[Joe Bloggs]

After working on users' reports of various problems encountered in the current X5 firmware 2.0 and 2.03beta, a new beta firmware 2.04beta is now available for download and testing here:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/8htn95tqo1knq4a/X5_FW2.04Beta.zip
Edit 4 July 2014: 2.05beta is now available for download and testing
http://www.mediafire.com/download/61bmhlie4jh86y9/X5_FW2.05Beta.zip

Please note the following:

1. This is a development beta. Please consider carefully whether you want to upgrade to it. (You can always downgrade back to 2.0)
2. Problems encountered with this firmware may be posted to this thread--please keep the main X5 thread free from clutter regarding bugs on beta firmware.
3. To avoid public misunderstanding, please refrain from posting about bugs and imperfections of the beta firmware outside this beta firmware discussion thread.

Main points of improvement of 2.04beta are as follows:

1. Improved issue where songs on playlists generated on the computer are not shown in the right order on the X5
2. If playing a song from Browse Files and then adding said song to a playlist, pressing the back button afterwards now takes you back to the correct directory where the song resides (rather than All Songs).
3. Fixed issue where various playlist-related menus could only be navigated via the scroll wheel and not the previous / next buttons.
4. Fixed issue where the fast forward / rewind speed for songs split from CUE sheets was sometimes way too fast compared to other songs.
5. Fixed issue where the player advanced from the first song to the next without the change being reflected in the UI (which remains frozen on the first song) when playing songs split by CUE files from Browse Files.
6. Fixed issue where songs split from CUE files could not be added to Favorites when played from Browse Files.
7. Addition of songs split from CUE files to playlists disabled owing to incompatibility.

Main point of improvement of 2.05beta:
Further improved issue where songs on playlists generated on the computer are not shown in the right order on the X5.

Instructions for creating playlists on the computer pasted here again for reference:

Instructions for generating playlists for use on the X5 from the computer:

1. As mentioned before, mount the SD card on your PC (e.g. via the X5's storage mode) and import the songs you want playlisted from the SD card to a new list on your player of choice.
2. Export the playlist to an M3U or M3U8 file ON YOUR COMPUTER (e.g. your desktop), not the SD card. This will force the generated playlist to contain full absolute paths for each song as well as a drive letter reference.
3. Open the M3U file in a text editor.
4. If an "#EXTM3U" line is not seen at the top of the file, add it. (without the quotes)
5. Replace all drive letter references (say, "X:") with "TF1:" if the card is to be placed in X5's slot 1, or "TF2:" if in slot 2. (this can be done using a "replace all" action on your text editor)
6. Save the modified file anywhere you like on the card (anywhere where you think it will be easy to find the playlist, e.g. in the root directory or in the same directory where most of the songs themselves are found. Since absolute paths are used the X5 obviously doesn't care where you put them)

 

[AlexBurkin]

Dynamic in-player playlist improvements in plan?

 

[x RELIC x]

Tried the new FW........

The Play All by Artist is still a regression from 2.02b in the way it lists the song order. Fiio, 2.02b was perfect, please return to that song order for Play All by Artist.

On my Mac I referenced the songs from my mounted TF1 card to create a playlist, replaced the "/Volumes/TF1/” path with the "/TF1/" path and saved to the root of the TF1 card. Updated library and, "no Playlists found". I can browse to the file but that's the error I get when I select it. Same thing through category view.

Then I replaced "/TF1/" with "TF1:" as instructed by Joe (D'OH) and guess what......... "no Playlists found".

Is there a special name required for the Playlist itself that isn't documented? Does it have to match the internal Playlist name format? That would be silly if you ask me.

Right now I can't get it to work with external playlists. Internal playlists generated with the X5 still don't show songs in the order they were added when adding from the Browse by Folder menu.

I'm going back to 2.02b where at least the Play All by Artist was working well.

Also, I might detect slightly more forward mids. Not sure though.

 

[tjw321]

Tried the new FW........

The Play All by Artist is still a regression from 2.02b in the way it lists the song order. Fiio, 2.02b was perfect, please return to that song order for Play All by Artist.

On my Mac I referenced the songs from my mounted TF1 card to create a playlist, replaced the "/Volumes/TF1/” path with the "/TF1/" path and saved to the root of the TF1 card. Updated library and, "no Playlists found". I can browse to the file but that's the error I get when I select it. Same thing through category view.

Then I replaced "/TF1/" with "TF1:" as instructed by Joe (D'OH) and guess what......... "no Playlists found".

Is there a special name required for the Playlist itself that isn't documented? Does it have to match the internal Playlist name format? That would be silly if you ask me.

Right now I can't get it to work with external playlists. Internal playlists generated with the X5 still don't show songs in the order they were added when adding from the Browse by Folder menu.

I going back to 2.02b where at least the Play All by Artist was working well.

Also, I might detect slightly more forward mids. Not sure though.

Maybe you will need to replace / with \ to make it more "Windows-y"?

 

[x RELIC x]

Maybe you will need to replace / with \ to make it more "Windows-y"?

Maybe, but IMO it's too much effort for me right now. I'll wait until it matures a bit, or I get bored, and I'll try it again.

