TwonkyServer default sorting behavior

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Hi BigPrimeNumbers

I note you mention 'Thanks Briain. I actually tried doing this rpc restart'

The :9000/rpc/restart that you tried just won't work - that just restarts the server - you need to use :9000/rpc/rebuild to scrap the existing database and then re-create it from new.

I know it looks like the database is rebuilding when you :9000/rpc/restart the server (or physically restart it), but it isn't; it's just fully refreshing the media in the existing database (like a full rescan). The only way you'll pick up the changes you've made to the existing folder container is by performing a full database rebuild, and the only way to do do that in Twonky 7 is by sending the :9000/rpc/rebuild

Just to be completely clear, the folder container should now look as shown in the below picture (click on it to expand it).



Hi phibertron

I note your note 'this is not a custom navtree supporting issue
the big issue there is that groupid was removed, it no more workie'.

Whilst this is true, he's not using a custom tree (with custom containers) so in this case, he doesn't need the groupid feature; he's added the sort order to the existing tree, which will work just fine. I know you totally realise that, but I'm just clarifying it for BigPrimeNumbers sake (in case he thinks it won't work after reading your note). :-)

Bri

I really appreciate all of the help here. Sorry Briain, I miswrote restart instead of rebuild, but I had indeed been using the rebuild command.

So in my view-definitions.xml file, my folder container looks identical to the one shown in the post above . I've waited for the db to be totally rebuilt. I am using the advanced navigation tree (is this necessary; can I use simple folder navigation?). The album container has the songs sorted properly, but when I search by folder, the order is still alphabetical.

I'm not sure why this is, as I believe I followed the instructions verbatim. Could there be more than one folder container I have to edit in the view-definitions file? I made a copy in the same directory of the original view file, and called it view-definitions-original.xml, could this cause a problem? Any ideas?

That could be problem, as there are some entries in the file
that townky might be reading since it still has the xml extention

try renaming to view-definitions-original.xml to view-definitions.xml.original
then restart twonky server

Hi

Yes, as phibertron has mentioned above, you don't want any renamed files sitting in /views as they will likely corrupt the database. Change the existing views-definitions.xml file (as you have done) and don't keep any renamed backup versions in that same folder (store them somewhere else).

I note that Twonky don't show the folder container in the advanced view, but that one is simple to change; if you edit the advanced.view.xml file and add the below link to the list of music links:

link id='music/folders' /> (add a less-than symbol before it)

After a database rebuild, it will pop a folders container into the menu of advanced default view. :-)

Bri

So there are no extraneous files in the view directory now. I've set tree navigation to Folder. The files are still all in alphabetical order.

I suppose it's possible that the meta data isn't being read for some reason (though album artwork shows up). Is it possible to simply have the contents of the folder show up as is, regardless of meta data.

What I mean is, if i look at the music folders with Finder on my Mac, they are in order based on the file name, and this is the correct order. Can this be done with Twonky as well?

I know you want the by folder navtree view
But to figure why you are not seeing the change being made take effect
It would be best to have a look at the advanced view as the default view
and then check that the other containers in that view are sorting as would expect

what app or client are you viewing the media from on twonky server?

I set the navigation tree back to Advanced for now, and only Artist seems to sort correctly.

I'm using Twonky on my PS3 and Xbox 360. I also use PS3 Media Server for things not on my NAS, and the order shows up correctly with that, so I don't think the consoles are messing up the order.

I set the navigation tree back to Advanced for now, and only Artist seems to sort correctly.

That eludes to the possibility that the metadata on the music
"might" be missing, incorrect, or some issue with the id tags
wich would explain why the addition to the by folder isnt working
if it isnt working in the other deafult containers that already have it
I would inspect some of the music metadata for accuracy

I'm using Twonky on my PS3 and Xbox 360. I also use PS3 Media Server for things not on my NAS, and the order shows up correctly with that, so I don't think the consoles are messing up the order.

The ps3 will respect the twonky sort order

The xbox will not respect the twonky sort order
I know with a great certainty that the xbox will only allow for two sorting choices
either by media type or by title

The meta tags seem to be fine. Is there a way to have the sort order depend solely on the actual file names and ignore metadata?

