Topic: Auto-sync (Read 8005 times)

adamsp70 · « **on:** March 11, 2005, 03:08:11 am »

Am just starting to play with MC <-> DAP functionality (see http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=26419.0) so excuse some naive questions....

I can see how to send a playlist to the DAP, but i really want it to sync. In the Handheld settings there is something promising called auto-sync and you can set it to a playlist - fantastic.

So i did all that, but nothing happened! How do you make it go?

SteveG · « **Reply #1 on:** March 12, 2005, 12:11:07 pm »

If you use the Action Window, you will see an option for 'Synchronization'. I think you will then find what you are after.

Steve

adamsp70 · « **Reply #2 on:** April 11, 2005, 05:23:50 pm »

Thanks - that's what i am after!

When you press the big "Synchronise" button the next bit has a checkbox for "Synchronise all files" - what does this do?

Secondly, when the files convert to 128kbps it seems to take a few minutes to convert each one - yet when i stream to my laptop and ask for the same conversion, it does it in realtime. How come?

SteveG · « **Reply #3 on:** April 12, 2005, 11:38:58 am »

Synchronize all files will attempt to sync all files in your library to your device.

When converting files to a device, the file first is converted and then transferred to the device.

Steve

adamsp70 · « **Reply #4 on:** April 13, 2005, 01:23:06 pm »

Quote from: SteveG on April 12, 2005, 11:38:58 am

Synchronize all files will attempt to sync all files in your library to your device.

So that means it will override the way i've set it up to synchronise a single smartlist?

Quote from: SteveG on April 12, 2005, 11:38:58 am

When converting files to a device, the file first is converted and then transferred to the device.

And how does it work when it is being streamed? I only ask because my 20GB Karma has been syncronising now for 48 hours and has only got through 1000 odd files, which i think is phenomenally slow. Whereas when i stream to my laptop and ask it to convert to the same bitrate, the music is heard instantly.

SteveG · « **Reply #5 on:** April 14, 2005, 04:20:56 pm »

Quote

So that means it will override the way i've set it up to synchronise a single smartlist?

It is a totally different thing. Synchronize all files will sync all files and playlists. Selecting one (or more than one) playlist will sync only the selected playlist and files.

Quote

And how does it work when it is being streamed?

MC will not transfer streaming content to a portable. If you are converting files, they must be decoded and reencoded which is a slow process.

Steve

adamsp70 · « **Reply #6 on:** April 17, 2005, 03:18:39 pm »

OK, so on Friday it had managed to complete just over 2000 tracks after 92 (!!!) hours.

At this point i really wanted to use it so i cancelled the transfer and the Karma contained the 2000-odd tracks. Everything good so far....

When i put it back in and asked it to synchronise again - with the same playlist, and nothing has been updated on the library - i expected it to take some calulation time and then start uploading where it left off.

Instead it went off deleting loads of tracks instead (it is still deleteing as i type). Why is this? Surely something is wrong?

adamsp70 · « **Reply #7 on:** April 17, 2005, 05:38:47 pm »

In fact, it's deleted the whole lot and started again - which means I have another 90 hours (and the rest) to look forward to.

Any way of avoiding this?

JimH · « **Reply #8 on:** April 17, 2005, 05:57:16 pm »

What are your encoder settings? Maybe it's really slow just encoding.

SteveG · « **Reply #9 on:** April 17, 2005, 06:26:26 pm »

Adam,

If you don't have 241, please get it.

Quote

Instead it went off deleting loads of tracks instead (it is still deleteing as i type). Why is this? Surely something is wrong?

If you want to be sure that this does not happen, do not select the 'Delete unselected files' option. If you use that option, MC will delete files from your device if they do not match the Name, Artist, Album, Genre and Track number of the selected tracks. Karma may not report that information to MC or it may report it differently than MC sends it. You can verify this by transferring a few tracks and look at what MC says about these fields on Karma. Is it the same as what MC reports for those files (when not viewing the files on Karma)? If it is different, do not enable the 'Delete unselected files' option.

Steve

lOth · « **Reply #10 on:** April 18, 2005, 02:39:58 am »

Quote

Adam,

If you don't have 241, please get it.

Steve,

I believe part of Adam's problem is actually coming from 241. This last version seems to delete all songs from portable devices as a result of the way you've tried to prevent audio analysis to occur with each sync. My understanding is that, in order to prevent the analysis of files that are already on the device, you've 'tricked' MC into believing that only new or changed files are in the transfer queue, but, as a result, MC "believes" that all other files are unselected and thus delete them all if the 'delete unselected' option is checked.

Please note that this only happen with auto-sync. With manual sync, MC behaves as intended, that is, it only analyzes files that needs to be (re-)transfered to the device and doesn't delete selected files that are already on there.

SteveG · « **Reply #11 on:** April 18, 2005, 08:45:18 am »

I0th,

Thanks. You are correct. There was a bug. It is now fixed and will be in tonight's build.

Adam,

Please get 242 and then retest. If you continue to have the problem, please check out the tagging issue I mentioned in my last post.

