Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[bradesp]

Guys,

I'm stumped.  Just downloaded 40 gb of music from MC 12 to my brand new Ipod 160 Classic.  All the songs show that they are physically on the Ipod Device when I plus the Ipod into the computer and fire up MC 12, but when I eject and disconnect the iPod it's say I have NO music...

Help!

bradesp

[SwellGuy]

Do you have the latest firmware installed on the iPod? You may have to Update or Restore the iPod with iTunes running on a PC before it will work correctly.

[duesy]

I'm experiencing the same problem... songs appear on iPod within MC, but none appear on iPod itself. Reconnected iPod and songs appear again in MC, but still none on iPod though Settings indicates presence of total sync capacity. I've updated with latest iTunes, ran Restore utility, and using latest version MC. This oddity just started a few days ago. Please help, thanks.

[SwellGuy]

Is MC correctly identifying the iPod as an iPod classic?

What firmware version do you have installed on the iPod?

[RhinoBanga]

Did you sync as a user with admin privileges?   I am experiencing the same symptoms when running as a normal/limited user and have discovered that when I switched to an admin user everything worked fine.

[Eccles]

I observed similar symptoms when I was having USB problems that caused spontaneous reboots on my PC.  I suspect that it's due to the database not being properly closed - in my case because of the spontaneous disconnect, but I don't know what would cause that in your case if you're ejecting before you disconnect.  But whatever the cause, I suspect you'll find that the About screen shows the space being taken up by "Other" files instead of "Audio" files, i.e. it sees them there but they're not in the database.

[0239666]

This happened to mine as well. Its an 80 gig Classic. I did a full sync. I ejected and the iPod was totally empty. I cant get songs on to it.

[0239666]

Is anyone worried that MC12 cant sync songs on to an iPod. It's forever giving me hassle with my iPod. Everytime I update to a new version it does a full resync. This takes hours. With each new build comes new problems. I had everything working perfectly on an old build around .3xx. Where could I get a copy of an old build of MC12?

[olarte]

Uhm, this is happening to me as well on a brand new 80gb classic.

I have a few of the conditions that some people mentioned. and it  only happens on one PC not the other.

The Ipod has 1.1.2 firmware, the latest build of MC on both PCs 12.0.449?

One PC I have admin rights, USB 2, and the ipod ejects properly when I select eject from Media Center.

Bad PC, syncing with no admin rights, USB 1 and ipod does not eject when selected on MC, However it does eject properly from the system tray applet.

MC sees the music but The Ipod does not, and Itunes does not see the database afterwards.

If I then go to the good PC and sync another song everything is "fixed" except for scrambled artwork.

The interesting part is that this is only happening with the brand new ipod on the "bad" PC. we can sync two other ipods (old 60gb g5 and 160gb classic) just fine (except for the Eject problem).

There is something odd about the new 80gb classic, and the bad PC. I suspect it's the eject\usb 1 issue... and that it is not closing the database properly although it does says it's complete.

Do the others having problems have  any of these conditions?

USB 1
Non-Admin Rights
Not able to Eject from MC directly?

by the way I tried formatting with Both Itunes and MC and nothing worked. The Ipod is simply not usable with MC on that one particular PC.

[JimH]

Please update MC.  12.0.490 is on the MC12 board.

[olarte]

Please update MC.  12.0.490 is on the MC12 board.

JimH, my mistake, I am on 12.0.490 (not 449 as stated). Yet I get the strange problem with that one brand new 80gb classic on one particular pc. another 160gb classic and and old 60gb g5 work fine.

And as mentioned I tried various combinations initializing with Itunes, MC etc... and no matter what, if I add anything to the ipod with MC on that PC the database seems to get corrupt as far as the ipod and Itunes is concerned, although MC continues to see the tunes.

I do suspect it has to do with the database not closing correctly  somehow.

Very very odd...

[SwellGuy]

Does the new Classic work OK on another machine running 490?

[olarte]

Does the new Classic work OK on another machine running 490?

Yes...That's the weird part... see my post above for the full details.

[0239666]

If its any help. My 60 gig 5G ipod works. But not the 80 gig classic? Can I get an earlier build of MC?