"The meta tags seem to be fine. Is there a way to have the sort order depend solely on the actual file names and ignore metadata?"

That is what I'm trying to do so desperately.... without success :(

Hi

Probably the best thing to do next would be to identify where the problem is. My thoughts would be that you should download Kinsky Desktop Control Point and see what it shows in the folder container. I know that it does show the modified Twonky folder view correctly, so if it works, you'll know for sure that your modification has worked, but if Kinsky doesn't show the tracks sorted by track number, you'll know there's a problem with the changes you've made.

If it's the former - Kinsky does show them in the track number order - then you'll know that the problem lies elsewhere (Xbox or PS3 not correctly interpreting the results). If it's the latter - Kinsky showing them alphabetically - then it's either an issue with your modification to the tree, or a problem with the tagging.

You can download Kinsky from here: http://oss.linn.co.uk/trac (it's a UPnP control point, but it might not work with PS3 or Xbox - that depends how well they have implimented their UPnP feature - but it will permit you to browse your collection on a known control point and thus see what the sort order is).

Bri

it does not work here as well, the sort order cannot be changed in folder view...

There is something really strange about Twonky server. I've tried 5 dlna servers and only Twonky has this sorting problem. The others have other issues ;) I'm not an expert and I don't know exactly what is going on. Twonky with Kinsky works good but Twonky with my Yamaha ampli does not. I've tried hard to make it work but I've failed :(
My solution? I've found minidlna server. It just works for me.

Hi

No, there are actually lots of things strange about Twonky (chortle, chortle; I'm just kidding, Twonky folks). It's great for pictures and videos, but IMHO the music capability is - in certain areas - a little basic when compared to other servers. For example, it doesn't deal with albumartist without modifying the tree, and even when it is modified, when looking at compilation albums, it still shows a random contributing artist against the album (as opposed to having an algorithm which looks for albumartist and uses that where it's present). That's why I now use MininServer for music and Twonky for everything else. Things like Foobar and - I think J River - handle albumartist correctly and it's one area where Twonky needs some attention. In addition, Twonky has a cool feature to show multiple genres, but it has been implemented in a bespoke way (genre=genre1,genre2,genre3) and that means you can't share libraries with other servers/devices (MinimServer, Siimserver or Sonos) whereas the correct way is genre=genre1 genre=genre2 genre=genre3.

Twonky also has some very cool features including the capability to aggregate several instances of Twonky into one media library, but I wonder if this an area which can leave it vulnerable to odd problems. Several months ago, I was helping an Arcam owner who also wanted to change the folder view, and it all worked fine for a while, then the entire music tree became scrambled. He ended up getting so hacked off that he sold the Arcam and bought a Linn DS instead (he's now a very happy chappy). The thing is that it looks like the Arcam was determined to show things in the way Arcam wanted, and that this was somehow corrupting the Twonky database. I've no idea by which mechanism that was happening, but one guess could be that it was upsetting things by causing chaos with the aggregation feature in Twonky (even though that was disabled).

The above is purely a wild guess as I didn't have any access to his system - it was all done via emails - but it does show that things can go a wee bit wrong when a 'modified version' of Twonky (i.e. one with custom trees) interacts with certain other products.

In my case, I've been using Twonky since 2007 (so all versions from 4.4.1 (from memory) through to 7.0.9. For 5.0, 5.1, 6.0 and 7.0, I have used custom trees and never seen any problems when using a raft of control points and several media players, so under these circumstances, Twonky works really well for me. That said, it appears that it can behave oddly when using modified trees and certain media players, but I'm not able to investigate that issue here as all my stuff works without any such problems.

Bri

it is weird, I am sniffing the xml dialog and this is twonky which is sending this, not the control point reordering at all.

could you please post the entire view section from the XML file you are using. I am on a Linux verson 7 on a QNAP 269 pro NAS so there might have difference between builds on different platforms.

In addition the Kinsky client does not succeed at displaying tracks in the right order

musiq222: look at the request for a folder contents... My was with +dc:title sort criteria.... I don't know why my ampli wants that.. It doesn't happen with other servers. There is also no such thing in my view-definitions.xml..

