beets iBroadcast Plugin

This plugin lets you sync your beets library to the iBroadcast streaming service. Supported operations include:

• ib-upload - upload tracks from beets to iBroadcast
• ib-playlist - sync playlists bidirectionally

Setup

1. Install the plugin into your local environment with:

   pip install beets-ibroadcast
   

2. Enable the plugin by adding ibroadcast to your plugins: section in your beets config file.

3. The first time you run the plugin, it will prompt you to authorize via a device code. Visit the URL shown and enter the code to grant access. Tokens are saved to ~/.config/beets/ibroadcast-tokens.json and reused automatically on subsequent runs.

   Optionally, if you'd like to upload newly imported items from your library, set auto to true:

   ibroadcast:
     auto: true

Commands

beet ib-upload [query]

Upload tracks matching the query to iBroadcast and sync tags.

Alias: beet ibroadcast (for backwards compatibility)

Flags:

• -v, --version — show plugin version
• -f, --force — upload all matched files, even if already uploaded
• -p, --pretend — report which files would be uploaded without uploading

Examples:

beet ib-upload                         # upload entire library
beet ib-upload artist:Offspring        # upload matching tracks
beet ibroadcast -p album:Americana     # pretend (backward-compat alias)

beet ib-playlist [playlist_name...]

Sync playlists between local M3U files and iBroadcast.

Alias: beet ib-pl

Flags:

• --upload — push local M3U playlists to iBroadcast only
• --download — pull iBroadcast playlists to local M3U only
• --sync — bidirectional sync (default if no direction flag)
• --delete — propagate deletions (opt-in)
• -p, --pretend — report what would happen without doing it

Examples:

beet ib-playlist -p                     # preview bidirectional sync
beet ib-playlist --upload               # push all local playlists
beet ib-playlist --download             # pull all remote playlists
beet ib-playlist --upload Favorites     # push only "Favorites" playlist
beet ib-playlist --sync --delete        # full sync with deletion

Positional arguments filter by playlist name (case-insensitive).

FAQ

How do I know this plugin won't destroy my iBroadcast collection?

You don't. But it tries to be careful and guards against many edge cases. If you want to see what the plugin will do without actually doing it, you can pass the -p (for "pretend") flag:

beet ib-upload -p
beet ib-playlist -p

I recommend starting with a small query, to get a feel for how it works. E.g.:

beet ib-upload -p artist:Offspring album:Americana

If you like what you see, do it again without -p and see how it goes. Once you have some confidence in the tool, you can go nuts with larger queries.

How does beets-ibroadcast avoid redundant uploads?

When a track is uploaded, the plugin attaches ib_uploadtime and ib_trackid flexible attributes to the track. The next time that track is considered for upload, these attributes are examined: if the track's mtime is older than its ib_uploadtime, the track is assumed to be up to date, and the upload is skipped.

For tracks where mtime is newer, the track is uploaded again, and the previous track ID is trashed. As such, obsolete previous versions of tracks will appear in your iBroadcast trash until it is emptied.

Regardless: before uploading, the track's MD5 checksum is computed, and if the server already has a track with that checksum, the upload is skipped. As such, if you upload tracks with a different uploader than beets-ibroadcast, they will still be skipped (although as of this writing, beets-ibroadcast will read such files to compute their checksums every time they match a query, which will impact performance).

You can use the -f flag to skip these checks and force reupload of tracks.

How are tags synced?

This plugin syncs tags on the iBroadcast side with the usertags flexible attribute, in a way compatible with the usertag plugin.

If you modify a track's tags locally (e.g. via beet addtag), those changes will be synced to iBroadcast. If you modify a track's tags remotely (e.g. via the iBroadcast website), those changes will be synced to the beets database.

In order to know whether a track's tags were changed locally, remotely, or both since the last sync, the current state of the tags is stored in an ib_tagids flexible attribute upon each successful sync. This strategy makes it clear whether, for example, a tag that exists remotely but not locally was deleted locally versus added remotely; as such, there cannot be tag conflicts.

See the usertag plugin documentation for details on working with tags in your beets database.

How are playlists synced?

The ib-playlist command syncs playlists between local M3U files and iBroadcast. It supports three modes:

• Upload (--upload): Push local M3U playlists to iBroadcast.
• Download (--download): Pull iBroadcast playlists to local M3U files.
• Sync (default): Bidirectional — upload local changes and download remote changes.

Playlist tracks are matched by their ib_trackid attribute, so tracks must be uploaded to iBroadcast (via ib-upload) before they can be synced as part of a playlist.

Three-way merge: The plugin uses a state file to detect whether changes occurred locally, remotely, or both. If only one side changed, those changes are applied. If both sides changed, the plugin attempts a three-way merge:

• Non-conflicting changes (e.g., local adds tracks at one position, remote adds different tracks at another) are merged automatically. The merged result is written to the local M3U and pushed to iBroadcast.
• Conflicting changes (e.g., both sides modify the same region differently) produce an M3U file with git-style conflict markers:

  #<<<<<<< local
  path/to/local_track.mp3
  #=======
  path/to/remote_track.mp3
  #>>>>>>> remote
  

  The markers are #-prefixed so the file remains a valid M3U (players treat # lines as comments). Edit the file to resolve the conflicts, then run ib-playlist again to upload your resolution.

Deletion handling: By default, deletions are not propagated. Pass --delete to enable deletion propagation. A deletion is only applied if the other side is unchanged since last sync.

The playlist state file is stored at ~/.config/beets/ibroadcast-playlists.json by default. If you previously used beets-ibroadcast, the old state file (.ibroadcast-playlists.json in your beets library directory) will be automatically migrated on first run.

You can configure a custom state file path:

ibroadcast:
  playlist_state: /path/to/my-playlist-state.json

Playlist files are discovered from the directory configured by the playlist plugin:

playlist:
  playlist_dir: /path/to/playlists

See the playlist plugin documentation for details on configuring playlist_dir and relative_to.

How can I get more details about why things go wrong?

You can tell beets to be more verbose in its output using the -v flag. E.g.:

beet -v ib-upload usertags:favorites
beet -v ib-playlist

This will cause the ibroadcast plugin to emit more detailed debugging messages.