[OPEN] Can't import playlists from rekordbox to rekordbox

I am having the same issue, would like it to be resolved asap

I'm guessing the path to the songs is not identical and thus the problem. You say you're on Windows, does the drive show up as the same drive letter for each PC?

I have actually not checked for that. But I take it, from what you're saying, that if the USB is listed with the same drive letter on both computers, it should be possible to import?

Edit:

Tried making sure the driveletter for the USB was the same on both computers; Made no difference. Still can't import lists.

Okay, so just covering bases...

1) The source location of the tracks in the rekordbox collection on the first computer is IDENTICAL to the location of the tracks on the second computer.

2) The playlist references a drive letter and that drive is the same on both computers.

And you still aren't able to import playlists.

Just for your reference, you can always export the rekordbox database and migrate to another computer easily that way -- I assume what you're trying to do is a kind of "sync" between to machines, manually copying a playlist from one to the other.

1) The location of the music on both computers is "C:\Users\$User$\Music".

2) As stated in the earlier post, the drive has the same letter on both computers (F)

And yes, what I'm trying to do, is manually transfer my playlists (not the content, just the list), from one computer to another, but it doesn't seem to be possible.

@Rasmus > Try removing the variable from the user path; use the ACTUAL username instead of the placeholder.

Have you considered using the rekordbox export feature instead of doing it by playlists?

I just put in the variable, not to show my username. The correct username is used.

When you say the export feature, which one do you talk about?

What I've done, is to export my playlists to a USB drive. Put the USB drive in the other computer. Right clicked the playlist and selected "import playlist". Is there another way to export the playlist data, without it being txt or xml format, but something I can actually use on the other computer, for automatic playlist setup?

I went from 2.x to 3.x (latest version) and found that  indeed the old playlists cannot be imported by rb 3.x  -- I ried all the possible ideas and the only way to do is to manually redo the playlists.... I did three and they also are understood by the players however. doing all the old playlists again....

"All songs in the list do not exist in Collection or the list is empty."

Looking at the whle thng -- I cnclude it's a bug in RB 3.x that should be fixed (and next time: tested better before release).

It's like the CDJ850 bugs... new firmware but some bugs stay, like the USB inuse so device won't go asleep.

I am more than happy to do pretesting such stuff / well defined bugs and see if if it works in my setup.

@Roeland Jansen:

This was also a problem in 2.x, I can tell you. All my colleagues describe the same problem and can't migrate playlists from any installation of rekordbox, to the other. The only place it has been possible, is when rekordbox 3.x has been installed on the same computer, which already has rekordbox 2.x installed; Then the playlists would automatically be in the new installation. Otherwise, it has not been possible to migrate playlists.

Hmm,

Ik*did* havethe old 2.x rekordbox installed when I installed 3.x and still no dice.

However, the  real solution is to fix it. The things that work are OK, for the 900nexus too but I tend to find problems.bugs within a few days and it's hard to believe that I am the only one who finds out that kind of stuff.

(the 900nexus -- I knw how to trigger an unwanted issue and it's rekordbox/900nexus/2000/nexus related ... probably will be a hard time to have this fixed too... makes me kind of sad if I look at the $$ I give to pioneer....)

Not in reference to the original post but moreso for Roeland - I've been having the same issue this week with exporting playlists to my USB devices. The playlists creating errors are all from prior to me upgrading RB to v3 - meaning yes, they are all v2 playlists. I've tried using 3 different USB devices but RBv3 refuses to export the playlists.

Have not touched/changed any of the music files within the playlists at all, they're still 100% intact from years ago when I first analysed them in RBv2. The USB drives are all freshly formatted and functioning with newer created playlists just fine.

FYI I'm using a macbook pro with Mavericks

You can't use a USB export device to import music into another computer. I'm wondering if that's where you guys are experiencing a roadblock?

I should note that I solved my problem this evening (even though it's not 100% related to the original post). I discovered that any playlists created in RBv2 are NOT compatible when exporting to USB devices in RBv3 - I needed to re-analyse all tracks in my collection that pre-dated RBv3.

