Topic: Songs on Nano, but ipod doesn't see them (Read 6713 times)

SterlingY · « **on:** July 02, 2006, 12:08:32 pm »

I just got a new 4GB iPod Nano. MC recognized it, and I was able to sync a playlist to the device. I can even play the songs from the device through MC, but when I detach the iPod from the computer, the iPod's song list is blank, and won't play anything. A blank named playlist seemd to have been created any ideas?

-Sterling

BullishDad · « **Reply #1 on:** July 02, 2006, 12:39:16 pm »

Have you properly "stopped" the Nano before you disconnected it?

When you say you "played the songs from the device through MC" did you do so by viewing the device with MC and hitting play (my best guess), or were you able to select songs on the Nano itself?

On my 1 GB Nano, it seems I can't access the Nano controls whenever it is connected, so I'm thinking the answer is the first part (my best guess). MC builds a transfer queue, so maybe that is what you are playing, instead of files that reside on the Nano.

If you select the Nano in the Tree, you can right-click and reinitialize to clear out the Nano. I'd close MC, then reopen, due to a problem I've seen calculating available space. Then you can try a manual sync or playlist sync again.

SterlingY · « **Reply #2 on:** July 02, 2006, 12:55:46 pm »

1. I always eject the nano before unpluging.

2. I play the songs from the list in MC, but this has been after unpluging and re-connecting. Also, I can browse the iPod within windows, and play the music through Window Media Player.

3. I have also sent one file over, not in a playlist, but I have the same problem.

I read some in mch older post, that there might be a problem with the iTunesdb. I have re-initialized, but nothing seems to help.

ARGH!!!,

Sterling

BullishDad · « **Reply #3 on:** July 02, 2006, 01:31:27 pm »

I'm not sure how else I can help you.

You've probably done this, but have you made sure that iTunes doesn't load when you turn on your PC?

You said you sent one file over, but had the same problem. Does this mean it looks like the file transferred OK, but you couldn't see it on the Nano?

If yes, when you connected back to MC, was the file viewable with MC?

I had a problem with Album Art, and the Nano model number needed to be updated within MC. The tracks played fine however, so it's probably a different problem. More detail can be found http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=33954.0

On the Nano, you could go to Settings->About and scroll down to find the model number and post it here.

SterlingY · « **Reply #4 on:** July 02, 2006, 01:49:17 pm »

iTunes is not installed on my computer, so it can't be running in the background.

when I transfered the one song, it is on the nano, just like the songs synced from the playlist, but doesn't show up in the nano display.

-Sterling

SterlingY · « **Reply #5 on:** July 03, 2006, 01:27:57 pm »

I have model number MA107LL

-Sterling

prod · « **Reply #6 on:** July 03, 2006, 03:31:21 pm »

what kind of files are you transfering? mp3's? when you browse thru your ipod using windows explorer, what do the directory structure and filenames look like?

SterlingY · « **Reply #7 on:** July 03, 2006, 09:35:02 pm »

The files are mp3s

I don't have it in front of me, but I believe the structure is iPod:iPod_control/music/F13, F16, F06 and so on.

Filenames are the names of the songs ".mp3"

-Sterling

prod · « **Reply #8 on:** July 05, 2006, 05:06:57 am »

never had that problem on the girlf's nano it just plugs in and works - i was trying to gauge if maybe you were doing something different but i guess you're not. have you tried restoring the ipod with the ipod updater and starting from scratch? sounds like there's something funny going on with the database on your ipod - i.e. MC can read and write to it (so isn't reporting any probs), but the nano can't read or access it. maybe a restore would sort it out.

sorry if that's no help, not sure what else it could be.

SterlingY · « **Reply #9 on:** July 05, 2006, 04:40:42 pm »

Yes, I tried a restore.

As you can imahine, I am truly frustrated.

SterlingY · « **Reply #10 on:** July 05, 2006, 05:14:04 pm »

For the hell of it, I decided to install iTunes. which was able to copy files to the iPod, and the iPod could play them without a problem, but when I then copied a song over from MC, everything dissapeared again, though the files remain on the iPod, you just can't see them except through windows explorer.

