cannot copy playlist from library to iPod

[Micah Gersten]

Binary package hint: banshee

This is similar to bug #75571, but for a manual copy instead of a sync to the iPod. It looks like it copies, but the playlist never appears and never makes it on the iPod.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
Date: Mon Nov 9 21:13:18 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
Package: banshee 1.5.1-1
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-14.48-generic
SourcePackage: banshee
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-14-generic x86_64

[Michael Martin-Smucker (mmartinsmucker)]

@Micah, did you do anything special to get Banshee to recognize your iPod? Banshee + Ubuntu 9.10 + iPod support is generally not a winning combination right now. Just to reproduce this bug, I had to kill Nautilus, plug my iPod in, start Banshee, then restart Nautilus. If your iPod "just works" in Banshee right now, that's a bit of a miracle itself. :)

I think I know what you mean when you say "looks like it copies." From my tests, Banshee seems to add all of the songs from the playlist that you drag (Banshee shows the "adding" progress bar), but it doesn't actually create the playlist entry in the iPod's database. Basically dragging and dropping a playlist to your iPod adds the songs from the playlist, but it doesn't actually add the playlist.

If that's the issue you're having, then I think it's safe to confirm this. I was pretty sure I remembered seeing this bug in Banshee's Bugzilla tracking system, but I just skimmed through all bugs with the words iPod, playlist, or drag in the title and I couldn't find anything.

[Micah Gersten (micahg)]

@Michael Martin-Smucker

It works fine with Xubuntu 9.10 for me except for this issue. Then again, I have it on manual. I used gtkpod last time to add a playlist.

Yes, that's the issue I'm having.

[Micah Gersten (micahg)]

As this appears to be new functionality, I am marking this Wishlist and since it is already upstreamed, I am marking it Triaged.

[WeatherGod (ben-v-root)]

Michael, just a quick question... was the ipod originally initialized by iTunes on a Mac or Windows? The Mac iTunes will set the ipod with an hfs+ partition while the Windows iTunes will set it with an fat32 partition. This has caused me much confusion in Jaunty.

[Michael Martin-Smucker (mmartinsmucker)]

@Micah: Good find with that bug report. I knew it existed and I looked for it for a little while, but I forgot to check the bugs marked as enhancements.

@WeatherGod: I think the issue that I'm having with my iPod is specifically related to Karmic (and the fact that it uses DeviceKit-disks to mount iPods instead of Hal, which Banshee uses). The report for my issue is here[1]. Sorry to hear you were (are?) having trouble getting your iPod to work with Jaunty. Is your iPod filesystem hfs+ or fat32? Does it work with other tools (Rhythmbox, gtkPod)? Feel free to open another bug report and we can work on it there.

[1] https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=586508

[WeatherGod (ben-v-root)]

Michael, the ipod was initialized on a Mac, so it had hfs+ partitions. Therefore, by default, linux mounts hfs+ partitions as read only. When I figured this out, forced-mounted the partition with write permission just to transfer the songs and playlists once.

I haven't kept up with the latest on linux's support of hfs+, so I don't know if this is still the case. What should I file a bug report as in this case?

[Michael Martin-Smucker (mmartinsmucker)]

@WeatherGod I poked around on the internet a bit and found this[1]. Sounds like if you want to regularly use a Mac-formatted iPod with Linux, the best way to do it is to use OS X to reformat it as HSF+ with journaling off - the iPod is formatted with journaling on by default, and apparently Linux doesn't like that so much.

Anyway, we should probably let the conversation for this bug get back on track ;)

[1] http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=598477