WHA crashes scanning iTunes playlists

[drystream]

My setup:
WiiM Pro Plus
WHA v. 3.2.3, firmware v. 4.8.717458
Running on 2025 MacBook Air (also an iPad)
Synology NAS 418j, DSM 7.1.1 update 8
MinimServer running on the NAS

I’ve transferred my iTunes library to the NAS, stored in volume1/music/iTunes Music. Playlists are in volume1/music/Playlists.

I first exported selected Playlists out of iTunes (Apple Music app), but the file locations were wrong (Volumes/music/iTunes Music/…). So I edited the files trying both absolute and relative references to the music files. After editing I rescan the server with MinimWatch.

Browsing to the Media Server in WHA and using Legacy Mode all the albums, artists, tracks, as well as Playlists display and work as expected. I don’t even have to rescan the Music Server for the Playlists to work correctly. However, if I do rescan, WHA crashes immediately. Upon re-opening WHA recognizes the rescanned playlist files and music files and everything again works as expected.

If I switch to Advanced Mode in WHA the correct number of albums, tracks, playlists, etc. are shown, but no artwork is displayed and all of the playlists show zero tracks. No music will play. If I attempt a rescan from Advanced Mode WHA always crashes and nothing will play upon re-opening, and the playlists still show zero tracks.

If I remove the Playlists folder from the MinimServer content directory and rescan with MinimWatch and then rescan with either WHA Legacy Mode or Advanced Mode WHA doesn’t crash. All albums, tracks, etc. display and play without a problem in either mode. But I don’t have the playlists.

I suppose I could just continue forward using Legacy Mode (as long as it’s supported), but I’d like to know what causes Advanced Mode to choke on the Playlist files. And also, what causes WHA to crash when rescanning the Library in Legacy Mode, even though the playlists are recognized after the crash.

I’ve been editing the playlist files using Mac TextEdit and also the Synology text editor with no change in results. Trying all the operations using WHA on the iPad also results in the same pattern of crashes and non-recognition of playlists in Advanced Mode.

Wondering if anyone else has experienced this issue with iTunes playlists, and has identified the problem.

 

[adias]

I see no problems but my Itunes library is on a Mac on the LAN, not a NAS.

 

[WiiM Team]

My setup:
WiiM Pro Plus
WHA v. 3.2.3, firmware v. 4.8.717458
Running on 2025 MacBook Air (also an iPad)
Synology NAS 418j, DSM 7.1.1 update 8
MinimServer running on the NAS

I’ve transferred my iTunes library to the NAS, stored in volume1/music/iTunes Music. Playlists are in volume1/music/Playlists.

I first exported selected Playlists out of iTunes (Apple Music app), but the file locations were wrong (Volumes/music/iTunes Music/…). So I edited the files trying both absolute and relative references to the music files. After editing I rescan the server with MinimWatch.

Browsing to the Media Server in WHA and using Legacy Mode all the albums, artists, tracks, as well as Playlists display and work as expected. I don’t even have to rescan the Music Server for the Playlists to work correctly. However, if I do rescan, WHA crashes immediately. Upon re-opening WHA recognizes the rescanned playlist files and music files and everything again works as expected.

If I switch to Advanced Mode in WHA the correct number of albums, tracks, playlists, etc. are shown, but no artwork is displayed and all of the playlists show zero tracks. No music will play. If I attempt a rescan from Advanced Mode WHA always crashes and nothing will play upon re-opening, and the playlists still show zero tracks.

If I remove the Playlists folder from the MinimServer content directory and rescan with MinimWatch and then rescan with either WHA Legacy Mode or Advanced Mode WHA doesn’t crash. All albums, tracks, etc. display and play without a problem in either mode. But I don’t have the playlists.

I suppose I could just continue forward using Legacy Mode (as long as it’s supported), but I’d like to know what causes Advanced Mode to choke on the Playlist files. And also, what causes WHA to crash when rescanning the Library in Legacy Mode, even though the playlists are recognized after the crash.

I’ve been editing the playlist files using Mac TextEdit and also the Synology text editor with no change in results. Trying all the operations using WHA on the iPad also results in the same pattern of crashes and non-recognition of playlists in Advanced Mode.

Wondering if anyone else has experienced this issue with iTunes playlists, and has identified the problem.

Hi @drystream ,

We apologize for the inconvenience!

We will replicate this issue internally to investigate the root cause. In the meantime, please assist us by submitting feedback via the WiiM Home app: navigate to the More tab and tap Feedback. Our engineers will promptly review it upon receipt.

 

[simbun]

Browsing to the Media Server in WHA and using Legacy Mode all the albums, artists, tracks, as well as Playlists display and work as expected. I don’t even have to rescan the Music Server for the Playlists to work correctly. However, if I do rescan, WHA crashes immediately. Upon re-opening WHA recognizes the rescanned playlist files and music files and everything again works as expected.

If I switch to Advanced Mode in WHA the correct number of albums, tracks, playlists, etc. are shown, but no artwork is displayed and all of the playlists show zero tracks. No music will play. If I attempt a rescan from Advanced Mode WHA always crashes and nothing will play upon re-opening, and the playlists still show zero tracks.