I'm relatively new to Twonky, so apologies if mw question is naiively phrased. I'm running v 7.0.11 (just upgraded from 7.0.7) on a Netgear ReadyNAS. Although have also installed it on a Windows 7 machine for comparison to rule out any issues with the NAS. I am getting very frustrated at the sort order. If I have a two CD album, I put them in the same folder and set the TPOS tag (aka Part of set) to 1/2 and 2/2 accordingly.

The web view of Twonky correctly sorts the tracks so that disc 1 is followed by disc 2. However all my connected devices intersperse the two discs, ie playing strictly in track number order regardless of disc number. Why is Twonky serving a different sort order to external devices than it shows on its own webpage? Attached is an example of the webpage (correct) and Media Player (incorrect) looking at the same album...my other devices (eg Denon DNP-720AE) show same sort order as media player.



I've tried editing the XML file as described in this thread and then rebuilding the library, but appears to have no effect.

I tried to solve this problem but I failed.
I use minidlna for listening music. It's simple, use almost no resources at all ;) and... simply works as it should.

Briain: OK, but I have yamaha ampli and it is the same story... Maybe you're right that these amplituners do something wrong but when I choose "By folder" I expect that Twonky server will use file name instead of tag.

By folder is a different issue in that the default Twonky behaviour is to sort them by title (as opposed to track number). The only way to change that is to modify the Twonky view-definitions.xml file and add the sort term to the Twonky code (as I have done in my custom trees). Even if you do that, there's no guarantee that the media player's control point will respect any changes to the sort order as manufacturer might have decided to add their own sorting criteria to their control point software. I can't understand why some manufacturers decide do these sorts of things - it seems pretty odd to me - but I know that it happens.

I use both MinimServer (which natively sorts items in the folder container by track number) and Twonky (modified to sort folder container by track number) and thus I know that it works on systems that do as they are told, but I'm not familiar with Yamaha or Denon and thus don't know if they have implimented their own ideas on how these products sort things. I know that some products behave oddly as I spent ages helping someone who had an Arcam and it reacted very badly to custom trees. He got so hacked off with it that he eventually sold the Arcam and bought a Linn DS instead (and is now also enjoying a massive improvement in the sound).

Bri

OK. I'm not an expert but I see it that way:
Server can send an already sorted list of files to player or send something and tell player to sort it.
If we know that the second way is common problem and even products of such big companies like Denon and Yamaha behave that way so why Twonky cannot change it? It's almoust like Twonky vs rest of the world ;)

Hi Jaszczur

It can be quite confusing as some things actually perform two functions (media player with built in control point). To explain that in more detail, it's best to think of them as three separate elements as I'll describe below.

There are three distinct aspects to all this; the media server, the control point and the media player. In the case of a Linn system, the control point is software (from Linn, or from third party vendors like Chorus and Songbook) some are designed to be run on a PC or Mac, others run on iThings and there's one for Android (Bubble DS) and these control point software packages respect the sort order defined by Twonky (or MinimServer). In that case, the three elements can be on three different devices, for example Twonky on a NAS, the control point on an iPad and the media player being the Linn box.

Other media players (like DLNA TV's) have the control point built into the media player (e.g. the on-screen menu on the TV, or the on-screen menu generated within a WDTV Live Hub). So although there are only two physical devices (say a NAS with Twonky on it and a DLNA TV), there are still three distinct elements to the process. Where the control point is built into the device, you are at the mercy of the manufacturer to provide a device firmware update to change anything, so that's going to be more difficult to do as that has major implications for the manufacturer (they will likely have to send a full system firmware update and thus ensure they don't break some unrelated functionality in their product).

As to the chosen sort order for Twonky folder view, I can see why they have taken that route. Whereas folks like myself sort ripped discs into album folders, some folks rip music to 'dynamic artists' folders. This means they end up with a folder per artist and thus the album track sort order would make no sense when looking at folder view. That's likely why Twonky took a decision to sort the folder container by alphabetical track title. Personally, I think dynamic artist filing would be a nightmare (particularly if you had compilation albums; they'd be scattered about all over the place) and thus sorting the folder container as though it were an album container makes more sense to me, but I can see arguments either way. The way Twonky has chosen means it doesn't all go drastically wrong for some folks (no matter which filing method the user has on their server), and they probably feel that if you wish to show an album in the correct sort order, the other containers will do so. Personally, I vastly prefer to change the sort order and that's why I added it to my custom trees.

