this issue to our knowledge, so it's tricky to provide further suggestions. Are you using any iTunes plugins? Or anything else non-standard with regards to your music library that could result in unexpected behaviour?

 

When users encounter unusual behaviour on their Mac, we sometimes suggest creating a temporary user account, completely vanilla, with no plugins or add-ons installed. This may help you narrow down what could be causing the issue.

 

Cheers,

Vero

[godbout]

Oh.

No plugin, all standards. Maybe I'll try to recreate the library then, and let you know.

[godbout]

I'm a subscriber of iTunes Match. Not sure if that plays a role somewhere?

It just seems that the playlists get sync, but Alfred recreates a new one instead of taking the existing one. 

[godbout]

So, both my MacBook and iMac were wiped. Both new libraries from scratch, same issue again and again. Multiple Alfred playlists showing up, it never plays the correct songs :/

[Vero]

@godbout Could you please try creating a new account on your Mac, keeping everything absolutely standard (no plugins, no third-party tools) and test whether you can replicate this behaviour?

 

If we're able to find a reproducible case, we may be able to help establish a workaround for this issue but as, at this point, we haven't had any other users report this issue, and haven't experienced it ourselves, it's very tricky to work out what could be causing this on your Macs.

 

Cheers,

Vero

[HelgeG]

Hi,

 

Just to chime in, I am seeing the same issue as @godbout. Alfred creates multiple playlists named Alfred Playlist, and sometimes plays the wrong one. (Usually on the second try, it hits the right one).

 

I have the files in my iTunes Library on an external disk, could this influence anything? Also I subscribe to iTunes Match. I have no iTunes plugins installed.

 

This is not a big deal, just a mild annoyance. I found this thread when googling the issue, so if there is any other information I can provide that will help you narrow down the issue, please let me know.

[natebeaty]

I've also had this issue for several years. Also an iTunes Match customer, and not running any iTunes plugins.

 

My most common use of the Mini Player is "Random album", either by a workflow via Hotkey that triggers iTunes Command -> Random album, or opening Mini Player and hitting cmd-ctrl-up to pick a random album. I do this many times a day, and on both work and home computers sharing the same iTunes library + Alfred settings—though not at the same time of course.

 

I've never been able to tell when it starts duplicating "Alfred playlist" in iTunes, but I frequently have to clear out 10+ dupes manually.

 

I will say that's the only irritation though, having to clear out several playlists: I don't have the issue of it not playing the right tracks. 

Edited June 19, 2017 by natebeaty

[Vero]

Hi @natebeaty, @HelgeG, @godbout, 

 

Thanks for reporting this and for providing what information you can. The only constant I can see so far between your three cases is that you're all iTunes Match customers - but that could also be a red herring.

 

The code in Alfred that deletes and re-creates a playlist is extremely simple, so I'm wondering whether there might be a macOS permissions issue causing Alfred to be unable to delete the previously created playlist.

 

Next time this occurs, could you take a look in Console.app to see whether there are any error messages relating to permissions issues and paste them here? This may help give us a clue as to why these very isolated cases are happening, and help us establish why you might be seeing this issue.

 

Cheers,
Vero

[deanishe]

5 hours ago, Vero said:

I'm wondering whether there might be a macOS permissions issue causing Alfred to be unable to delete the previously created playlist.

 

I've also had the issue and I subscribe to iTunes Match.

 

That also syncs your playlists between devices. It's quite possible that Alfred's deleting-and-recreating the playlist is conflicting with the sync.

 

[natebeaty]

I manually added a playlist on my iPhone "Alfred Playlist" and managed to get console to spit out some AppleScript errors when selecting an album from Mini Player:

[ERROR] AppleScript Error: {
    NSAppleScriptErrorBriefMessage = "Can\U2019t get item 1 of {}.";
    NSAppleScriptErrorMessage = "Can\U2019t get item 1 of {}.";
    NSAppleScriptErrorNumber = "-1728";
    NSAppleScriptErrorRange = "NSRange: {0, 0}";
}

and immediately after:

[ERROR] AppleScript Error: {
    NSAppleScriptErrorAppName = iTunes;
    NSAppleScriptErrorBriefMessage = "Parameter error.";
    NSAppleScriptErrorMessage = "iTunes got an error: Parameter error.";
    NSAppleScriptErrorNumber = "-50";
    NSAppleScriptErrorRange = "NSRange: {0, 0}";
}

Holler if there's more digging I can do. It's a small issue, but it's the only quirk I've seen in what's otherwise a rock-solid, indispensable tool.

Edited June 20, 2017 by natebeaty

[natebeaty]

Doing a bit more testing, it certainly looks like an iTunes Match issue. Unfortunately I don't currently have access to my work computer to test this with Alfred directly, but adding a playlist manually on another iTunes Match device seems like it might offer clues. 

 

After adding the new "Alfred Playlist" on my iPhone, I now have three Alfred Playlists showing on both devices, yet two out of the three are not in sync. The most recent playlist that Alfred interacts with does sync up changes—though the console error shows up intermittently if I keep hitting Random album, and when it does it's not able to build the playlist from Mini Player, it just silently fails. It must be some sort of conflict mid-sync.

 

I built a "testfoo" playlist on my computer and "testbar" on my iPhone, and they both stayed in sync as I added and deleted items on each devices. It took about 10 seconds for them to sync up as changes propagated, but all the while two of the Alfred Playlist entries still remained out of sync on both devices, where they are empty on the computer, and showing old items on the iPhone.

 

Hopefully this gives a clue as to how to diagnose on your end. I have to imagine someone in the office has iTunes Match? One of my fav Apple services tbh: an Apple cloud service that actually works really well!

[deanishe]

4 hours ago, natebeaty said:

It must be some sort of conflict mid-sync.

 

Yeah. As @Vero says, Alfred deletes the playlist, then adds a new one with the same name.

 

This doubtless happens more quickly than iTunes Match can sync the changes, so it gets confused, and you end up with duplicates.

 

The likely solution is for Alfred to be a bit smarter about playlist manipulation, and alter the existing playlist—if there is one—rather than simply deleting it and creating a new one with the same name.

 

It's quite likely that there'll be similar issues syncing the contents of the playlist, though.

 

Might be best for Alfred to create machine-specific playlists, e.g. Alfred (Earl) and Alfred (McLovin) for my machines.

[natebeaty]

2 minutes ago, deanishe said:

Might be best for Alfred to create machine-specific playlists, e.g. Alfred (Earl) and Alfred (McLovin) for my machines.

 

This would work for me.

[Andrew]

@natebeaty @deanishe thanks! this is some indispensable info which should help me get to a solution

[Andrew]

Sorry to dig an old thread up, but I've added a new playlist local suffix field in Alfred 3.6 pre-release's Features > iTunes > Adavnced which will allow for machine specific playlist names.

 

Let me know if this helps 

 

Cheers,

Andrew

[natebeaty]

Very cool, thanks Andrew! I've still been having issues so I appreciate you addressing this issue.

 

It worked for me creating a local Playlist on my work computer. I'll do the same at home later today and keep an eye out for duplicate playlists.

[natebeaty]

So far so good! Thanks again for the fix.

[Andrew]

@natebeaty thanks for the update

[natebeaty]

Sorry to bring the bad news, but it's back to the same ol' behavior. See attached.

 

I imagine it's a royal pain to integrate with iTunes, and personally I'm willing to just ignore this bug and delete extraneous playlists every so often.

Edited March 12, 2018 by natebeaty