Playlists - How and where are they stored?

[allwi]

I created a static playlist some time ago. Afterwards I retagged several audio files and rescanned the database. The playlist is still complete and I can listen to all songs.
However I saw that some songs don't show a rating when the playlist is played though they have a rating, which is shown, when I look up and play the album.

So I did some further investigations and looked into the database (playlist_track table) as described here: https://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.p...playlist_track
Strangely enough I don't see these files when I run the SQL query: select * from tracks t join playlist_track pt on pt.playlist = <playlist ID> and pt.track = t.url

So my question is from where does LMS retrieves the "complete" playlist as the database - in the playlist_track table - only contains part of the songs of the playlist.

Does this make sense? (It doesn't make sense for me ...)

[w3wilkes]

It's in your Basic Settings in the Material Skin... Settings -> Server and you're now in basic Settings. You should see an entry towards the bottom of the page that defines the directory to your playlists.

[allwi]

Thanks w3wilkes!

I thought that these source of truth is in the DB and the playlist directory is only used as a backup or to import playlists.

So I found the playlist and found that the songs which don't have a rating don't show the path but an "url": tmp:///mnt/music/Library/STU/Slowdive/Just%20For%20A%20Day/... instead of /mnt/music/Library/STU/Slowdive/Just For A Day/....
Any idea why this has happened? The path of the track hasn't changed.

The other question is when is the DB (playlist_track table) updated and what is it's purpose when the ultimate source of truth is the playlist stored on the file system?

[Roland0]

I thought that these source of truth is in the DB and the playlist directory is only used as a backup or to import playlists.

So I found the playlist and found that the songs which don't have a rating don't show the path but an "url": tmp:///mnt/music/Library/STU/Slowdive/Just%20For%20A%20Day/... instead of /mnt/music/Library/STU/Slowdive/Just For A Day/....
Any idea why this has happened? The path of the track hasn't changed.

The other question is when is the DB (playlist_track table) updated and what is it's purpose when the ultimate source of truth is the playlist stored on the file system?

The DB is the source of truth. It gets updated by re-scanning the playlists.
tmp:// indicates a volatile track which "allow[s] files to be played without being stored in the database. This can be used to eg. browse music folder while a scan is running, or play files from removable media."
Ratings are stored in a different DB than tracks. They are matched by the track URL. If the rating is for "file://<path>", then "tmp://<path>" will not be found.