[raichea]

Samsung tablet running MSP 3.5.0 on Android 9.

I'm trying to use the companion to add audio tracks (already on the tablet) to some PDF music files. When I select a track name in the companion, it kind of finds the right file but there is an error in the path. At some point I changed the name of one of the directories in the path to the audio files to be something more meaningful than it was and the companion is still saying the file can be found under the old path (that doesn't exist any more).

For example, the audio file imight be:

/storage/ABCD-1234/MP3s/playalong/Artist name/Album name/track01.mp3

but used to be:

/storage/ABCD-1234/MP3s/poorname/Artist name/Album name/track01.mp3

When I click '+' in the audio file editing screen and then double click the required audio file in the "From Tablet" pane it selects the file as expected but with this old, incorrect path specified. When I try to play that audio file on the tablet, it is not found, of course.

It seems the old path has been cached somewhere. I've tried restarting the tablet and the companion application to try to force an update to correct the path but this behaviour doesn't change.


I've looked in various places for a 'Refresh' option but haven't found anything that looks likely.

I'd really like to be able to do this editing in the companion as it's a lot quicker than doing so on the tablet.

Thanks for your attention, Steve.

[raichea]

Update

I took another look after about an hour or so since I started experiencing this problem and now I'm not seeing the old path. However, not all of audio files are visible via the companion (they exist on the SD card). So it looks like something is very slowing re-indexing the SD card to show the files that I want to access. No idea if it's MSP (my guess is it is) or Android creating the index and providing it to MSP.

[raichea]

More confused than ever now. I reinstalled the Companion on my PC and now it can only see a handful of ringtones that are in the device memory - no MP3s on the SD card at all. I can see them through file manager apps.

[Zubersoft]

In order to read the audio files on the device, the code does a query of the MediaStore. I'm not sure how often that MediaStore updates the indexed results - it sounds like it doesn't update all that often based on your description. It's not really something I have control over unfortunately. If you move the audio files around frequently, it may be faster to update things on the tablet itself. Allowing the companion app to browse the file system on the Android device over WiFi is beyond the current scope of what is supported. 

Mike

[Zubersoft]

One other thing to note - MobileSheets only scans the library once when the application starts. It's not rescanning for changes while the app is running as I didn't want to have processing in the background that would drain the battery for little gain. I could try to scan when the connection to the companion app is established, but the scanning may take a while, so then you wouldn't see any of the files on the device for as long as it takes for the scan to complete.

Mike

[raichea]

Ok, thanks for the explanation of what's going on behind the scenes. I'll keep an eye on things over the next few days.

[otnt]

More confused than ever now. I reinstalled the Companion on my PC and now it can only see a handful of ringtones that are in the device memory - no MP3s on the SD card at all. I can see them through file manager apps.

Sometimes simple restart of both (Android device and Windows PC) is all it takes to resolve communication problems or slow reads.

[raichea]

More confused than ever now. I reinstalled the Companion on my PC and now it can only see a handful of ringtones that are in the device memory - no MP3s on the SD card at all. I can see them through file manager apps.

Sometimes simple restart of both (Android device and Windows PC) is all it takes to resolve communication problems or slow reads.

You're right, of course, but I mentioned I'd done this in the original post. Thanks for reading anyway.

[raichea]

Just to close this off, the tablet has now completed indexing the songs in their new location. Just had to wait sufficient time for the media store to be updated. Thanks again.