[nathanm]

None of my MP3s have track data in the ID3 tags.  But the FILENAME is kosher.  Unfortunately this stumps the Squeezebox 3 apparently.  Well, not exactly but it's idea of sorting by filename appears to be ignoring numbers entirely.  So what's supposed to be:

01-Devils Haircut.mp3
02-Hotwax.mp3
03-Lord Only Knows.mp3
04-The New Pollution.mp3
05-Derelict.mp3
06-Novacane.mp3
07-Jack-Ass.mp3
08-Where It's At.mp3
09-Minus.mp3
10-Sissyneck.mp3
11-Readymade.mp3
12-High 5 (Rock The Catskills).mp3
13-Ramshackle.mp3

when added to the slimserver playlist becomes this mess:

05-Derelict.mp3     from Odelay  by Beck        Down       Up       Remove from playlist      
          01-Devils Haircut.mp3 from Odelay by Beck    Down    Up    Remove from playlist    
          12-High 5 (Rock The Catskills).mp3 from Odelay by Beck    Down    Up    Remove from playlist    
          02-Hotwax.mp3 from Odelay by Beck    Down    Up    Remove from playlist    
          07-Jack-Ass.mp3 from Odelay by Beck    Down    Up    Remove from playlist    
          03-Lord Only Knows.mp3 from Odelay by Beck    Down    Up    Remove from playlist    
          09-Minus.mp3 from Odelay by Beck    Down    Up    Remove from playlist    
          04-The New Pollution.mp3 from Odelay by Beck    Down    Up    Remove from playlist    
          06-Novacane.mp3 from Odelay by Beck    Down    Up    Remove from playlist    
          13-Ramshackle.mp3 from Odelay by Beck    Down    Up    Remove from playlist    
          11-Readymade.mp3 from Odelay by Beck    Down    Up    Remove from playlist    
          10-Sissyneck.mp3 from Odelay by Beck    Down    Up    Remove from playlist    
          08-Where It's At.mp3 from Odelay by Beck

Sorted alphabetically, ignoring the numbers.  I can't figure out what probably obvious thing I'm missing.  I've tried different "Guess Tags" combinations in the Formatting preference screen (PATH, FILE etc.) but it still feels that numbers don't exist.  Perusing numerous FAQs and forums on this one has been fruitless.  Anyone have a hint?  Thanks!  I do have a feeling I'm SOL on this one.

[mgalusha]

Hmm, if I browse by directory I believe it usually get it's right as my filenames are in pretty much the same format as yours with track number followed by song title.

One thing you might check is the randomize playlist feature. I have found it turned on a couple of times. I don't know if it's on by default or if I just screwed up and hit the wrong button. In either case, it will act very much like what you are describing when it's on.

[nathanm]

But the result isn't randomized, it's sorted alphabetically.  (ABCD...Z0123 instead of 0123456789ABCDEFG...Z) The playlist does respond when I alter the either of the sort settings, but it never wants to put the track numbers in proper order.  Weird.  I am pretty sure I unchecked the randomize option, but I'll have to take a second look.

[mgalusha]

See, that's what I get for posting early in the morning, not awake enough yet to read very well. I'll have to play around with it when I get home and see if I can reproduce it.

[Tweaker]

If you search using  "browse music folder"  you will not be able to have your music sorted by track number. The only way this can be done is by browsing by artist, album, etc. If you roll back to the 6.1.1 Slimserver there is an option in one of the server settings menus that will allow for sorting by track number order when using "browse music folder". This feature was eliminated because Slimdevices uses feedback from us, the consumer, about what features are important and apparently one of the overwhelming desires was improving performance. (How eliminating that feature improves performance or file searching speed I don't know). So you have two choices, use the other browse features when you want tracks played in order, or roll back to Slimserver 6.1.1.
Here's a link to some discussion about this over at the Slimdevices forum.
http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=16455

[nathanm]

Thanks for the link.  Dang, that sucks they changed it.  I guess I am still in the 'physical CD access paradigm' because I usually look for the artist I want to hear first and then play the album.  I can see where alphabetic sorting makes perfect sense for people who have a specific song title in mind rather than an artist.  I guess that's the basic fundamental break between the old medium and new.  Apple started selling songs instead of albums and thus...

