Hi I’m using Lexicon since a few weeks and I want to use it instead of my Mac Music library I used before. I first imported my complete Music Library, then I imported my Serato DJ library and merged both. Until this point everything worked fine. Then I started deleting duplicates, where my problems began. I thought that deleting duplicates won’t change the playlists. Instead I was hoping that it shows still the tracks I deleted in the playlists and I could fix my lists by giving it back another version of the track. But this failed. The problem is, I really need all my playlists back and they are about 300-400…
What I tried:
- the (old) music library XML with the playlist as I want them back. But because I deleted some stuff with the duplicates, of course Music can’t find all the tracks again. What I tried is to export the playlists as M3u8 and import them into Lexicon - dind’t work, because Lexicon then couldn’t find the tracks, even 99% are already in the Lexicon collection and never changed.
- When I then just exported the Playlist again from Lexicon, only the names of the Songs - I wanted to use the TRACK MATCHER. I thought then it would find at least all songs which I never changed and show me the former duplicates I deleted and I could simply try to get them back into my playlist. Instead the TRACK MATCHER didn’t find any of the songs, it said it couldn’t find a single one.
Is there any way to use the TRACK MATCHER to recover all my Playlists? Or can I just import all playlists from my old library file, where I have all the playlists I want, and connect all the files again? Relocating didn’t work, even if I told Lexicon the whole Library folder of Itunes.
Grateful for help!
The simplest solution would be a way to use track matcher to scan all my Playlists from Music/Itunes? I would even export them all from music if neccessary, but Lexicon then doesn’t find anything…
You could export your playlists as M3U8 and use that in the Track Matcher. You do need to make sure all your tracks are already in Lexicon.
But first I would check if you still have a working backup that you can use. Lexicon makes backups in Documents/Lexicon/Backups. Maybe the oldest backup has your playlists?
If so, even if the files are missing in Lexicon, you can run the duplicate scanner to fix your playlists.
M3U8 aren’t working in Track matcher, because it doesn’t understand the notation from Itunes/Music. The same problem is, when you export from Lexicon and try to reimport to Lexicon again, also doesn’t work. Will send a screenshot.
I was able to import the old Playlists from an old XML, but now no Tracks are connected. Can I reconnect them, except of course the ones I deleted from my hard disc? I also changed the directory of the Media folder of iTunes.
For future use:
What is the best way to delete duplicates without crashing all your playlists? Is there a way to contain the information of a playlist? I mean like:
61 tracks are in a playlist. I delete a few of them because I had these Tracks a few times in my library. Can I reporduce the playlist then with a version, I didn’t delete with the duplicate machanism?
The duplicate scanner replaces your bad duplicates with the good duplicates, so it should not break any playlists.
Not sure what you mean by reconnect. I need a bit more info to go on. Screenshots will help, especially of your missing tracks and their locations
I used the duplicate scanner, but afterwars (of course) I lost parts of my playlists. I thought, that it would exchange the songs I deleted with the ones I kept with the duplicate scanner? Is that possible? If not, I will try to explain, what I’m trying.
I think I said the wrong thing what I meant by duplicates.
I have around 100 Playlists I use the most and I want to keep. My problem is that I have some tracks in the same version a few times on my hard drive or I have some versions I want to delete. Still, I would like to have any version of that Song in all my playlists, before I delete it.
To say it as an idea for the whole Library would be:
- I can keep all my playlists from Music/iTunes
- Delete a lot of songs/versions I don’t want anymore
- reintegrate my playlists with versions of the songs which remain in the library
Another question:
I have 43thousand and more tracks - but when I integrate my music library, it looses some, around 1.500?
What I meant with the M3U8 is this problem:
It just can’t recognize the tracks from the itunes playlist…
The other way would be to just import my old xml, but then again no track is connected. How can I relocate the Tracks then?
Sorry fo all the questions, I’m really desperate by now with solving these issues…
Can you upload that m3u8 here? Should be recognized normally but I will check it.