There has got to be a solution to this. My entire library is in APE files so iTunes is useless to me.

?

-Sterling

SterlingY · « **Reply #11 on:** July 05, 2006, 06:26:51 pm »

FIXED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stay away from updater2006-06-28!!!!

The nano came with updater2006-03-23, and when things didn't go smoothly, my fiancee download the latest updater from apple, which is what we have been using.

The firmware version that came on the iPod was 1.1.1

The newer updater installs 1.2

v1.2 seems to be the problem. I uninstalled everything, reinstalled the original updater2006-03-23, and everything works just fine.

Cheers,

Sterling

BullishDad · « **Reply #12 on:** July 06, 2006, 02:06:30 pm »

Excellent! Glad to hear you solved your problem.

The info you posted should be helpful to JRiver too. Eventually, others will have the same problem using the new updater program. So this gives our MC developer friends a chance to duplicate the problem, and hopefully find a fix.

ccfoodog · « **Reply #13 on:** July 07, 2006, 02:04:08 am »

Ack! I have the same symptoms as well!

I just purchased a 4GB Nano am trying out MC 1.1.186. My iPod came with Updater 2006-01-10, v1.1.

Details: I have have two playlists, one with 156 iTunes (m4p) titles and one with 414 rips (flac). I am set up to sync both these to the iPod. The flac files are set to be converted to mp3s upon sync.

I think perhaps this might be related to the size of the playlists. I made a pair of test playlists, one with 2 m4p files and one with 2 flac files. This pair of playlists syncs OK.

I also tried to sync only the m4p files and this seems to work OK.

The problem with the flac files is that it is hard to try a lot of combinations because it takes a couple-to-several hours to convert/sync, even with my AMD 64 X2 3800+.

It isn't clear that it always does it either. But it happens often enough to be pretty much unusable.

Note this is with careful disconnects and making sure I'm not running iTunes + MC at the same time, etc.

I also recall seeing a post about "waiting a while" after the sync is done. If the "a while" gets longer as the sync list gets longer, perhaps we are disconnecting (ejecting) too soon? Certainly, once the sync is done, I don't see anything suggesting it is still doing anything and is unsafe to eject.

The gotcha is that you can't download 2006-03-23 (1.1.1) from the Apple web site anymore. If you search the downloads, you can find the download page, but when you download the file, you actually get 6-28, the very one Sterling warns against!

I also wonder what happens if you run out of space on the iPod while syncing. It obviously is going to be hard to estimate how much space the converted flacs are going to take up.

So, I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. 1.1 doesn't appear to work well, and Sterling reports 1.2 doesn't work well, and I can't get 1.1.1.

I just wiped my iPod am going to start a from-scratch sync and leave it running over night. This should let it finish and sit for quite a while. I'll report what happens.

I really like the idea of having MC being able to handle all the content -- and the ability to have my rips in lossless format and converted on sync. But all these cool features aren't very helpful if it doesn't work reliably.

Any thoughts/suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,

-john

ccfoodog · « **Reply #14 on:** July 07, 2006, 09:09:57 am »

Well, after my experiment, I ejected and could still see the songs. I wonder if this is time thing. I did have the problem again that I could not play the DRM music until I transfered a song with iTunes tho.

Now that I have it all loaded, I'm afraid to try any more experiments! :-)

-john

bob · « **Reply #15 on:** July 07, 2006, 09:39:18 am »

If you wipe the ipod and don't transfer at least 1 tune with iTunes you won't have the license keys on the ipod that allow it to play drm music.

bob · « **Reply #16 on:** July 07, 2006, 10:24:24 am »

This link should get you to old versions of the ipod updater.
http://public.www.planetmirror.com/pub/apple/iPod/?fl=

ccfoodog · « **Reply #17 on:** July 09, 2006, 01:50:11 am »

Quote from: ccfoodog on July 07, 2006, 09:09:57 am

Well, after my experiment, I ejected and could still see the songs. I wonder if this is time thing.

So today, feeling brave, I downloaded another song from iTunes, added it to the MC playlist to be synced to my iPod and synced. Waited a while, then ejected the iPod. Poof. No listings in the database again. Sigh.

