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[MusicHawk]

I just tried to resynch my iPod Classic/5G 80gb to add a few dozen new tunes, and MC .400 crashed.

I put content on/off this iPod ONLY by synching an MC smartlist of about 8 thousand-plus songs. It was synched from scratch on this same iPod a few days ago after I felt the need to empty it and start over. MC apparently had filled half of it with cover art, even though I thought everything was set to not do this. (I don't want any taking up space on the iPod). So I used iTunes to reset, which possibly installed somewhat newer iPod software. Then I started MC synching to an empty iPod. That went fine (16+ hours later) and I've been playing the iPod daily.

Anyway, today I added 45 songs to the library which are in this iPod's smartlist, so connected the iPod to MC to add them via synch. Yesterday, because MC wouldn't synch my other iPod, I had told it to redetect. So I needed to re-specify my settings, such as, delete songs not in the synch list, convert if necessary to High Quality Portable, and don't include cover art.

MC then started to munch on the iPod, and told me it would be adding more than 5 thousand songs, not 45!

I clicked Details and it ALSO showed that it would also be DELETING a bunch of songs that are definitely in the smartlist, have been there for quite some time, and were just put on the iPod three days ago. I don't believe they have been renamed or retagged or otherwise would appear to be different to MC or the iPod.

Then, when I clicked Synch, MC crashed closed, no warning or messages.

I'm posting this before rebooting to give MC a fresh start (again).

UPDATE #1: 1 hour after starting, MC has been synching for a while, no crash. But, it still seems to be adding more than 5 thousand files when I expected 45. When it finishes ("1.8 hours remaining") I'll see how many songs are on the iPod compared with the smartlist -- they should be identical.

UPDATE #2: 4 hours after starting, MC's iPod synch hung (again). There seems to be nothing happening. The Details screen does not show any activity. But... MC says 99%, less than 1 minute remaining, 3.4MB/sec. Windows Task Manager does not show any CPU or I/O for MC or lame.exe (apparently used for on-the-fly conversion). This 99% but stopped situation has happened before, and apparently MC will never finish "not doing anything".

One odd thing: While the Details screen doesn't show activity, it shows quite a few Delete On Synch items. Normally, if they really were deleted, they'd have switched to Completed. Then again, I don't believe they should be deleted. So maybe MC is waiting for some logic that can never resolve.

I guess I need to just disconnect the iPod and see what happens to it. In hopes of a clean stop, I clicked Cancel Synch, and MC closed (a bit drastic way to cancel synch). However, MC Server is still running in the background. I clicked it and the client reopened and it now says synch is finished. MC is set to eject the iPod at the end of synch but it didn't, so I clicked Eject and it did. However, I didn't disconnect the cable fast enough, so MC grabbed the iPod again with "do not disconnect" (annoying behavior).

The iPod no longer contains the synched playlist (darn!), AND it says there are 11,960 songs on the iPod. MC says the same playlist has 11,991 songs. Why the 31 song difference? And, why, before the synch started, did MC say it has 9,668 songs???

The iPod seems to play OK, but it's showing COVER ART for most tracks! This drastically cuts down the music file capacity of the iPod (filling up to 50% of the drive with images, according to iTunes' view of the drive), for no benefit -- the iPod is used in a car and the screen is not usually visible, never mind used to view cover art (while driving!). So, I try to set MC to not load cover art. In earlier months, it didn't. Now, MC keeps having problems as described here, AND it fills the iPod with cover art.

How can cover art be allowed in MC's library, but EXCLUDED/DELETED from the iPod?? One clue: Before every synch I carefully check that MC is NOT set to "Enable album artwork if possible" but after crashing out of the synch, I find this box checked again. Also, I select "Cover Art: Remove from tags" but now it's back to "No Change". I keep seeing that these get re-enabled by MC, not by me. Maybe if they would stay as I specifed the cover art problem would go away?? Once MC puts the cover art on the iPod, is there any way to get it off via MC? The only apparent way to remove it is to reset the iPod using iTunes and start over -- a two day job given the size of my library -- and half the time I end up with cover art AGAIN.

I could select the same songs by creating a view+formula rather than a smartlist; would that possibly provide a more stable synch environment? What else might be broken that causes this problem? Is there an earlier version of MC that is known to be better behaved when synching?

[JimH]

Are you using the latest firmware on the iPod?  It's required.

[MusicHawk]

I believe so. Earlier this week when I opened iTunes to restore the iPod to clear all the cover art, it told me a new version was available and I said to use it. Then iTunes worked on the iPod for quite a while.

But I haven't (yet) checked the iPod site to get the software version # and compare it to the iPod. I'll do that.

PS: This same scenario happened with two iPods and MC 12.0.398. .399 and .400, and possibly with a few earlier, but it didn't used to happen with, say, MC 12.0.380.

[JimH]

Could you try Apple's advice?
http://www.apple.com/support/ipod/five_rs/

[MusicHawk]

I confirmed that iTunes put the latest software on my iPod 5G 80GB when I Restored, after doing the other 4 of the "5 steps" first.

So, using the latest Apple software and the newest MC build, with an empty iPod after a clean reboot, MC acted oddly.

If it matters, I have a large library (60K+ songs) and I'm synching a good-sized smartlist that keeps growing  (above 12K today).

The problems experienced during iPod synching with recent builds of MC -- not every problem every time -- are:

MC finishes synch, and all seems well. But a subsequent synch -- with no material library change -- somehow finds thousands of additional files to add, but there's no apparent reason why they were not added during the first synch.

MC deletes songs on the iPod for no obvious reason -- they were already on the iPod and are in the synched smartlist. At least some of the songs being deleted were added during the previous synch. The smartlist is the same, yet MC is reversing its own decisions about these files. At times, the same song is set to be deleted from the iPod AND to be added from MC.

MC fails to finished -- gets to 99% and seems to stop working.

MC fails to eject iPod, probably related to being not-quite-finished.

MC copies cover art onto iPod in spite of using every setting that would seem to prevent this. Once this happens, don't know how to cure it except to use iTunes to Restore, then MC to put all the music back on -- often resulting in the cover art being put back too. This is really a bummer because the images consume about half of the iPod's drive space!

Given the size of the library and synch list, it is difficult to experiment because each resynch takes many, many hours (17+ hours after a Restore for the full smartlist). But I'll keep doing it, and reporting when MC seems to misbehave, looking for patterns and clues.

Perhaps JR could describe exactly what behavior is triggered by the various synch settings, in MC, MC's cache, and the iPod. It would be easier to intelligently experiment and debug knowing what should happen vs. noting what does happen.

[lalittle]

MC finishes synch, and all seems well. But a subsequent synch -- with no material library change -- somehow finds thousands of additional files to add, but there's no apparent reason why they were not added during the first synch.

I see this occasionally as well -- I actually just reported it in one of the recent build threads.  It's difficult to troubleshoot since it isn't consistent, but I should mention that if I do another re-check sync after I see this, it will go back to reporting "full synced."  The problem is that I never know whether or not to trust the "re-check."

Larry