Since I got my HTC Hero I’ve gone through 3 software revisions and been relatively happy with it except for one frustrating problem: Playlists synced to the device and then deleted from the SD Card are left on the systems internal MediaStore SQLite DB, which all music applications use. In plain english, this means that when I deleted playlists I didn’t want anymore, they were still showing up. I tried several apps and posted on several forums asking for help, but no-one could give me a solution.
About 3 days ago I decided I’d had enough and was going to write an app to fix the problem. In a dramatic break from Rory tradition, I actually did write the app, and it actually does work!
PlaylistPurge is a simple android app which deletes any playlists from MediaStore which do not have an associated playlist file on the SD card. You can download the APK here, or the source here.
I hope it helps someone else with the same problem!
UPDATE:
Thanks for all the positive comments, in light of all the people asking i’ve decided to clean this up and release it on the market, which I hope to do in the next month or two. Those of you who’ve already used it probably won’t need it again, but you’ll also appreciate that it could do with a little polishing! I’ll post here when the new version is ready.
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#1 by Glenn on August 12, 2010 - 9:11 pm
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I’m a new Android user (HTC Wildfire) and have just encountered this issue with Meridian. How do I install this app, can’t find it on the Market?
#2 by rory on August 12, 2010 - 11:58 pm
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Hi Glenn
Since its not on the market, there are a couple of steps.
Firstly, Go to settings > applications and tick ‘Unknown Sources’
Once this is done you’ll need to download the app and get it onto the phone somehow. The best way to do this is install a file manager app like ‘linda’ and copy the .apk file onto your SD card using your data cable.
With Linda installed, navigate to the directory you saved the file to and you should be able to install it from there!
I do plan to put this on the market but I’m flat broke at the moment and can’t even afford the very modest Market signup fee right now, but I will get it up there!
#3 by Glenn on August 13, 2010 - 10:29 pm
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I did as you suggested but when I open the app it says “The application…has stopped unexpectedly” and then a Force Close button.
#4 by Glenn on August 13, 2010 - 10:30 pm
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…although having said that all my playlists are now gone. Hurrah.
#5 by Mike on August 29, 2010 - 1:53 am
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Thanks for creating PlaylistPurge. It worked great on my Droid Incredible and got rid of all the playlists on the Meridian Music app.
#6 by Jonathan on August 31, 2010 - 4:12 pm
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Thanks so much for your post. I was just getting ready to try writing a SL4A script for this when I stumbled across your blog. I’ve been using rsync to move playlists & podcasts to my Droid and was getting tired of individually deleting old playlists.
#7 by rory on September 1, 2010 - 6:44 pm
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Glad you liked it. I’ll be uploading an improved version soon which actually has some feedback instead of just a blank screen!
#8 by rory on September 1, 2010 - 6:45 pm
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Glad it worked for you – yeah the UI could be a bit better but it does the job for me
#9 by rory on September 1, 2010 - 6:46 pm
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I’ll be bringing out a new version (hopefully soon) which will also take care of duplicate entries for the same playlist, even if they both point to an existing file.
#10 by Daniel on September 6, 2010 - 5:59 pm
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Thank you for creating this app! Very helpful!
#11 by kustodian on October 23, 2010 - 1:47 am
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Is there a way you could make this app reload the whole MediaStore, especially the album art, since when MediaStore reads an mp3 file without a cover art, it will only stay without the art, even if you add it later.
#12 by slaman on November 18, 2010 - 12:21 pm
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OMG – if you could update your app, it would be REALLY appreciated.
I try to sync my playlists with WMP and android butchers it… I have mp3 files that have no id3 information, playlists that are duplicated, playlists that have no files in them, playlists that have duplicates files in them, mp3s in the folder that don’t show up…
I’ve run media scanner manually, reboot the phone, but the database is just completely stale.
Can you create an option to wipe the database and everythign it stores COMPLETELY?
#13 by Julie on January 24, 2011 - 5:27 pm
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Thank you so much, this is brilliant. Completely sorted out the playlists on my Android tablet. Nothing else worked.
#14 by rory on May 11, 2011 - 1:58 pm
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glad to hear it! hoping to release an official version to the market soon which doesn’t crash to a force close when you run it, as some people have been experiencing. Of course, its only an app you run once really!
#15 by rory on May 11, 2011 - 1:59 pm
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Planning on releasing an official version of this to market soon enough, I could put in an option which would allow you to nuke the entire database… scary thing to have to test out though!
#16 by rory on May 11, 2011 - 2:00 pm
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hi, working on a version which does just this, but I’m bogged down with a lot of other projects right now so it could be some time before I get around to it.
#17 by joe on August 24, 2011 - 4:33 pm
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most excellent. this was very frustrating and your app fixed everything. thanks much!