Bug: No sound when music folder content changes

[dazu89]

I am fond of NFC Alarm (v. 12.6.4), especially in the morning hours, yet recently, my hack to play an alarm sound stopped working!

• Configuration: Play an alarm from a folder, containing only one song, which is periodically (e.g. weekly) replaced with a random song.
• Idea: Periodic random song selection for constant song during one period. Repeat the same song once the alarm ends.
• Symptoms: Once directory contents change, NFC alarm no longer displays the folder in the Select media dialog (also in the selection dialog, songs are listed by their title tag, not the file name). In addition, when the alarm goes of, no sound is played back.
• Workaround: Browse to the new song in the folder, try to select it, and on the next alarm it will play. I think, what NFC does after folder is selected (I suppose some kind of inventory) should be maybe be done ad-hoc before the alarm plays?

I would be happy to provide further feedback. Best regards,
Daniel

[gabeg805]

Hi @dazu89, this sounds like something to do with how Android keeps track of media on your phone. If Android doesn't know that you've changed the contents of a directory, then neither will my app because I'm just querying Android for the contents of the directory. So my question to you is, how are you changing out the songs in that directory?

[dazu89]

Thank you, for your answer. I am using LlamaLab's File Copy action block. But would be happy to adopt any other more or less equally straight forward approach.

sounds like something to do with how Android keeps track of media on your phone.

What component of Android should be notified of the file change?

[gabeg805]

Hi @dazu89, sorry for getting back to you so late. I was taking a hiatus from the app for a bit. The component that needs to be notified is the MediaStore. I think the onus would have to be on LlamaLab's app to update the MediaStore such that it knows that a new file exists. Then, when my app scans the directory for any media files using the MediaStore, because the MediaStore already knows about this file, my app will be able to see it.

I was thinking that a reboot of your device would be able to refresh the MediaStore so that it's up-to-date. When I Googled it, AI was telling me that's not always the case, however, at least every time I've tested it in an emulator, the MediaStore has been updated, so I'm not sure. You can try a reboot and hope it works?