I cannot even imagine how to use these dynamic folders... :) I'm not so scrupulous with tags. When you have few thousands of songs it will take sooo much time to make it right. And what about compilations? It is just how you explained.
But still... It could be end of story if Twonky would just add a container "files and folders" or whatever with sorting by file name.

Oh I so agree!!! It should either be two containers (something like 'By Folder Alphabetical' and 'By Folder Actual') or simply a tick-box in the Twonky config pages.

As to tagging, I've over 40,000 FLAC files (about 3000 albums) and as there are quite a few compilations, I now use the AlbumArtist tag to navigate to my music, I re-tagged them all manually and took the opportunity to use 'surname, forename' for that value. So for example, I now have them showing as Bowie, David and Pop, Iggy. Of course, I've left The The as it is :-)

and what to do with something like "Tribute to Jimi Hendrix", "U2 Remixes"... :P
I cannot imagine why Twonky don't want to add this "tick-box" for such a long time. It cannot be so difficult... Probably they don't read their forum and don't care about problems we have.. :/

thx briain, i'll copy that sorting-string from your v6 xml. :-) just a sidenote, isnt it possible to sort by year? didnt search that deeply yet, but never saw a tree structure based on release date!? :-?
well, also the alphabetical-folders would be very helpful for other trees. my 2010 samsung only shows like 101 folders. if there only would be an nice to handle editor for customizing the twonky trees!

sort order like

Folder
|-Album Artist
.|-Album
..|-Artist - Title
.|-Genre
..|-Album Artist
...|-Album
....|-Artist -Title
.|-Year
..|-Album Artist
...|-Album
....|-Artist -Title
|-Year
.|-Album Artist
..|-Album
...|-Artist -Title
|-Genre
.|-Album Artist
..|-Album
...|-Artist -Title

would be really awesome... (sorry for thread-jacking!) :-)

Hi

The custom Twonky 6 trees have a 'Year' container which shows albums for that year. I've set it to ignore long dates (so one at 24 10 2010 and one at just 2010 both appear in the 2010 container). I always meant to expand that container into year/album, year/artist, year/AlbumArtist, etc, but never got round to it (principally because nobody pestered me for it). Unless you need Twonky 7 for some specific reason, you might be better using Twonky 6 and one of my custom trees as these were designed for large music collections (see the screen shot of how the alpha-grouping helps reduce container content size).

I'm now using MinimServer beta for my main music collection (it's very different to Twonky and it's easy to customise the trees; I'm running it on a NAS, but you configure the trees and alpha grouping on your PC or Mac via a Java app he's written. I still use Twonky 6 (with the AlbumArtist tree) for my archive music collection, and obviously I also use Twonky for photos and videos (MinimServer is a music only server) so that's another interesting option to look at.

Bri

yeah, as i came across the linn thread, i also noticed minimserver... need to set it up on my crippled medion nas for testing purpose (if i get it runnung) ;-) guess we almost have the same expectations to dlna-servers, as photo and video should be supported too.

I hate to say this on a Twonky forum environment, but MinimServer is excellent for music and works great with Linn DS control points. That said, it doesn't resize art, and whilst that might suit folks like myself, it means some media receivers (ie devices with built in control points) might not like large image files being sent to them (a lot of mine are now 800 x 800 pixels and thus about 300 KB files). There's no problem running both Twonky and MinimServer as they appear on different ports. I have them serving different collections, but you can just as easily have both serving the same music collection (they appear as two separate media servers on your control point) and thus select the one that works best with each control point that you have. You could even use Twonky with their own tree and have a more complex one set in MinimServer (so an easy one for guests and a complex one for your own use). There are many possible reasons why you might wish to run both.

for sure i'll give it a try, but my medion nas isnt very flexible when it come to installing software (already running with ffp from usb-stick so i could update twonky to v7). we wouldnt search for alternatives on a twonky forum, if they would give us a little more space for costumization... can minimserver read custom mp3 tags like "remixed by"?

