I have revisited the processes of copying music and playlists from computer to my android phone – and discover that a lot of the complexity in my post above is now unnecessary – as of 19 June 2024.
Specifically:
1) The symbols ( – . _ ) are now faithfully copied in file names from computer to android phone.
2) VLC seems to be dealing with these symbols now: [ ]
2) The simplest way to copy a playlist is to export and/or edit it to have relative paths and have the .m3u extension. And keep the file in the Music directory on the phone. (no subdirectories) Example of an item in the m3u file: “Faith Hill/There You’ll Be The Best of Faith Hill/13 Over the Rainbow.mp3”
I am now able to copy a lot of my music library and playlists directly to my phone and have it immediately able to be played by VLC. The main work involved exporting the playlists as .m3u files and bulk editing them to have relative paths (and paths using the forward slash (“/”)).
Software (Android and/or VLC) must have changed between March 2021 and June 2024 – or else I initially mis-interpreted. (Heaven forbid!)
Statistics: Posted by jjrshewmake — 19 Jun 2024 21:59