Drag and drop of playlist on external device doesn't do anything

[wvarner]

Binary package hint: rhythmbox

Use case: I have a Sansa Clip that I use as a portable media player. I want to create a playlist (either pls or m3u) on my desktop computer and transfer it to my device by dragging my newly created playlist and dropping it to my Sansa Clip device.

Expected results: Rhythmbox populates my portable media player with the songs in my playlist, and copies over the playlist to the device reformatting it using relative links so it properly links to the music files on my device.

Actual result: Can't drag and drop playlists to music device (this appears to be unsupported).

Work around: The only way I've found to make a playlist on my portable mp3 player, is by creating a new directory on my desktop computer, dragging all the files I want copied over to that directory, creating a playlist of that directory using something like easytag (making sure it uses relative paths), opening that playlist with rhythmbox to arrange the songs in the order I want them, then copying that directory (which includes my playlist to my Sansa Clip. A lot of work!!!

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

is that an mtp device? IIRC playlists on mtp devices are not supported yet.

[wvarner (winshipvarner)]

Sansa clip supports both mtp and msc. Presently I'm using msc w/ rhythmbox, which works well, except for the ability to get playlists on it.

[Aaron Whitehouse (aaron-whitehouse)]

I have a Sansa Fuze, which I believe is similar. I am also using it in MSC mode. You may like to try the bash script linked here:
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/rhythmbox/+question/125099/+index
which works a treat for me!

[Aaron Whitehouse (aaron-whitehouse)]

Of course, actual support to drag and drop files would be much better. The script is just a dirty workaround.

For MTP mode, the bug is here:
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=503188

There does not seem to be an upstream bug for supporting the Sansas in MSC mode, but this would likely require code for each player. As I understand things, MSC mode means that the device shows up just like a USB key, so RB would need a database of where each player type stored its playlists (it doesn't seem to matter on the Fuze) and what format is used (.m3u on the Fuze), so that it can create the appropriate playlist and put it in the correct place. It would be great to have, though, as currently it looks like it should work, but just doesn't.