 

[tjw321]

Maybe, but IMO it's too much effort for me right now. I'll wait until it matures a bit, or I get bored, and I'll try it again.

Unfortunately, based on past X3 experience, I don't think anyone at Fiio uses a Mac so, unless we report it, it won't get fixed. Hopefully, this exchange will be sufficient, though. (I don't have an X5, and the playlist support isn't on the X3 yet, otherwise I'd get stuck in).

 

[x RELIC x]

Unfortunately, based on past X3 experience, I don't think anyone at Fiio uses a Mac so, unless we report it, it won't get fixed. Hopefully, this exchange will be sufficient, though. (I don't have an X5, and the playlist support isn't on the X3 yet, otherwise I'd get stuck in).

I understand it may be helpful. Just not from me right now.

 

[JamesFiiO]

  Unfortunately, based on past X3 experience, I don't think anyone at Fiio uses a Mac so, unless we report it, it won't get fixed. Hopefully, this exchange will be sufficient, though. (I don't have an X5, and the playlist support isn't on the X3 yet, otherwise I'd get stuck in).

 
why did you think so , we do have Mac and we always test our device in Mac system. of course, we have not so many Mac but we have over 100 Win PC. 

 

[tjw321]

   
why did you think so , we do have Mac and we always test our device in Mac system. of course, we have not so many Mac but we have over 100 Win PC. 

Mostly because all of the "how to" guides are written from a Windows perspective - e.g. deleting the database files, formatting SDs, and this description of how to create playlists.
It wasn't intended as a criticism, more an observation that we need to help you, if we expect you to help us. 

 

[x RELIC x]

So does the M3U playlist file need to be named in a specific way?

 

[dwannetts]

So, as a rough guide, how many Linux systems do you have?  What distributions?

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Tried the new FW........

The Play All by Artist is still a regression from 2.02b in the way it lists the song order. Fiio, 2.02b was perfect, please return to that song order for Play All by Artist.

On my Mac I referenced the songs from my mounted TF1 card to create a playlist, replaced the "/Volumes/TF1/” path with the "/TF1/" path and saved to the root of the TF1 card. Updated library and, "no Playlists found". I can browse to the file but that's the error I get when I select it. Same thing through category view.

Then I replaced "/TF1/" with "TF1:" as instructed by Joe (D'OH) and guess what......... "no Playlists found".

Is there a special name required for the Playlist itself that isn't documented? Does it have to match the internal Playlist name format? That would be silly if you ask me.

Right now I can't get it to work with external playlists. Internal playlists generated with the X5 still don't show songs in the order they were added when adding from the Browse by Folder menu.

I'm going back to 2.02b where at least the Play All by Artist was working well.

Also, I might detect slightly more forward mids. Not sure though.

Hello x RELIC x,

I don't know where the /Volumes/TF1/ path is coming from
For e.g. a song in an Album subfolder of an Artist folder on the TF card, the required path would be
TF1:\Artist\Album\song.mp3
Also an #EXTM3U tag needs to be there at the top of the playlist file.

I'm looking at a playlist creation guide for iTunes for the X5 but apparently it was for iTunes on Windows so all the path names were all orthodox and Windozey

I don't know if just having the slashes slash the unix way instead of the windows way would still break the function, but you may try replacing /Volume/TF1/ with TF1:/ (or TF1:\) first

Best regards,
Joe

 

[krayziehustler]

Trying to browse large playlists still crash the X5.
 
 
What is the maximum number of items in a playlist file before it will crash?

 

[JHutchins]

Some quick observations:
- Playlist created on PC containing only one album now appears to list songs in the correct order
- Playlists containing more than one album do not keep songs from each album together but continue to list all track 1, track 2, etc together across all albums.
Playlists compiled on the PC are not shown on the X5 under Play by Category - Playlists - they are only accessible under Browse Folder.  It seems that only Playlist created on the X5 appear under the Playlist category.
As already pointed out Play All By Artist does not function correctly.
From my perspective not sure I can see any improvement over v2.03B

 

[x RELIC x]

Hello x RELIC x,

I don't know where the /Volumes/TF1/ path is coming from
For e.g. a song in an Album subfolder of an Artist folder on the TF card, the required path would be
TF1:\Artist\Album\song.mp3
Also an #EXTM3U tag needs to be there at the top of the playlist file.

I'm looking at a playlist creation guide for iTunes for the X5 but apparently it was for iTunes on Windows so all the path names were all orthodox and Windozey

I don't know if just having the slashes slash the unix way instead of the windows way would still break the function, but you may try replacing /Volume/TF1/ with TF1:/ (or TF1:\) first

Best regards,
Joe

The /volumes/TF1/ is simply the way OSX mounts the drive and this is the path to the TF1 slot in the X5 when connected to my Mac.

I've edited the M3U file to be as you described when I initially posted, but with the \ instead of / as the / is the Mac default.

I do have the #EXTM3U tag at the beginning of the file as instructed.

I simply gave it a quick test and it didn't work for me. I described what I did and will edit / to \ when I have time. If others want to test this, including Fiio, that would be great. It's just not on my radar now as I've become very busy recently.

Cheers