Steve

adamsp70 · « **Reply #12 on:** April 19, 2005, 09:14:30 am »

OK - i now have 242 and it has certainly changed things.

It now analyses the playlist against the Karma and syncs, however as you rightly suggested, the tags don't match up.

On the Karma itself, all tags are present, but when looking at the Karma list on MC, only the Name tag is there.

Now this has only happened in a recent build, my old build (201 i think) the tags all appeared there, so i don't think this is a Karma problem.

If i don't use "delete unselected" then when my playlist changes, the new stuff won't fit on because it won't have deleted the old stuff, so that isn't really an option for me :-(

JimH: my encoder is set to convert to 128kbps MP3 (constant). I realise this will take time, but it seems to be lethally slow.

SteveG · « **Reply #13 on:** April 19, 2005, 01:13:45 pm »

adam,

Please run Windows Media Player and see if you see the tag information there and let me know.

Thanks,

Steve

adamsp70 · « **Reply #14 on:** April 19, 2005, 02:15:18 pm »

Yes - all tags present and correct on WMP

SteveG · « **Reply #15 on:** April 20, 2005, 10:18:42 am »

WMP 9 or 10?

Are there any firmware/driver updates available for Karma that you do not have?

adamsp70 · « **Reply #16 on:** April 20, 2005, 03:36:37 pm »

WMP10 and latest Karma firmware and drivers.

I have just done a new experiment which i'll detail and maybe it'll make sense to you more than me.

1. Turn of encoding and limit my smartlist that is synced to the Karma to 100 tracks.
2. Delete everything on the Karma (using the Karma itself)
3. Sync
4. MC reports 100 files, name tag in place, no other tags.
5. Close MC
6. Karma reports 100 files, all tags in place
7. Run WMP, it reports 100 files, all tags in place.
8. Close WMP, run MC
9. Files start deleting automatically! Can't cancel but i close the dialog and navigate to Karma->All Content.
10. under 100 files reported - but all tags are suddenly there
11. Refresh and refresh until only 5 files are reported - these 5 have the name tag, no artist or track tag, the album tag has the artist in, the file has the track number in.
12. Refresh to find the smartlist files being added again.
13. Ends with 100 tracks reported, still with the 5 bad ones (impossible to delete from MC becuase the file info is wrong)
14. But the Karma itself now reports 105 tracks - each of those bad ones are duplicated.

Seem to be 2 big issues here - 1 is that some track's tags are being corrupted and 2 is that even the ones that aren't corrupted are still being deleted on sync, even though they match MC.

Hope this helps - let me know if you want me to try anything else....

SteveG · « **Reply #17 on:** April 20, 2005, 03:59:47 pm »

Adam,

Please do your exact same test with tonight's build and I will look at this again tomorrow.

Thanks,

Steve

adamsp70 · « **Reply #18 on:** April 21, 2005, 01:28:18 am »

I was waiting for a new build - but did you mean 245?

SteveG · « **Reply #19 on:** April 21, 2005, 08:29:28 am »

I meant 245 if you had not tested with that yet.

Steve

adamsp70 · « **Reply #20 on:** April 21, 2005, 02:24:06 pm »

OK so this time MC reports all 100 files in All Content, but with no tags at all. If you look at Karma itself though (the root) there are 20 files there - all tagged properly.

Karma still has 100 tracks, all tagged.

Auto-sync, when restarting MC failed (sorry, can't remember the error) and after a manual sync, Karma (root) shows 100 files with all tags intact EXCEPT artist, album, genre - and All Content shows 115 files with no tags at all.

Blimey - confusing or what?!

SteveG · « **Reply #21 on:** April 21, 2005, 03:54:36 pm »

adamsp70,

I made changes that should definitely help things out for you. You will have to let me know if it fixes everything because I do not have a Karma and the way these things interact is somewhat different. Please get 246 when it becomes available and let me know.

Thanks,

Steve

adamsp70 · « **Reply #22 on:** April 22, 2005, 01:10:15 pm »

246 report:

Clean Karma and sync 100 tracks. Karma (root) shows the files transferring and then a list of the names when it has finished.

Clicking "All Content" gives a popup saying: "An invalid argument was encountered" and no more, so i can't tell how that is working unfortunately.

All files present and correct on Karma.

Restart MC and the auto-sync fails with the same message above. Karma (root) shows all the files, All Content still fails, but going via Artist or Genre shows the files with all tags in place.

All good(ish) so far!

But then i do Handheld->Sync and the whole lot starts to delete again :-(

Appreciate all the work you are putting into this Steve, and how hard it must be without an actual Karma to play with.....

adamsp70 · « **Reply #23 on:** April 22, 2005, 01:23:32 pm »

P.S. if i start MC with the Karma in the cradle i get

"Runtime Error! This application has requested that Runtime terminate in an unusual way...."

Then MC quits

SteveG · « **Reply #24 on:** April 22, 2005, 01:25:16 pm »

Please turn off all auto sync options to simplify the problem and then post what happens when you click on Karma in the tree.