I’m not sure what you mean by “no track is connected”, can you clarify with screenshots?
The 1500 missing tracks is probably duplicates with the same location, Lexicon is stricter than iTunes so it might drop those. You shouldn’t notice missing them.
ok thank you, thats one of the examples of playlists I want to import again.
60er.m3u (9.1 KB)
Do you have any idea about my duplicates routine without deleting files from my playlists? That would be the major thing I want to do with lexicon. Clean my library without crashing my playlists… I thought it would work by only relocating file again?
Is there any way to import folders with multiple playlists at the same time with Track matcher?
What I would do is just drag all your tracks into Lexicon and then run the duplicate scanner.
I’ll make sure this m3u will work in the track matcher, although it’s not an m3u8 file (with extended info) but I can make it work. Will be in the next update, this week.
Ok maybe you know another work around. My problem is, I have the 42thousand songs now and a lot of playlists I want to keep. Like I explained before, the problem is that I have some of my songs a lot of times, because I bought a lot of samplers. It could be for example that I have a song 3 times in my library but only one version is in my playlists “XY”. If I delete the file then, it also gets removed from my playlist. I’m searching for a way to keep the files which are in my playlist while using the duplicate scanner for example. Else it would work if I have a way to export only the names and artists of the tracks in my playlists, then clean my library with duplicate finder and then reimport the playlists by only using the names and the artis as info? Is that possible?
Or does anyone else know a way to do it?
About the M3u8: I only exported it from iTunes/Music, I don’t know why it doesn’t contain the information, sry. Maybe I should do the export differently? Itunes also allows CSV and txt? But by this way I also could’t find anything?
Thank you so much for your help. I’m really sad today because I spend three weeks in updating playlists and trakcs with a couple of apps like Mixed in Key, Platinum notes etc. Lexicon is the final step to clean my library…
Thank you for your answer :)!
Did you try the duplicate scanner? Because what you describe is exactly how the scanner works. It will find multiple versions of the same track, and archive the ones you don’t want to use. Your playlists will keep working.
You mean with utility and then “find duplicates”? But if I put the files in the archive, I want to delete them at some point. If I do so, they will disappear from the playlists and I have the same problem again. Or do I understand the Duplicate scanner wrong? Does it have an engine to fix the playlists by switching songs in the playlists with the one I keep during the duplicate deleting?
Yes, it swaps the tracks with the versions of the track that you want to keep. Archived tracks can be deleted later after confirming everything works in your DJ app.
See Find Duplicates | Lexicon - DJ Library Management
Ok sounds great! Sorry that I didn’t read the explanation first. Unfortunately, it is not explained in the video on youtube, specially because the rest if the video is great!
Now I understand! I tried it by this way and archived duplicates first, then deleted them. Now not a lot, but like 1 or two out of 60-80 are missing in the playlists. Are there any common mistakes with the duplicate scanner that cause these problems?
By the way: Send me an email if you are interested that I make a german Version of the video for free for you. I think it could be very useful and I would have saved a lot of time explaining how Lexicon works to my DJ collegues who doesn’t understand english :)!
It should be fully automatic but maybe you’ve done other things to your playlists that interfere with how it normally works.
Don’t archive them manually, because that will remove them from all playlists. Only use the duplicate scanner for that.
Ok! So I get it, I use the archiving instrument at the end of the duplicate scanner? Just one last question: If I delete the files from archive, are they directly deleted from y hard drive or are they in the trash?
Thanks again!
If you empty the archive, you have the choice to move all tracks to a folder or delete them permanently.
Archive is the last step and totally optional, I wouldn’t do that until everything in your Serato is good
Thank you very much, I will try it again with the duplicate Scanner. I just don’t understand, why a few tracks got lost.
Last question, will there in the future be an update for the track matcher, where are you Kim match a full XML at the same time or a package of playlists? The only thing I’m missing is something to match more than one playlist at once 
)
Thank you also for integrating the iTunes playlists in the future.
