Playlist Duplication on Music App in iOS 12.3.1 - why?

[RadDave]

On my new iPad Pro (Dec 2018) in the Music app, my Playlists are duplicated as shown below on left - the ones w/ an album pic have music files but the same named ones w/ just the iTunes icon are empty - not sure when this happened (use this app only 'on the road' w/ a portable BT speaker) - I can easily delete these empty dupes but have over 100 playlists so a PITA (and will they return?). I'm running the latest iOS and manage my music manually on my MBPro, so no syncing is done - just hooked up the iPad to the laptop and made a backup - the playlists match and are single on both devices as seen on the laptop. I have no Cloud storage of my music.

The only 'new' addition to the household occurred yesterday - I added a Sonos Play1 'smart' speaker to the bedroom (pic below, right), which is on my home Wi-Fi network - using the Sonos app on my iPad, I added my Amazon music, Spotify, Pandora, and linked to our iMac's Music folder - allows me to select music from any of these sources to play on the Sonos speaker - amazingly the iPad cannot be added (seems to be an iOS Apple issue and smart speakers?).

Now, this is no big deal since I can easily select the playlist wanted but requires more scrolling - this apparently has been a common issue but usually when syncing w/ iTunes and/or using cloud services - of course, this will likely be corrected w/ the new iOS version this fall when iTunes will disappear and be replaced w/ a new Music app - any comments appreciated. Thanks. Dave
.

 

[ferrarr]

amazingly the iPad cannot be added (seems to be an iOS Apple issue and smart speakers?).

How do you know it's not a Sonos app issue?

 

[RadDave]

How do you know it's not a Sonos app issue?

Hi Bob - well, not sure - the Sonos app cannot add my iPad as a 'service' to play its music, so assume that it would have little if any interaction w/ that app, but only my supposition. Of course, I could delete the app and see if the duped playlists disappear, but then I would have to go through all of the password resets for the services that I've already added (half a PITA - ) - I've contacted Sonos support and will await their response. Thanks for your interest. Dave

 

[ferrarr]

@RadDave, if you use the "offload app" feature, the iOS will save all data and settings related to the Soros app, so when you reinstall it, everything will be back to the way it was.

Go to Settings > General > iPad Storage. Select the app, then select offload App. It's a feature I've had to use quite often since I have apps. that I use with Family Sharing, and when I backup my device, sometimes that stop working properly. I offload the app, reinstall it and it works fine.

 

[RadDave]

@RadDave, if you use the "offload app" feature, the iOS will save all data and settings related to the Soros app, so when you reinstall it, everything will be back to the way it was.

Go to Settings > General > iPad Storage. Select the app, then select offload App. It's a feature I've had to use quite often since I have apps. that I use with Family Sharing, and when I backup my device, sometimes that stop working properly. I offload the app, reinstall it and it works fine.

Hi Bob - thanks for the additional comments above - yesterday, I received a response from Sonos (quoted below) - appears that once I shared my iMac w/ the iPad app, the playlist was duplicated - despite the suggestions below, this link to my iMac's music was of least importance to me (i.e. bought the speaker for the bedroom to add Spotify, Pandora, & my Amazon music to my iPod/Sangean radio combo); so, I deleted the share link from the app and then removed all of the duplicated and empty playlists icons from my Music app on the iPad - all seems fine now. Dave

Hi David,

Thanks for getting back to us with this new issue of duplicate playlists to look into.

* Are the playlists in the Music Library -> Imported Playlists section? If so, you will see the same thing on every controller, as these are being referenced from the computer hosting the share.

* Look in the share path you added to Sonos in the Mac folders themselves from the computer. We are looking for more than one Music Library.xml file. You may need to really dig into every folder level or do a search to find them.

* Keep only the one with the newest date, deleting any others found.

* Then re-index the library to allow Sonos to make note of the changes done to the files. For more on this see Music library troubleshooting.