Playlist file is recognized, but experiencing file entry problems

[thatdavidtaylor]

I'm experiencing an issue with file entries in a Playlist (PLS) file. After adding the playlist as an input, I added a file entry followed by a white line (according to MistServer's documentation), but unfortunately, it brings back the following error:

[FAIL] /cygdrive/e/FILE.mp4 does not exist on the system, skipping it.

This feels ironic since this file, or any file I use, exists on the system. I've tried using absolute file paths, then tried changing locations, and even ran MistServer on Windows instead of Docker, all to no avail.

Are there any tips or solutions to possibly fixing this?

[Rokamun]

Heya,

It looks like it's failing to open the file, but it can find the playlist judging from the error message?
You can put down the "FILE.mp4" without a path if it's in the same folder, that might help in getting it into MistServer. Chances are we might've broken the input pathing for cygwin/windows.
I'll have to run some tests on that to verify.

For Docker: MistServer within Docker can't read files from your file system, it would need the files ported into docker or it needs to be linked. However even then it would be needing a path like "/linkedfolder/playlist.pls" in which case I would recommend having the playlist containing just the file names and all the files in the same folder since it gets messy quick.

[thatdavidtaylor]

Hello @Rokamun,

Yes, I'm definitely sure it can find the playlist, and yes, you're also right, I definitely think the Playlist input is broken no matter where I put the files, or where I host MistServer, or what version of MistServer I use. I did take your advice though and tried putting the playlist and the test MP4 file in the same folder, which was something I tried doing before submitting this issue. Nothing happened. It's the same error message as before. MistServer still seems to think that the file doesn't exist.

Also, it's been quite a while. Have you made any progress in your testing?

[Rokamun]

Hey @thatdavidtaylor ,

I've spend most of the time testing out an upcoming feature that we're finishing up for our FOSDEM2026 presentation. So I do have to admit we're running a bit slow on this, sorry!

Tests on using Docker + Linux were working, but only if the playlist was used without folder support.

So when I ran docker as:

docker run --shm-size=8G --rm --network=host -ti --gpus all --mount type=bind,source=/media/testfiles/playlist,destination=/video ubuntu:24.04

And then used my tsrgb.pls in /video/ as source it works (so /video/tsrgb.pls as source).
( playlist + test videos here: https://transfer.ddvtech.com/aGHXodxs9N/rgb.tar.gz )

However I don't think this has been a good comparable test as I've used Docker within Linux. I'm expecting to have some time to run it within Windows in between tests either today or tomorrow.

[Rokamun]

Hey,

I've ran a test on the playlist input using the files I linked before ( https://transfer.ddvtech.com/aGHXodxs9N/rgb.tar.gz ) on both Windows using the installer and Docker (linking the folder that contained them to an internal docker folder). Both worked for me, so perhaps it's the file itself or how your playlist is created.

Could you share any of those? (Feel free to mail to info@mistserver.org if you don't want to share that on github).

If you want to try it out yourself with the playlist I shared to check the differences.
Windows
source: /cygdrive/c/Users/User/Downloads/video/tsrgb.pls
(the files were in my Downloads folder inside a folder "video".)

Docker:

docker run --shm-size=4g --hostname=4b0d898f0422 --env=PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin --volume=C:\Users\User\Downloads\video\:/video --network=bridge --workdir=/ -p 18203:18203/udp -p 1935:1935 -p 4242:4242 -p 5554:5554 -p 8080:8080 -p 8889:8889/udp --restart=no --runtime=runc -d ddvtech/mistserver:latest

then source: /video/tsrgb.pls