@Pulse

When you say "music, you mean the .mp3 or w/e files people might be using, right?

Well, what I've tried to clarify through my posts is, that the playlist data simply can't be imported from a USB export device, such as the device I use as backup for when I'm playing with RB on a job. I am just shown the error as stated in the OP, even though the collection on the computer contains the exact same numbers (and now even more), compared to what's on the exported device.

I am not interested in copying songs from one device to another, but as of now, the import playlist function is utterly useless, as it can't even copy playlist DATA (note: NOT CONTENT), from one device to another.

yes Pulse.

I have a rb2.x USB stick, with playlists and I cannot import the playlists into rb3.x -- eventhough ithe option to import is shown.

The only way to get them in rb 3.x is to manually recreate them. So that also means that all stored loops, cue points etc are lost too.

The players itself think it's fine, as they both load v2 and v3 without problems.

Much like iTunes your playlists sync with ONE MACHINE. If you export them from one and try importing them to another, the paths are likely to be different for the source tracks and database.

rekordbox 3 is compatible with rekordbox 2 provided it's the same computer.

I repeat from my earlier comment:

"1) The location of the music on both computers is "C:\Users\$User$\Music"." <- Where '$User$' is the EXACT same user name.

If we can't import a playlist from a USB device, then why the **** is the option there in the software, to begin with?

Surely it can't be true, that as long as the parameters for the content is the same on both machines, then a list can be recreated on another computer.

@Rasmus > It sounds like you've confused the process - you CAN NOT sync / import with two different machines.

If you want to sync between machines you must export / import your library.

Engineers wanted me to pass this along:

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Basically, any playlist exported from Computer A to a device cannot be imported to Computer B.

Even if the same tracks are in Computer A and Computer B, you cannot export them visa versa because they are not in parent-and-child relationship.

In order to import playlists, which are exported from Computer A to a device, to Computer B, please copy Collection in Computer A to make the exactly same Collection in both Computer A and Computer B.

If you want to copy [Collection], you need to backup and restore.

[How to backup and restore]

1．From the [File] menu at the top left of rekordbox GUI of Computer A, click [Library] and select [Backup Library].

As Rasmus Mathias Juul Jakobsen said music files are in the same pass both in Computer A and Computer B, he does not have to include such music files in the backup.

2. When rekordbox asks you where to place it during the library backup on Computer A, please choose an external HDD.

3. After finishing the backup and disconnecting the external device, connect it to Computer B and select [Restore Library].

Please note Collection in Computer B will be completely replaced with that of Computer A when the above process is completed.

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please pass back to engineering....

a playlist from a device cannot be imported, while the option exists.

Playlist created with RB 2.x --> USB stick.

USB stick --> RB 3.x  FAIL.

Even the players (850, 900NXS) can read and play them. only with RB it cannot be used.

That sucks.

@Roeland I know exactly how you feel, and unfortunately they haven't found a solution for it for over a year.

@Engineers

Come on Pioneer,

that 'parent-child relationship' problem is no excuse to not get it working. How about the rekordbox pc looking into the usb-stick like a cd player, grab all the tracks inside a playlist (just grab the md5sums) and compare the tracks with the tracks on the pc (again md5sums), followed by creating a new playlist on the pc?

@Roeland Agree, it's stupefying!

One small part of the expected joy of using pioneer and rekord box is that if, you have the unfortunate experience of your drive crashing, I can quickly pull my songs/set off of my computer, or dropbox, etc onto a new drive. Alas we CAN'T do this. UGH. 

I think I might go back to Serato, much more attractive anyway.

@Pulse, I can't even backup and restore computer to computer. I used to be able to with 2.x versions, but since I upgraded doesn't work anymore. I can still backup and restore on the SAME mac, but can't do it from mac to mac. I've tried every idea out there I feel like --even replacing the rekordbox folder in user/libraries/pioneer in the new computer to make it identical to the old one....no such luck. I had just posted about this in another thread - do you have any other suggestions to how I can restore my library? kind of scary to think that if my main computer crashes I can't even restore any of my work in my collection to my new one

@Pulse: it's "nice" to see that the reason why you cannot backup/restore is due to the path issues.

