Problem solved! It worked like a charm for a playlist with over 1000 songs! Thanks so much!

Change <Auto Number> to <Auto Number:4> to force a 4 digit AutoNumber for Playlists up to 9999 files.

Pramod, thank you for the instructions. I have successfully auto numbered numerous flashdrives over the past years using this method to sort by title. It has worked perfectly up to 999 songs. I recently attempted this method for a playlist with over 1200 songs. Although it seems to keep the correct order on the flashdrive, it does not work in my BMW (which has previously always worked in). It now skips from 100 to 1000 instead of 101.

Do you have any suggestions for larger playlists over 1000 songs (other than weeding thru songs and cutting down the list)? I am hoping someone has experience with this.

Hi,
Simple answer speed of access, less memory usage, lower CPU cycles, easy to implement due the strict standards and even recommended to be used for ReadOnly Devices. FAT is written on number of sectors at the beginning of Drive/Partition (that is why if HDD sector 0 is damages it is hard to make that drive be boot drive) and it is easy to read that to get exact positions of files on drive. With increase of storage capacity things changed, but principle stayed the same.

More info https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_of ... ile_system

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2Gxqv3bJCk , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgQtlXBxH0c and how they are allocated on disk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xyk9dXOuq30
Another clear example is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbHMDZTVrJg

If you watch all these videos then you will get the answer why there is a BIG BIG WARNING not to DEFRAGMENT SDD/Flash Drives/SDCards/... as defragment eats chip Read/Write times that can easily end up in killing the drive. That also explains why Defragmenting HDD after system install improve loading times especially if Defragment app is separate boot OS and is aware what most common and most used files will be loaded on startup and put them in continuous chain on faster parts of HDD. I can go on for hours as I use this for more than 25 years and often used direct FAT access to my hardware projects.

You really wonder why anyone found this a logical choice?

Hi,
Let me clear this once em for all.
- There is NO device that reads files as they are put on device. PERIOD
- it is not possible to make such device to read files as they are put on device as it is too complicated. PERIOD (on each Copy Device would need to be LOW LEVEL FORMATED and COMPLETELY BLANK prior to first track save. That behavior even if made would kill Device itself withing weeks. LOW LEVEL format is death wish for SDD/Flash Drives/ SDCards/... that are chip based storage devices.
- Devices that Claim to read files as they are written to Drive only READ FAT/FAT32/eXFAT First partition Table here File names and file positions on drives are stored. THAT is invisible to normal user and apps as it is written in order files are saving on device.
- DriveSort APP I recommended rewrite FAT Table making devices think that the files are stored in that order.

For me, the easiest way was setting the File Locations in the USB device config to <Playlist>\<Auto Number> <Title> and just right-click-send to whatever playlist to the device.

Hi,
I was right someone lied you at pioneer support as based on https://www.pioneerelectronics.com/Stat ... 080713.pdf under "USB storage device" and "Sequence of audio files" is exactly the same as in my old https://www.pioneerelectronics.com/Stat ... al1006.pdf and naming works. Only thing is that playlists are not supported in both devices, so you basically will have duplicate files in folders as each folder will be your Playlist fit file content from them.

DriveSort app worked a miracle every time.

EDIT: Only thing I think I needed to change is to set Folder Mode playback.

That was much better than copying files in bulk to the drive. It sorted the Artists in order, mostly, with a couple random albums put on the drive in between albums from another artist, but didn't sort the albums by my playlist order at all. It sorted Albums mostly by alphanumeric order with a couple exceptions where it sorted in seemingly random order instead of the order in which I have my playlist sorted, (Chronological order or Reverse Chronological order). It also mostly sorted the songs in order with a few random exceptions.

Also, If any files are added to my playlist later and I re-sync the drive then my stereo sorts the newer folders and songs last regardless of the order in my playlist because my stereo will Always sort by the order in which the file was put on the drive.

I don't mind deleting everything on the drive and re-syncing with my playlist when I want to update my drive but I need it to be in the order that I use on my playlist which is usually either Chronological Album order or Reverse Chronological Album order depending on the Artist.

In a perfect program I would want the files to be copied to the drive in this order... (1-Artist order (alphanumeric, the way the playlists are sorted) 2-Album order in my playlist (usually either Chronological or Reverse Chronological order) 3-Song order in my playlist (Usually the song order of the album).

I guess I will continue to do it the old way for my Pioneer DEH9600BHS... putting everything on the drive in the order I want, one at a time.

Thanks anyway,
Master Foo

Hi,
I tested on another pioneer car stereo and app from https://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewt ... 00#p460200 works flawlessly when files named from MMW as described.

I contacted Pioneer about the song order issue with my stereo and they confirmed that it will Only play in the order that the song was put on the drive. It doesn't matter what number the song is or how the name of the song is listed alphanumerically, it will still play in the order that the song was copied to the drive. It reads the 'time stamp Only'. I asked them if they intend to put out a fix for that and they said No.

Master Foo

Hi,
I now have Android Head Unit but while I was using LG Stereo in previous car. I always used https://www.anerty.net/software/file/DriveSort/ and it always worked flawlessly.

For MMW to USB I manually synced Playlist by Playlist using this mask "<playlist>\<Auto Number:4>. <Title> - <Artist>" so that even display crop Artist I know partially title and can navigate thru folders that are named by Playlist name.

Lowlander wrote: ↑Sat Aug 21, 2010 10:21 am You would need to know how the stereo sorts to be able to achieve a particular sort. I believe some have run into the issue that their device sorted on the time tracks were added to the USB and MediaMonkey doesn't do this in the order their listed.

I have a Pioneer car stereo and also had issues with song order. It seems that the stereo reads the songs in order that they were put on the drive. If you copy files in bulk to the drive it will play them in seemingly random order. The only way to get the songs to play in the order you want, (album order, which is important on albums that should play in a certain order), then you have to copy the songs one at a time to the drive. It's the ONLY way I have found to make it play in the correct order. BIG pain but it works. The problem is Not with MM but with the stereo.

Master Foo

In that case the blame would be with devices that can't present files in either Album sort or Playlist sort from a USB stick. Luckily MediaMonkey is flexible enough to provide a workaround for this.

And yes, as a user you'll need to set this up in MediaMonkey as one size doesn't fit all. Most would expect an Artist/Album organization for synced files, not a Playlist organization.

I'll concur that MediaMonkey seems daunting at first. However in most cases it's simpler than it seems to get to the desired result.

Well sure, I suppose if you have been using the product since 2003 you would think it isn't complicated. Weird menus, odd action names, many many clicks to get there. For somethign that in the modern world, everyone wants to do all the time. Should be a simple way to say "sync this playlist to this device and order the files". Software shouldn't be that hard to use for new users like me. I basically bought this program for ONE function, and that was it. I have been writing software for 41 years for a living. This is hardly intuitive to a new user, even one that has used a dozen different media manager programs in my time, and who writes software for a living. If J River had Auto Number I couldn't find it. It's my fave media manager at the moment. But I got Media Monkey for that one task, since it seems to be the only one who can do it at all...... even though you have to have the right phase of the moon and still takes you a gazillion clicks. Media Monkey needs to move into the 21st Century where we are using pretty stupid digital media systems in our cars instead of CDs. CDs were easy.... pick a playlist..... burn it. Now they don't even make (as far as I could find for my model of car) a system with both CD and digital media. And the car systems, for whatever reason, don't seem to support .m3u playlists. What is up with that?