Don't be fooled by the name, "Advanced" mode is inferior in nearly every way and isn't compatible with many of MinimServer's features. Discussed very briefly in relation to AssetUPnP here: https://forum.wiimhome.com/threads/nas-build-enhanced-music-library.7243/post-128219

Stick to Legacy mode.

 

[drystream]

Don't be fooled by the name, "Advanced" mode is inferior in nearly every way and isn't compatible with many of MinimServer's features. Discussed very briefly in relation to AssetUPnP here: https://forum.wiimhome.com/threads/nas-build-enhanced-music-library.7243/post-128219

Stick to Legacy mode.

Advanced mode does have a more pleasing appearance, and I like being able to see the album covers at the top level in that mode, but you're right that Legacy mode is entirely adequate. I've since discovered that a couple of my playlist files will load in Advanced mode, but others won't. I submitted a ticket and examples of both 'good' and 'bad' PL files to WiiM to see if they can find out what causes the crashes with some files.

Actually, for me the best way to proceed would be to use the Apple Music app and Airplay to the WiiM. Most of my playlists are 'smart', so exported files are just a snapshot of the current library. I'm mostly just curious about what causes some files to crash WHA.

 

[simbun]

Advanced mode does have a more pleasing appearance, and I like being able to see the album covers at the top level in that mode, but you're right that Legacy mode is entirely adequate.

All the things that make "Advanced" mode nice (grid view, album sort options, jumpbar) should have made their way to "Legacy" mode long ago, which is a shame as "Advanced" mode is a real compromise. I take it you don't use DiscSubtitles (for boxsets) or Groups (primarily for classical works) as these are some of the biggest losses from "Advanced" mode, in addition to the AlbumArtist index.

I've since discovered that a couple of my playlist files will load in Advanced mode, but others won't. I submitted a ticket and examples of both 'good' and 'bad' PL files to WiiM to see if they can find out what causes the crashes with some files.

It's interesting there are playlists that work in Legacy mode but not in "Advanced" because all "Advanced" mode does is cache the metadata from MinimServer (it's not indexing your files/playlists) and present it differently, and a playlist is no different to an album really (from a UPnP sense) so I struggle to see why they'd fail. I assume the tracks in the playlists that do work are in the wrong order are they, as they are in the Android WHA.

If you don't have many tracks (or could temporarily limit your MinimServer content directory to a smaller subset) you could put MinimServer into debug mode (MinimWatch > Show log > Logging Level: Debug) and monitor the log during a WHA rescan; this will at the very least show you where the rescan fails. Make sure to change it back to Info afterwards.

By the way, in Legacy mode there is no need to perform a rescan in the WHA because every time you make a selection from the browse hierarchy the app requests the next set of results (artist/album/track list) from MinimServer (this is how DLNA/UPnP is supposed to work); the option to 'Rescan Your Music Server' should only really be available from "Advanced" mode.

 

[drystream]

By the way, in Legacy mode there is no need to perform a rescan in the WHA because every time you make a selection from the browse hierarchy the app requests the next set of results (artist/album/track list) from MinimServer (this is how DLNA/UPnP is supposed to work); the option to 'Rescan Your Music Server' should only really be available from "Advanced" mode.

Yes, I have noticed that a rescan isn't necessary in Legacy mode. However, I did a trial of creating a test playlist folder and copied each playlist file into the folder one-by-one. After each file was added I rescanned MinimServer and then re-opened the Media Server in WHA. In Legacy mode the number of playlists, albums, and items in the library is shown next to the folder icons for those categories. If I rescan with only one Playlist file in the folder the number 1 is shown (of course). If I add additional files, but don't do a rescan, the number remains 1, but when I open the WHA playlist folder all the added playlists are there. If I do another rescan the number next to the folder icon increments to the correct number. If I rescan with one of the 'bad' playlist files in my test folder, WHA crashes after the scan completes, but when re-opened the correct number of playlists is shown at the top level, and all of them open and work correctly, even the 'bad' files.

On the other hand, if a 'bad' playlist file is in the test folder along with some 'good' ones, a rescan in Advanced mode also immediately crashes the app. When re-opened in Advanced mode the correct number of albums, items, and playlists is indicated, but all of the playlists show 0 tracks. None of the album covers are shown, and none of the tracks will play. Odd that there should be such different results in Advanced mode vs. Legacy mode.

I'm still in the hunt to find out what is in the playlist files that crashes the app. I don't have any unusual punctuation or foreign-language characters that might muck things up. I need to somehow create a playlist that doesn't have very many entries, but that crashes WHA, so I can zero in on what the problem is.

Edit: I just added a number of playlists to my playlist test folder, and the integer next to the playlist folder icon in WHA did increment to the correct value without doing a rescan. Go figure! And WHA didn't crash when the additional playlists were added (as long as I didn't rescan). But Advanced mode is still non-functional, even after a rescan/crash.