Music Playlists not working in Android Auto

[exaveal]

Hello hello,

I love Jellyfin and would really like to start using Jellyfin also for Music. But since some months, Playlists are not supported anymore in Android Auto, Finamp (& some more apps).
There are several threads like https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-and...ssues/1439 or https://www.reddit.com/r/jellyfin/commen...any_ideas/ or https://forum.jellyfin.org/t-solved-musi...ork-solved or https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comm...yone_else/ or https://forum.jellyfin.org/t-old-playlis...-9-upgrade or https://forum.jellyfin.org/t-playlists-d...the-update

And it seems that from Jellyfin side nobody is really interessted. I don't want to put anyone in a bad light, and I really appreciate the effort behind the Jellyfin developers. I'm just really worried that Jellyfin won't be able to establish itself in the end, despite the promise of the approach.
Music playlists are essential. Ultimately, the entire Android Auto implementation no longer makes sense if you can't play playlists.

I would really like to help, but I think my knowledge is just too bad. I would give log files and everything, If somebody guides me. But in all tries to announce this big problem: No or blocking reaction from Jellyfin.

Each time I'm in my car I check out Android Auto app if anything changed.
Each time I want to hear music with my mobilephone I try Finamp if anything changed. (The Jellyfin App itself (with the web-gui) stops playing music because the the connection is lost in bad mobile-network-germany.)


So is there anything, what I can do to announce the importance of Music-Playlist support in Jellyfin?
Or is there something I miss? Is there any communication from JellyFin I have over seen?

[TheDreadPirate]

I'm not entirely sure what you are on about. I use music playlists every day. In the official desktop client, in a browser, in Finamp, in Symfonium, in Feishin. I don't have Android auto in my own cars, but the last time I borrowed a car (about 9 months ago) with AA it worked as expected. It auto resumed my playlist shuffle. I could control it from the steering wheel, etc.

Without knowing more info about your individual setup, I can't give you much advise other than it should work and I'm not aware of a larger, show stopper, problem with Android Auto.

[exaveal]

Obviously there are a lot of users who have the same problem like me. Just read this: https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/issues/10272
The problem still exists for so much people, and it's just ignored. That's what I'm about.

Perhaps that's the problem: It's working for some, and for some not. But it's not an individual problem.

My setup is pretty simple (and I think absolutley nothing special):
Jellyfin Server, latest release 10.10.5 on a Ubuntu Server (latest LTS 24.04.1, but that's not important, because the problem exists since ~07.2023).

What information would be necessary?
The problem exists since release 10.8.11. There were a lot of bug reports, all closed because they where defined as a duplicate to 10272.
I can do whatever I want. I create a new playlist. I want to play it in Finamp: Playlist does not show up. I want to play it in Android Auto: PLaylist does not show up. Any app I tried, playlists are not shown.

So perhaps it's just a problem of "some", but who could I address it?

[TheDreadPirate]

What you're describing is definitely not the expected behavior on 10.10.5. I also use Finamp (the beta redesign) and all my private playlists appear. Same with my wife's phone. Her private playlist shows up in Finamp on her phone.

And my public playlist shows up on both phones.

I'd need to see your Jellyfin logs. Please share them via privatebin.net.

If you could create a new test playlist and add a few items to it before sharing your logs, that would be helpful with diagnosing this issue.

[exaveal]

Hey, I did a lot of testing after you wrote evrything works fine with Finamp. So I got it running - at least for Finamp:
1. I had to create a new user in Jellyfin Media PLayer
2. Than log in with the new user and create a playlist
3. Log in to Finamp with the new user: Play list is shown
4. In Finamp now logoff with the new user and log in with your "normal" user: Playlists are working again ... WTF?!

But on Android Auto it's still not working. So I tried of course exactly the same for this with the Jellyfin App on Android (where Android Auto is integrated), but it did not help.
I checked the Jellyfin log, but nothing found in the log myself.

Tomorrow I will do a check again and paste the log with exactly doing these things in Android Auto. Perhaps you can see anything.

Thanks for your help so far!

[exaveal]

Well I cannot get it running. I've tried it with another smartphone and the Jellyfin app. No success.
If you like, I've sent you a login for testing. You will see the Playlist in the Jellyfin App, but not in Android Car

[TheDreadPirate]

I did not get a chance this weekend to test. I will be visiting my family again in a couple weeks. I will try again then.

[Hera]

The issue seems to be that jellyfin saves the playlists under /config/data/, but android auto only seems to recognize data that is under whatever folder you are using for your media library. I just copied the playlist xml from where it was saved (you can check the medatada for location) into my library folder and now I can see the playlist in Android auto. I am also using rsync to keep the playlist updated

P.S
This will have the effect that you will see your playlists 2 times under playlists in the regular app

[TheDreadPirate]

Ended up buying a new car earlier than planned (old car is kaput), but now I have a car with Android Auto. Can confirm that playlists don't work in the official app when using the Android Auto interface, but work without issue in Finamp.

As for the connectivity issues with Finamp on spotty mobile, there is a setting in Finamp to download your playlists for offline play. Including pre-transcoding those offline downloads.