It can use any existing or even create totally bespoke tags. If you wanted a tag called 'venue' you could create that (by adding the field in like MP3TAG then tagging your albums) then add it to MinimServer and it will show on the menus. In the current one, you can even rename the menu items, so I've started using the Ensemble tag (for reasons I'll not bore you with here) and show it on the main menu as 'Album Artists'. :-)

That said, I'm only familiar with FLAC, so I've no idea what - if any - restrictions MP3 tags have.

The only hassle is that you have to first install JRE and that means filling in a form to download it (you only need complete the first page and omce submitted, they send you a link to the downloads; the link only works for 30 minutes so I can't just post it here).

the JRE-part i've already nailed down, as i tried bubbleupnp server for streaming over inet. which needs JRE too... sounds like a real powerful tool in combination with foobar! :-)

Hi

Yes, I tried using BubbleUPnP server to proxy both MinimServer and Twonky. My aim was to use its feature where it can resize art to about 200 pizels for thumbnails, but still send original resolution art for the now playing screen on my control point, but it seems that none of the CP's I use request the correct thing (Kinsky just requested now playing art for both and Songbook Lite requested thumbs for both. Ho hum, it would have been a nice feature had it worked.

Bri

Briain

As you suspected, LINN Kinsky does indeed show all the tracks in the correct order (ie disk 1 followed by disk 2). I presume that Kinsky is a certified DLNA client?

I will forward this additional evidence onto Denon.

Tennant

Hi

It's a UPnP control point, and I know the chaps in Linn Design are very fussy about sticking to standards. They have added some of their own features (these are referred to as 'Linn extensions' and are documented on their site; it's an open source project) but it does comply with the UPnP AV Architecture (you can actually use Kinsky to control a Sonos in its UPnP mode, as opposed to using the Sonos bespoke control system).

One way to think of it is that Linn DS and Sonos can be used in two different ways, one way is by using the control points tailored to their design (this being how both these devices can perform gap-less playback) and they can also be controlled in standard UPnP mode (which means you need the control point continuously talking to the media player, so the music stops if you close the control point); the latter mode is also how Twonky Beam can operate with them. As well as controlling the DS in the way Linn have chosen, Kinsky can control the Linn player and the Sonos as standard UPnP players, so in that sense, it is a standard UPnP control point.

What I wasn't sure about was whether disc number was part of the UPnP interoperability standards, but I've just found a post by Simon (the author of MinimServer) answering another forum member's question about a disc number issue:

I'm planning to write a section for the User guide explaining the tagging standards that MinimServer uses. You're right that MinimServer expects DISCNUMBER to be a positive integer. This conforms to industry standards for how this tag is used.

Simon is a very knowledgable chap and I know that like Linn, he also is a stickler for adhering to standards, and the above paragraph clearly states that this value is part of the standards, so assuming that is correct (and knowing Simon, I'm certain it will be) then the UPnP product manufacturers really ought to make the effort to recognise it.

Bri

PS For reference, the post I was referring to is at the below:

http://forums.linn.co.uk/bb/showthrea...

Thanks to Briain and others in this thread bringing its existence to my attention, I have also switched to Minimserver, at least for now.

Yesterday I rebooted my server after an IP change, and found Twonky was no longer communicating. The daemon was running, but not accepting connections from clients or browsers. So I figured, well, since I now have to do some geekery anyway, I'll spend the time installing Minimserver instead of troubleshooting Twonkymedia. So far it's fine, though it was a little troublesome to get it set up to start automatically in headless Debian.

My final thought on the actual topic of this thread: I don't know how many people here are familiar with old-school science fiction, but there's a 1942 story by Lewis Padgett about a man who accidentally buys a music player from the future that wants to read his mind and thinks it knows better than he does what it should play and when. It also does a lot of other stuff that he doesn't want it to do. He only bought it to play the music he wanted when he wanted it, not make decisions for him. The name of this device (and of the story) was the Twonky.

Just sayin'.

Nice story dwasifar :D

Oh look... 2013 and we still don't have the ability to play albums in the order they were recorded.

Those old vinyl LP's are looking pretty convenient right now!

Sorry guys...
You are waaaaay to smart for me.
I am new on this and I am so irritated that I cannot sort by filename...
Is there someone who can help me?
In words that I can understand hahahaha ???