NW A45 cannot create playlist from the device

[noplanes]

I have successfully transfered songs but am unable to create a playlist on the device. The instructions say there are two ways to add a song to playlist - neither work for me and I get an error message saying no playlists are available, please connect to compliant software and transfer playlist. 

I am not looking to transfer an existing playlist, just to create one.

[distyl]

Hello ian2019,

just a note about playlists: CD ripping software have the option to create a playlist along with the rip process. It's normal. But, sometimes it causes a problem: the player or music software might pick up the tracks both from the playlist and the single audio files, creating duplicate entries. But, in the case that an album is ripped as a single file you need the .m3u file along with the .cue file in order for the player to see the single file as many individual tracks.

That's what happens in general. I have not researched how this is managed in the sony walkman.

[igiwigi]

Hi

I prefer to rip with Nero

All the best

John

[El-Guapo]

What! Thanks so much distyl. I was searching high and low for this answer. I have tried a multitude of things including an hour chat with Sony' customer support to no avail. I bought and NW-A45 4 days ago, I couldn't create a playlist to save my life. I have a Mac with the Catalina update and the "Content Transfer" software do not work with the update. The customer support person was completely clueless and keep sending me to the user manual that is useless in this regard. I followed the steps that you provided including adding the "-" so the playlist are on the top of the folder. Thanks so much for your post. 

[distyl]

Hi El-Guapo,

I am really glad my answer helped you.

This is a very nice player. A couple of changes and corrections in the firmware could make it awesome.

I wonder why SONY doesn't do it. It it so easy for them. Marketing, politics, I don't know.

Best regards from Greece!

[El-Guapo]

Well that was a quick reply. On one more note, you may suggest that the playlist have to be in the storage of the music folder as well (you may have mentioned it and I could have missed it). I try to placed the playlist on the player, but I have the music on the SD card so it didn’t work (got error message). So the playlists have to be in the same medium (player or SD card) that the music files are located, not only the music folder. Again thanks so much .

[distyl]

Yes, that's correct. Cheers!

[PMDMN01]

I struggled with this issue and found what is probably the optimal solution here:  https://jtm.gg/walkman-create-playlists/

Why Sony disables their playlist creation feature outside the Japanese region is quite a puzzle.  In any case, this worked as advertised for me.  Note that the current version of the tool is 23 and that you'll want to make sure the drive letter you use is the drive letter for your Walkman (not necessarily "H" as shown in the example). 

[Ian2019]

PMDMN01 Thank you for this.

Any player like this should have a playlist function as in Japan. We have managed to find a workaround, but your post lays out how it is actually part of the original spec (as it should it be). Why it has been disabled for our market is beyond me and raises ethical questions for me which saddens me. Would welcome an explanation from Sony about this, doubt we will get one.

Will look to implement later today (with luck) and report back. 

Many thanks again

ian

[Ian2019]

PMDMN01 

Just done this and it works properly. THANKYOU!!!

A few notes:

- When I downloaded the software is now at V23 - just changed the command line from V20 and all OK

- When I first tried it I got "Cannot open device". Did the old microsoft "turn it off and turn it on again" routine and then it worked exactly as in your note. By which I mean rebooted the computer (Surface Studio, Windows 10) and all then OK.  No idea why that should happen.

Am really pleased to have this "fix". I note that it is not just Japan that has the full feature set. Seems like it is mainly Europe that has the volume cap - USA / Canada and a lot of other places do not.

Am still a bit disappointed with how it drives my WF-1000XM3s though. On some recordings it still is not enough - that may be a limitation of the IEMs though.

best

ian

[globet]

I have a Sony NW-ZX300; I don't know if the OS is similar to the A45, but on mine on the song view you tap the ... (more) icon at the right of the song line and you get options to bookmark the song or to add it to a playlist.  If you pick playlist you then get option to add it to a new playlist (which gives you an input screen to create the new playlist and name it) or to add it to an existing playlist.  It's a bit tedious.

I had hoped there was a way to transfer playlists from my Mac iTunes library to the Walkman - there are several threads that at first sight refer to this but they are misleading.  You can use the iTunes library to export a playlist file in M3U format and drag the file over to the Music Folder on a USB-connected Walkman using Finder, but there's no way for the Walkman to tie up the playlist to music that's already on the Walkman, even if the music files on the Walkman are identical to those in the iTunes music library, so what you end up with is a playlist that has the same name as the original in the iTunes library but no content.  I can live with rebuilding a playlist if it's a couple of dozen songs, but not hundreds.

All the posts I've seen from Sony talk about transferring playlists, but what they actually mean is that you have to drag and drop the music files themselves over to the Walkman.

I had hoped that Content Manager would help but that doesn't seem to do anything I can't do with Finder, and in any event they appear to have stopped supporting it for anything above OS10.13 so It won't run on Big Sur.