Re-syncing playlists that have had songs deleted

Engine DJ Software Engine DJ (Mac & PC)
1

Hi All,

I am having a bit of a workflow issue that I’d like to get some input on.

I am using a Prime 4 with an internal hard drive, and managing all my music on my computer (pretty standard setup I think, and I also think this would apply if i were using flash drives etc.). If I add some songs on my computer, or make a new playlist, or add some hotcues to an existing song or something, and then sync, everything works great. The problem comes in when I try to delete something.

I’m pretty sure in 1.6, if I deleted a song from a playlist and did a sync, it would get removed from that playlist on the external drive.

In 2.0, not only is it not removed on the external drive, it is actually added back to my main collection from the external drive. This has really screwed me up a couple times, when I made a playlist, and then decided to tweak it a little bit and resync, and then the playlist on my computer becomes this weird mix of the old and new versions, with all the songs I deleted still there.

It even gives me a message that warns me that songs are going to be deleted from my external drive when I click sync, but what happens is the opposite.

The worse part is… it seems to be some soft of auto-consolidation that happens as soon as I plug the drive in, so its not like I can just manually delete the playlist from the external drive and then re-sync the new one to it. It was almost better back in the day when there was no automatic syncing (or sync manager for that matter), and there were just drives and dragging crates and playlists back and forth between them

The only workaround I have found is to make a copy of the playlist and label it v2 or something, so it doesn’t get messed with when I plug in the external drive.

Is this just user error because I am thinking about my workflow wrong? Or is it come kind of bug? I can’t imagine that having songs that you deleted not syncing across, and then getting “un-deleted” is intended behavior?

thanks!

1 Like
2

I noticed this too.

However, when you delete tracks with your USB stick connected, it seems to do the trick. But I understand if that is a hassle with an internal drive in your Prime 4…

3

Enable “drive” column.

Check the drive of the deleted track that you noticed was added back to the playlist

Is it on the laptop drive or P4 ssd ?

You can still do this. They haven’t removed this functionality.

4

I see where you’re getting at, the collection tree is supposed to show the mathematical “union” of all connected libraries. But when you remove the drive with the track still present, you notice the the track is still there. Example:

  1. create empty library on internal laptop drive with 3 tracks, and a playlist containing those tracks.
  2. insert empty USB stick and sync said 3 tracks.
  3. remove USB stick
  4. remove 1 track from said playlist
  5. re-insert USB stick
  6. track re-apears in playlist (is it really re-added or does Engine DJ just show the “union”?)
  7. remove USB stick
  8. Track is still present in playlist (thus track is re-added)
1 Like
5

Thats not ideal.

Bug it is then.

I just tested as well and can recreate this

  1. Have they secretly added the ability to sync back playlists created on the devices?
6

Thanks! I was just getting ready to type up something similar when I saw you already had, and probably better than I would have done it :slight_smile:

7

I know for one that tracks, added to a playlist on a SC6000 are synced back to Engine DJ. Entire new playlists, I don’t know.

And that’s where the reason of this bug probably lies: if a playlist is present on a USB stick, and it is not on your internal library, how do you know if that track is deleted on your laptop, or added on your USB stick? you’d have to keep a “original” set of playlists for this, and as far as I know that isn’t there. I smell a DB 2.1 coming up :wink:

But in the end, a developer should have seen this coming from miles, so I don’t really understand why they didn’t include it in 2.0…

1 Like
8

Hi @mufasa Thanks for taking the time to test it, glad its not just me!

Just to check, should I be creating a bug report or anything, or did you do that?

9

You could always check out the bug report section, if you cant find any, make one for sure!

10

Denon will tell you that you are not managing your music correctly. They insist that your workflow goes like this…

  1. Drag/drop all songs from your computer to a single folder on your external drive
  2. Create/edit all new/existing playlists within Engine DJ
  3. Never remove or relocate any music on your external drive
  4. Never create multiple folders on your external drive

This is the exact process an InMusic technician gave me, because they cannot process or comprehend how DJ’s in the real world organize their music.

4 Likes
11

I would say that what I am doing would be within those guidelines. At no time am I moving any actual music files, nor is Engine DJ having issues finding the songs or anything like that. And I am creating and working with playlists within Engine DJ. My issues are all within the software.

The “Never create multiple folders on your external drive” is an interesting comment… since one of the new features advertised in 2.0 is being able to drag a folder with sub folders in, and have playlists automatically created from the sub folders. Seems weird that they would tell you not to do that.

1 Like
12

How do I actually get to the bug report section? I see a section for feature requests but no bug reports… sorry if I’m just missing it.

13

Seems that section is removed. Try the product support then :wink:

14

Is this the section that You guys need?

https://community.enginedj.com/c/product-support/engine-dj-mac-pc/102

1 Like
15

:joy: …I do wonder how many actual DJ’s work at Denon DJ.

2 Likes
16

Well, to answer Your question - I personally know couple of them…

17

Sweet, do they mind coming on to the forum and providing justification for why Denon is trying to force everyone into a single rigid workflow? And in some cases not even living up to the hype printed on the boxes the gear comes in?

It’s obvious that core workflow and performance functionality is suffering so that more marketable features like streaming and lighting can be rolled out. I don’t think they have the balance right at the moment. They will need to figure it out soon if they want to maintain customer loyalty.

1 Like
19

I don’t know. The people that I know are not devs or technicians, but definitely skilled djs.

20

They expect you to have a separate harddrive for using Denon products and to never use that harddrive on any other DJ software/program. This is a dangerous idealology, because it limits DJ’s in retrospect that many of us use our drives for other programs and we update our libraries weekly!

Not only that, but if you are like me, Engine Prime has caused my database to crash multiple times. You are one step ahead by having your external drive replicate your Engine DJ folders so that you can easily re-import all folders if your database crashes again.

Vote on better library syncing here -https://community.enginedj.com/t/import-update-system-folders-as-playlists-engine-dj-desktop/36811

We have been asking for these same features for years and haven’t heard a peep about most of them. Tell me why not one of the top ten most liked features has been implemented yet? (stacked waveforms counts as filling half of the request order IMO)…

image
image1120×840 104 KB

There are three feature requests in here that would act as solutions to OP’s problem. Three times!!!

21

Ehm nope. Apart from the fact that @JWiLL is the one pushing the team, the most popular legacy requests were recreated by him to get the new feature request environment going and to be voted upon asap. It was a mess and we hope to have a better way forward after all those years. The dev cycle is also shorter, as you might have noticed. But yeah still lots of work to do…

4 Likes