The real issue is that the parent /child relationship should be on the USB stck and in fact IS. Else the players would not be able to play

the playlist for a start.

the only thing I see is that rekordbox seems to be badly engineered on this part. It shoudl be possible to traverse the whole tree of files

and reconstruct it on the fly and import it.

Now, I _still_ hae to manually reconstruct the old playlists, manually importing it into RB 3.x. And we'll probably see that when version x.y is released, I _again_ have to do this.

What really makes me cry is that as a private person I have shelled out quite a few EUROs to Pioneer. I started with CDJ805's and a DJM850. Now I have a 900 NXS set. Great stuff but the bugs.... oh my.... has it ever been tested? And does pioneer listen to customers? If I call Pioneer Benelux,

I get someone who states that "your problem needs to be put at the place you bought Pioneer stuff". I did noice for instance a few bugs and finally after weeks of calling back ad forth, sending in stuff, receiving "fixed" stuff, it has FINALLY been acknowledged that the bug I found really is a bug and maybe can be fixed in s/w.

What I miss is the professionalism of Pioneer to listen to customers here and to be able to have a more direct line to the developers.

I have professionally tested hard/software in the past and people always listened. Pioneer is a different beast :-(

Maybe @Pulse can give me a more direct lead to battle a few items that are annoying features or even mistakes....

I am waiting for this problem to be attacked. I am waiting for the auto stby function of the 850/900 CDJs that don't work as expected. Same for the DJM900NXS mixer. I am waiting for a driver so that linux can be used instead of a mediocre windows setup or heaven forbid - to get an apple.

I knw I might sound harsh but I sort of believe that if I give t 6k+ euros (!!!!!) to a company, some small issues may be taken care of.. so far they are open issues and only one has been -sort-of- acknowledged after weeks of calls, mails and transportation of devices (e.g. missing devices here during that time)

I still call BS on all of this. Roeland is correct, for the amount of money being paid to purchase Pioneer products, these things should be fixed. But they make too much money to care I think. It seems Rekordbuddy is an ok solution if you're coming from Traktor. But I'm not going to download more software and use a program I never had any intention to, just because Pioneer can't get their shit straight. Maybe a third party app will do something for people migrating from Serato...until that happens I am considering moving back to Serato.

The easiest solution for those wishing to move rekordbox between computers is to use an external database, which is supported as of v3.2.

As previously mentioned, much like iTunes and music exported to an iPhone, that music can NOT be synchronized with another computer other than the original host, rekordbox performs in the same way in that you can't bring playlists and contents into a second computer from an export device ... unless you use an external database (as above).

and now - with version 4 - the bug is still not fixed.
@pulse: can´t be, that the function "import playlist" is still not usable.
i am new in that problem and was happy to see that there is a thread about it, that is about an old version and over a year old. but nothing happened.
instead of gettint the problem fixed, you are keeping silence.
for that swaggering in dj-technology, the results with your software-engineering are poor. now you have engineered a new app, "rekordox-dj", while the old one isnt working like it should. this is f***ed up.

Again:

the players have limited memory, cpu capacity and they can read the playlist and tracks.

Now, I have an I7, 32GB memory, SSD, and some sort of an OS as well as rekordbox. And the latter cannot cope with the playlists.

How sad can it be.

The only reason I can think of is that Pioneer does not want us to copy tracks from someone else's device.

Seriously, this makes me cry. And with RB 4.x for full functionality we need to shell out money as well (on top of the CDJ900NXSx2 and DJM900NXS, in my case).

The reason you can't import ANYTHING from a USB drive that was not created on that host rekordbox database is the tracks do not match anything already there. It can't simply import the content and add it to the database.

Unfortunately this holds true even if you've had your laptop stolen or the hard drive dies, it's not an anti-piracy function.

We've had plenty of people asking the engineers to provide a utility to import or re-create collections from export devices but so far that hasn't been a priority, sorry.