Solving playback issues

[BobbR]

I have an older Roku 3 device (Roku 4000) with a USB port with which I'm trying to play photos using the Roku Media Player.  Strangely, the sequence/order of images shown in the RMP is NOT the same as it is on the USB thumb drive.  In my particular case, I have over fifty images that are named using sequential numbers, but when opening the images with the Roku, they are NOT in the same numerical sequence.  I kind of want the images to play in a specific order, numerically ascending.  Both .jpg and .png image files are mixed on the USB drive, but the numerical filename is not affect by the mixing of file types.

Note: I do NOT have the "shuffle" setting engaged for photo playback.

Does anyone have an idea as to why the images will not play back in the same sequential order that they are stored on the USB thumb drive?  I'll add that when opening the USB drive "photos" selection, the image icons are displayed out of numerical order (but they ARE in numerical order on the USB stick).  So, it would appear that the issue is with how the RMP reads/plays the files.  The images do, indeed, play...but not in the order sequence in which I want them to play!

Any ideas?  Thanks!

[AvsGunnar · Accepted solution]

@BobbR 

Might not help, but in the folder options (press *), you should see "Sort".  Try changing from default to A>Z.

Normally, I find all content "within" a folder will play correctly and numerically.  However, if the content is outside of a folder, then the RMP seems to get confused. (10 will play after 1 but before 2).  It just kind of sees all the 1's and groups them together.

[renojim]

Alphabetically "10" comes before 2x (where x is anything).  In general you should use 2 or three digits with leading zeros if you want to number your items (e.g., 001 - some item, 002 - some other item, etc.)  Alphabetically 0 comes before every other number.

[Strega]

I remember when smart numerical sorting (so you no longer had to use 001, 002 etc) appeared in some release of Windows and some people thought it was an insane thing to do  - with one of the reasons being that so many other platforms did not do that.

[BobbR]

Thanks for your quick response to my question!  I did, indeed, change the sort option to "A-Z," and that seemed to work!  However, I did not do that before renaming the files within the folder, so I can't be certain that was the actual reason the changed sort option alone solved my issue.  When I changed the sort option to "A-Z," RMP did show the files in alphabetical order, even before a slideshow playback was initiated...something that did not happen prior to the sort order change.  That was a pretty good hint that that was the culprit.  I'm going to experiment with some other photos, but that certainly helped!

THANK YOU!

[BobbR]

Thanks for the advice!  I've implemented some of the suggestions I've received thus far from you and some other Roku community members, and they're all working to address my issues.

THANK  YOU!

[BobbR]

Thanks for your input!  I appreciate it.