MMA2 Sync Alignment of Playlists

[MattTown]

Hi,

I've had some problems getting Sync working between MM5 and MMA2 but after attending to nearly all the things in the troubleshooting wiki (I had no idea that my Jukebox's (MM5 host) network settings were so inimical to MM) sync is now working reasonably smoothly and, again, I really like the informative interface. My understanding is that:

• MM5 controls the configuration of the sync to MMA, but
• the sync itself is initiated and controlled from MMA, and
• the first part of the sync involves MM5 sending over the latest sync config to MMA, so that
• all of the sync settings in MM5 for that device should show up in MMA's sync settings.

I'm reporting here because I found that the definition of which playlists to synchronize were not entirely aligned between MM5 and MMA.

I have been syncing two playlists from MM5 to MMA, one big and one small; both of which had been variously present in and deleted from MMA in previous sync sessions. Before the start of this particular sync session the small playlist was already present on MMA but the large playlist was absent, having been deleted in the MM5 "Sync list (Library --> Device)" several days earlier. I wanted to return the big sync list to my phone so I set up the MM5 sync config for my Android phone's SD card to send over both the large and small playlists. My expectation was that by adding the large playlist to the MM5 sync list and leaving the small playlist there, the analysis process on MMA would leave the small playlist on the device and add the contents of the large playlist to MMA.

After the sync session I found that the small playlist was still present unaltered on MMA (correct), but the big playlist was still absent from the phone. Digging into MMA's sync settings - which I assumed would be slaved to that in MM5 - I found that the big playlist had not been selected in MMA. If MM5 masters the sync list then this is a bug. After I manually selected the big playlist in MMA and re-started the sync, it started sending over the big playlist to MMA.

So, I've got sync working (phew!) but I'm now confused. If MM5 masters the sync config then I've found an instance were that didn't work completely. If not then I'm misunderstanding the sync process and need guidance as to how to keep MM5 and MMA sync configs aligned.

Cheers

Matt

[rusty]

Hi Matt,

The 'Sync list' can be configured either in MMA or MMW i.e. there is no 'master'--the sync operation follows the latest configuration change. So if you added 'Big Playlist' in MMW5 to the Sync list, then it _should_ have synced when you performed the sync operation _unless_ you'd also been making changes to the Wi-Fi Sync config in MMA more recently.

-Rusty

p.s. Although MMA's sync config will mirror what has been configured in MMW, there are some aspects of the MMW sync config that are not implemented in MMA and can therefore only be configured in MMW (e.g. auto-conversion).

[MattTown]

Thanks for the explanation Rusty,
If I understand your description, then the updates to the sync list in MM5 should have been sent to MMA _unless_ I had been separately altering the sync list at the MMA end.
In this case I was not aware of having a sync list at the MMA end and so had not initiated any updates on the MMA side until I noticed the disconnect and corrected it. So, as far as I can tell, the MM5 config should have been sent to MMA in this instance.
It looks like for the moment that I'll have to check both ends of the sync to ensure that I get the result I want. Tedious but doable if it remains reliable.
If I do update the sync config in MMA, does that get propagated back to MM5?

[rusty]

If I do update the sync config in MMA, does that get propagated back to MM5?

Yes. MMA will only allow you to change the sync config if it's connected to the MMW 'server' and it propagates the change to the server as soon as you commit it. So unless there's a need to change some advanced settings in the sync profile (such as your auto-conversion rules), you're able to configure and initiate Wi-Fi sync from MMA.

-Rusty