Thanks,

Steve

adamsp70 · « **Reply #25 on:** April 22, 2005, 03:17:54 pm »

OK, all auto-sync off....

This is after my 2nd sync, and the Karma itself reports 180 tracks

Karma (on MC) shows 20 tracks, all with tags

I guess 2 syncs of the same 100 files = 200
and 180 + 20 = 200

Makes some kind of sense - but isn't how it should be....

SteveG · « **Reply #26 on:** April 22, 2005, 03:24:32 pm »

Please try removing everything from Karma.

Create a playlist of 10 files. Sync it. Look at the files from within MC on the Karma by clicking on Karma in the tree and you should see all files in the right pane. Are tags reported correctly? Unplug and replug the Karma. Are they still there?

Thanks,

Steve

adamsp70 · « **Reply #27 on:** April 22, 2005, 03:41:19 pm »

Tags for 1st file are:

Name: "Ave Maria.mp3" (shouldn't have the .mp3?)
Filename: "Ave Maria.mp3"

Duration, Bitrate, Filetype & Date all correct

All other tags blank

adamsp70 · « **Reply #28 on:** April 22, 2005, 03:44:20 pm »

Unplug and replug Karma

Now only 5 tracks there, Ave Maria is one:

Name: "Ave Maria" (correct now)
Filename: "All Content/Ave Maria.mp3"

Duration, Bitrate, Filetype & Date all missing now

Artist, Album, Genre, Rating all correct

adamsp70 · « **Reply #29 on:** April 27, 2005, 02:02:18 pm »

Did my Friday report help at all?

SteveG · « **Reply #30 on:** April 27, 2005, 05:14:32 pm »

adam,

Have you tried with yesterday's or today's builds? I made changes to the tag reporting for devices such as yours that may affect this.

Steve

adamsp70 · « **Reply #31 on:** May 02, 2005, 01:09:12 pm »

No, sorry - still deletes the entire list when syncing with .252

SteveG · « **Reply #32 on:** May 03, 2005, 09:33:11 am »

Adam,

Lets go through this again please.

1) Remove everything from Karma. Turn off auto-sync. Turn off 'Delete unselected files'

2) Create a playlist of 10 files and sync it.

3) Notice if MC reports 10 files.

4) Unplug Karma. Does it have and play 10 files.

5) Reconnect Karma. Does MC report 10 files.

After this, please update this thread and we can go from there.

Thanks,
Steve

adamsp70 · « **Reply #33 on:** May 03, 2005, 12:57:39 pm »

OK - done that and...

4. Yes
5. Yes, but tags are not what i'd expect to see.

Name: <trackname>.mp3
Artist: Blank
Album: Blank
Rating: Blank
Genre: Blank
BPM: ?
Track #: Blank
Duration: Correct
Bitrate: Correct
FileType: Correct
Date: Correct
Filename: <trackname>.mp3

As an extra test - this information is exactly the same if i transfer files with the Rio s/w and then view with MC.

adamsp70 · « **Reply #34 on:** May 04, 2005, 12:41:50 am »

Then, once the Karma has been removed and replaced:

Name: Correct
Artist: Correct
Album: Correct
Rating: Correct
Genre: Correct
BPM: ?
Track #: Correct
Duration: Blank
Bitrate: Blank
FileType: Blank
Date: Blank
Filename: All content\<trackname>.mp3

Just like before, the bad ones now appear correct, and the good ones have disappeared!

SteveG · « **Reply #35 on:** May 06, 2005, 02:26:05 pm »

In your post at 12:57 you removed Karma and on reconnected and then did not see Artist, Album, etc. This is explainable. I do not follow in the post at 12:41 what happened. Did you just disconnect and reconnect again, or did you access Karma with another application?

Steve

adamsp70 · « **Reply #36 on:** May 09, 2005, 01:50:07 am »

I took it out, checked the files on the Karma and then replaced it and looked at MC.

SteveG · « **Reply #37 on:** May 09, 2005, 07:54:22 am »

So you disconnected the Karma once and reconnected and you did not have 'Artist, ALbum, Genre tags, then you disconnected and reconnected again and you did?

Steve

adamsp70 · « **Reply #38 on:** May 09, 2005, 07:55:48 am »

No - when the transfer had finished, I didn't have those tags.

Then i disconnected and reconnected - and then i did have those tags

SteveG · « **Reply #39 on:** May 10, 2005, 03:06:19 pm »

Lets simplify this.

1) Clear Karma of all files

2) Drag and drop one file

3) Unplug Karma

4) Make sure file plays.

5) Reconnect Karma.

Thanks,

Steve

adamsp70 · « **Reply #40 on:** May 12, 2005, 05:20:23 am »

Yes - it plays.

Now what?

SteveG · « **Reply #41 on:** May 12, 2005, 01:05:23 pm »

What tags are listed for the file after the reconnect when viewed from MC?

Thanks,

Steve

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Author Topic: Auto-sync (Read 8005 times)