-john

ccfoodog · « **Reply #18 on:** July 09, 2006, 04:17:34 pm »

Being a glutton for punishment, I got back to baseline last night, and today I tried the experiment of adding one song to the playlist and syncing again. This time I was smart enough to make backup copies of my iTunes control files.

I waited a full five minutes before ejecting.

Interesting thing -- before the sync, my iTunesDB was 788KB. After syncing (just adding one song - and one that didn't require transcoding either) the file is 568KB.

I think that really implies something with the sync is going wrong. Basically I verified everything was working fine, started MC, added one song and synced. After that it was baked.

Another interesting thing is after I restored my backup copy of iTunesDB, my DRM music wouldn't play again, despite the iPod not being initalized or anything. Copying a DRM file from iTunes fixed it as expected.

-john

bob · « **Reply #19 on:** July 10, 2006, 10:42:45 am »

Did you check for a zero length sysinfo file? If it's zero, MC will think you have a shuffle.

Check this post:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=34597.0

ccfoodog · « **Reply #20 on:** July 10, 2006, 09:18:17 pm »

Hmm. Not zero length. Here is what it looks like:

BoardHwName: iPod M26
pszSerialNumber: [deleted]
ModelNumStr: MA107
FirewireGuid: 0x000A270012C3F154
HddFirmwareRev: ADBA41KB
RegionCode: LL(0x0001)
PolicyFlags: 0x00000000
buildID: 0x05108000 (5.1)
visibleBuildID: 0x01108000 (1.1)
boardHwRev: 0x00000000 (0.0 0)
boardHwSwInterfaceRev: 0x000C0005 (0.0.12 5)
bootLoaderImageRev: 0x00000000 (0.0 0)
diskModeImageRev: 0x00000000 (0.0 0)
diagImageRev: 0x00000000 (0.0 0)
osImageRev: 0x00000000 (0.0 0)
iPodFamily: 0x00000000
updaterFamily: 0x00000000

ccfoodog · « **Reply #21 on:** July 15, 2006, 12:23:02 am »

Can others with Nanos say if they have similar contents? For example, do others have an iPodFamily of 0? I wonder if even tho mine isn't blank if the contents are not what MC expects.

Thoughts?

Thanks,

-john

john h · « **Reply #22 on:** July 19, 2006, 10:59:59 pm »

I have an Ipod 60 GB. I've used it to synch with MC for about 3 months with no problem. Last week, I turned off my computer, and am having the same problem as john describes with his nano.

My Ipod shows the photos, and I can scroll through them. It shows blank for songs. Nothing is there, no playlists, no files as far as the Ipod is concerned.

I synch it to MC, and everything's there. All the files show up as "On device," all my playlists are there, and 49 GB of the ipod hard drive is filled. The files also show up as on the Ipod using Windows Explorer.

I know I am not running itunes in the background, and have tried doing proper ejects and re-connecting.

I really, really don't want to have to reinitialize the Ipod. And I don't know what an updater is, let alone how to find it and replace it with an older version.

Any thoughts, MC gurus? Help! (I'm supposed to go on 2 week vacation Saturday, away from computer and really want to listen to my songs!)

Thanks.

KStor · « **Reply #23 on:** July 22, 2006, 01:50:40 pm »

Strange ? I'm using my iPod video 30g without problem for monthes. And now, It happens...

My list is empty.

Reset, OK
can fill my iPod again. 3 days laters... empty...

Firmware upgrade OK
can fill my iPod again. 2 days laters... empty...

....

HELP

SwellGuy · « **Reply #24 on:** July 27, 2006, 03:00:15 pm »

Please see this topic http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=34887.0

ccfoodog · « **Reply #25 on:** August 12, 2006, 02:00:29 am »

Well, I finally got up the nerve to try again.

MC .192 + the latest update which brings my Nano to 1.2 seems to be doing the trick. I've been able to sync, then go back, add a song to the playlist and sync again. This has never worked for me with a large playlist before. I've also gone into iTunes, synced my podcasts, then go back into MC, add some songs and sync again. Everything still OK!

Whoot!

-john

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Author Topic: Songs on Nano, but ipod doesn't see them (Read 6713 times)

SwellGuy