If you search using  "browse music folder"  you will not be able to have your music sorted by track number. The only way this can be done is by browsing by artist, album, etc.

Actually that is how I arrived at that list, I clicked the Browse By Artist link, clicked on "Beck" then hit the plus sign + button for "Odelay" to add it to the playlist.  I don't think I've even tried the "Browse Music Folder" option yet.  

I found a shareware ID3 tag editor called "ID3X" which appears to allow you to batch rename the track fields, but the stoopit demo doesn't even allow you to test this functionality.  Doh!

Ahh screw it all, I'm going back to wax cylinders!

[chadh]

Sorry - I may be dense - but it strikes me that this isn't a problem of whether slimserver sorts tracks by track number or in alphabetical order.  The problem is there is no track number attached to these.  The things that look like track numbers are actually encoded as part of the title - and it's part of the title that (for some reason) slimserver overlooks.  I don't think it could even be that slimserver uses an order of A,B,C...Y,Z,0,1,...9.  If that were the case, then 01-xxxxx would still come before 02-yyyyy in the ordering.

Besides, if there exist actual track numbers (that slimserver identifies as track numbers) slimserver will use these to list the tracks.  (At least, it does for me).

But maybe I'm all wrong.

If this is the problem, can't you add track numbers to these files somehow?  ( I mean, numbers that are identified by slimserver as track numbers).  Could it be that the "guess tags" feature might work, as long as the files in the folder were ordered properly in the first place?  (e.g. if your folder is placing them in alphabetical order, and then you use "guess tags" then it's likely to assign file numbers corresponding to the alphabetical order).

Chad

Chad

[nathanm]

Well you're not that dense Chad, you're just re-describing my problem more succinctly and not realizing it!  Ha!  (no offense meant) The first post explained that.  Track numbers exist only in the system filename, not within the internal ID3 metadata. Squeezebox wants to sort by track number only if this data is in the ID3 tag.  It ignores the numbers when sorting by system filename.

The first list of songs - those ARE the actual filenames on the hard drive you would see in Explorer\Finder.  That is how I was using them before I got the Squeezebox.  I was able to set my software MP3 player (Audion\Winamp) to sort the playlist based upon the system filename rather than ID3 tag metadata.  But for whatever reason the MP3s either lost or never had the track numbers in the ID3 tag metadata.  The artist, title and other tags are present, but not the track numbers.  

I would assume that putting TRACKNUM as sort criteria in the "Guess Tags" field would recognize numbers, but apparently not. Neither FILE.EXT nor PATH work.  Well, if you use PATH you can't see the song names anyway.  Lots more fun to be had it seems...

Here's an illustrated version of the problem:


So basically this is the tradeoff of buying from allofmp3 I guess.  Hey, I'll take it.  Two cents per MB vs. 99 cents per track, why thank you sir I'll have another!

[nathanm]

Using the Browse Music Folder option DID put the numbers in correct order for non-track# files.  But overall I fixed the true problem using that ID3X utility shown above ($18 *grumble*) which has a batch feature for sticking in track data based upon filename and # of files in the folder.  Very cool.

The SB3 is a great unit for encouraging OCD-style behavior with one's music.  Lots of tweaky filing and ordering and organizing to be had.  After the track #s got fixed automatically all I had to do was create proper genre names.  being able to change the menu items and order is extremely cool.  Must be even cooler to be in mgalusha's shoes.  I'm jealous.  It's the closest thing to having a user-alterable piece of hardware.  I wish I could change the menu system on my DVD player in the same manner.  It always takes ten keystrokes to get to where I want.  

Now the only problem is that AIFFs, WAVs and OGG files don't have ID3 tags so they're left out of the party.  Hmph.  Copying off AIFFs via Audion is not very time consuming but it sucks cause you can't have metadata.