Audio Track Only Playing In Alphabetical Order - Any Fix?

WD Legacy Products WD TV Media Player
1

I know there are several entries regarding this topic, but no current answers. I was hoping someone had a solution.

Audio tracks play in alphabetical order rather than in album order. The WDTV is controlling a MyCloud with 800M of music files, thru NAS. All the metadata info is complete, using MP3tag. Media Library is turn on and I’ve tried “sorting” and “filtering” but nothing has worked.

I’m starting to think that this is the way WDTV functions. HELP!!

2

Hello there

I have not tried this, lets see if another user can share some information or tips on this matter.

3

I don’t know what all you have read, but I think there is a very logical and simple answer to this mystery.

What I am about to say doesn’t exactly explain your precise issue, but I bet it is closely related. In fact, playing a list of albums (unless in a playlist) may not be possible,

You are likely viewing and playing your My Cloud music collection thru Media Servers instead of Network shares. There is a big difference between the two access modes. Media server “serves” your music to the WDTV from the My Cloud, i.e. it is played on My Cloud and “pushed” to your WDTV. Network shares allows your My Cloud to act like is was a shared drive, and “pulls” media to play it directly on WDTV.

So, when I look at my own My Cloud NAS via Network shares, I see all album tracks (with track numbers) in correct alpha order. When I look at same album via Media server mode, they do not show track numbers nor are they in order, but they still can be played by server…

So, for this reason and others, I rarely use WDTV’s Media server to get to my music albums; I use Network shares. The only time I play my music using Media servers is to play from music playlists, because although Network shares can see the list of playlists it cannot play them and gives an error message that there is no media in the folder. True, playlists are not media files; just text files.

Media server access has the ability to play playlist music, because the Twonky server program in the My Cloud can read these lists, decode the music files, and “serve” them to a client. Why the files are not played in alpha order is a mystery only Twonky can explain. Perhaps it plays music in the order tracks are on the disk, or random, or some other order. Who knows or who cares, because you now know how to play your music in alpha order using Network shares.

Understanding the differences between Media servers and Network shares modes explains other mysteries of playing certain files on devices like WDTV. For example, one cannot play My Cloud stored ISO files under Media server on WDTV, because the Twonky server in My Cloud cannot decode ISO files to serve them. Network shares can play these ISO files, because the un-decoded ISO file is streamed to WDTV, and it DOES have the built-in decoder to play ISO files.

Oh, and one more story to enlighten and/or confuse the readers:
I have other server devices on my network other the My Cloud. A Windows PC is a Media server, too. So, on WDTV, I select my PC using Media Server mode. As a rule. I don’t store large movie ISO files on the PC, but I do have one or two there. So, I select one to play, and unlike from my Cloud, it PLAYS on WDTV under Media mode! Why? Because, unlike the My Cloud, the Windows media server program CAN decode/play ISO files, so it plays the file and streams actual video to the WDTV to pass on to the TV.

Bottom line is if a media server can decode an ISO file, it can be played via WDTV in Media server mode.

Hope all questions are answered.

1 Like
4

Mike, I got excited when I read your reply. However I think I am already using Network Shares. I set up the MyCloud thru the Media Library menu. Clicked on Media Library Manager for Network Share and chose MyCloud under the Window Shares option. Is there a different way to access the MYCloud as a Network Shared drive???

5

Wait…I figured it out!!! Thanks Mike!!!

6

@TAMonti,
I was about to write back and add more info, and saw your reply post had appeared, so I will try and answer that first.

Yes, I think you are seeing tracks via Network shares since that is the only way you can see tracks in alpha order on WDTV. OK, my WDTV is an older model called Live Plus, and it does not have the media library of models that followed it. I only know from what others have said about the media library, and that is it has caused them problems and folks here have suggested they turn it off, and access their media a different way. So perhaps that is what you are looking for. They may mean via the Main Menu.

I do not know what your main menu looks like, but if I describe my simple main menu it can help you find your way. I see the basics, like icons for music, photos, videos and settings etc. When I enter any media icon I am asked to select the source of the media, either from a drive directly connected to WDTV, or Media Server, or Network share.

So, I tried to do what I (think) you are wanting to do, and I went into icon for music, icon for Network shares and into NAS server, I selected a folder with more than one album in it and played album1. at end of last track album1 started repeating. Unlike playing tracks which go to the next one, WDTV did not go to next album. It is just not built to do that. You likely could do it if you used a playlist, but I did not try that.

7

OK, tell me how you did “what”.

8

First I deleted my Shared Music link. Turned off Media Library. Then I went back the WDTV manual, page 29, to set up a Network Share. Setting up the NAS thru the Media Library screen method, the WDTV reads the “title” tag on the audio file. Setting up as below, the WDTV reads the “file name” tag, which includes track numbers. Thanks Again Mike!

9

Sure, glad I was helpful. I remember the distinction between “title” and “file name” from a choice I had to make when setting my WDTV up. There is a series of choices like this for how to display all media; music, video and photos and I selected “file name” for all three, because it gave more complete info than “title”.