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[MV10]

I would like to drop a Windows Media Player Playlist (WPL) file on the 321 so that my Xbox can play the files without a PC being involved. I have about 250GB of MP3s on one of the 321's drives, and I have pointed the UPnP server at the top-level MP3 folder only (movies, video and other content is indexed by a separate NMT-based device that doesn't need UPnP).

However, my Xbox claims it lost the connection when I try to browse playlists on the 321. It is able to see files in the Albums, Artists, and Songs listings. The WPL was created with a little utility I wrote, so it points to the full UNC path. The list plays just fine in WMP12, but is basically the bare minimum required to qualify as a WPL file. I have used these files with my Xbox when the MP3s were on a PC hard drive without any issues.

Edit:
I'd settle for an M3U as well. I did put an M3U into the top level of my MP3 folder and the Xbox sees it -- but it won't play the contents, no matter what I put into the file. My file system looks like this:

\\NAS1\Volume_1\MP3\Rock\foo.mp3
\\NAS1\Volume_1\MP3\Blues\bar.mp3
etc.

I've tried the following formats in the M3U.

With the M3U in the MP3 directory:
Rock\foo.mp3
\MP3\Rock\foo.mp3
\Volume_1\Rock\foo.mp3
\\NAS1\Volume_1\MP3\Rock\foo.mp3

With the M3U in an MP3\Playlist directory:
..\Rock\foo.mp3

I also tried the above variations with forward slashes, as well as:

smb://NAS1/Volume_1/MP3/Rock/foo.mp3

...since the format above works with my NMT to access my ISO movie files.

None of these work. (Oddly, even though the Xbox sees the M3U file itself, when I open it, I get the "lost connection" error again... but I can immediately back out and go to the Artists, Albums, or Songs lists and play so I guess that must be a generic error.)

Can the 321 expose a playlist over UPnP or is this just futile? I saw some old threads about dropping an M3U into a folder and only referencing files local to that folder, but that's inadequate -- and when Windows hosts the playlist for the Xbox, it doesn't have that sort of limitation, although I've yet to find any documentation or explanation of how that works.

It's amazing that such a simple concept as a music playlist is apparently this complex and troublesome.

[MV10]

Here is a really NASTY work-around for those of you with lots of drive space to spare (I'm running a pair of 2TB drives and fortunately my MP3 drive is only about half full)... Since I'm having a big party tonight and a good solution is not obvious, I hacked a solution together as follows:

1. Create a folder called \MP3\Playlist_Party

2. Copy my M3U file to a CMD file in that new directory.

3. Use a text editor to remove the # meta-command lines, and change the relative paths to the MP3 files to XCOPY commands, so that this:

..\Rock\foo.mp3

becomes this:

XCOPY "..\Rock\foo.mp3" /Y

4. Map a drive letter (since the Windows command prompt requires it for changing directories) and CD into my new folder and run the CMD file. This copies all the MP3s for the playlist into a single folder.

5. Use a tool like ID3TagIt to change all the newly-copied MP3 files so that the Artist is "(( Playlists ))" and the Album is "Party".

6. Delete the CMD file, refresh the UPnP data, and start up the Xbox.

Now under Music, I'll see an Artist called "(( Playlists ))" ... which gets me through tonight's party.

In theory I could make another folder and use the same Artist name but a different Album name, and access the individual "playlists" as if they were albums.

Ugly as hell, but it works for tonight -- and gets mixed content into a single "playlist." And no M3U or WPL file support required.

But I sure wish the whole system worked the way any rational person would expect it to work.

[MV10]

So much for the "theory" in the post above. My one playlist worked for the party. It contained around 300 tracks. I added a few more, and apparently pushed it over the threshold where it would stop working.

I'll keep it for simple file storage, but DLink has lost me as a future customer... for anything. This is just ridiculous.