[SwellGuy]

Apple started using a checksum/sha key in their iPod database files on classics and 3G nano's when they were introduced. The key was quickly breached allowing us to be able to write the newer databases. It sounds like the brand new classic may use a slightly different key.

Can you transfer one or two songs with iTunes and send me (rick at jriver dot com) your iTunesDB file (?:\iPod_Control\iTunes\iTunesDB)?

Thanks,
Rick

[olarte]

Apple started using a checksum/sha key in their iPod database files on classics and 3G nano's when they were introduced. The key was quickly breached allowing us to be able to write the newer databases. It sounds like the brand new classic may use a slightly different key.

Can you transfer one or two songs with iTunes and send me (rick at jriver dot com) your iTunesDB file (?:\iPod_Control\iTunes\iTunesDB)?

Thanks,
Rick

Uhm, the funny part is that the same Ipod classic worked fine on a different machine with the same build of MC etc... only difference is the PC it was being used on. My (original) 160gb classic works fine on either machine.

I'll have to wait a bit to send you a sample, as we were trying it on my son's girlfriend's Ipod to show her how MC can\should replace Itunes. Needless to say it was a shame that it did not work as expected.

[0239666]

If its any extra help. When I unclick a (all) playlist in the iPods options and drag and drop an album on to the ipod it works. But when I sync it to a playlist it does the whole uploading process and as far as MC is concerned the songs have been transferred successfully but when you eject, its empty.

[SwellGuy]

Is it a problem of scale - how many tracks are in the playlist that doesn't sync correctly? Do small playlists work?

[0239666]

I thought it might have been the scale as that was a problem with classics before. So I cancelled the auto sync. I dragged and dropped and album and it went on fine. Then I grabbed a loada albums (about half the playlist) from the playlist and dropped them on and clicked transfer. It went through the whole uploading process. When I disconnected it when it was finished and it was empty. I did this with one eight of the playlist but with no luck. Again I tried dragging a single album on to the ipod and it transferred the first song but error came up for the rest of the songs. It did this with a number of albums afterwards. Also after this one album transfer with the errors was complete, I tried to add another album and it said it was the exact size of the second album over capacity. I will email the iTunes DB tomorrow hopefully. Also the firmware has changed to 1.1.2

[tab888]

Hi guys. My 80 Gb iPOD Classic also doesn't sync properly. MC will transfer the files yet after ejecting the iPOD has no music. The files are there and I can play them in MC after opening them in Windows Explorer. Seems the file transfer process actually works but the iPOD database is not updated or somehow it can't find the music files. Looking forward to a solution sometime thanks.

[RhinoBanga]

Are you running as administrator on the PC doing the sync?   I had the same problem and when I upgraded the user to admin level I can sync with no problems now.

[tab888]

Hey RhinoBanga you may be onto something. I was running on a limited account when the syncing doesn't work. MC will not eject the iPOD either on this accoun. I tried on another computer and was able to sync fine. This computer laptop was running same version of MC but as an administrator logon. I don't want to change the account type in general as this iPOD is my son's and he will install all sorts of stuff on the computer if he runs as an administrator. Ideas welcome.

[RhinoBanga]

I am in the same situation.   I have three kids, each with limited user accounts and ipods they want to fill.   In the end I gave up on this issue and gave them local admin privileges.   Not ideal but it got them off my back

IIRC J River made changes to get round this in later versions of MC but I haven't had time to investigate if the issue was resolved.

What version of MC and OS are you using?

[RhinoBanga]

btw, here's the original thread:

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=45494.0

[SwellGuy]

We're looking into it...

[rpalmer68]

We're looking into it...

Sorry to be a pain, but any news on this please?

[0239666]

Sorry for the delay but I finally sent the iTunesDB file to rick at jriver dot com. Please let us know if you can fix it.

[suzieg]

I have a 60GB video iPod, model# MA003LL.  I am using a PC with Windows XP Pro and logged on as administrator.  I had only minor trouble with syncing until I upgraded the firmware on my iPod to version 1.3 yesterday.  Now I am having the problem as described above.  When I sync with MC12 version 12.0.473, MC12 thinks it synced my whole database, and I can see them all on the device in the correct places when I explore the iPod using Windows Explorer.  Also, the available space on the iPod accurately reflects the size of my music database.  However, the iPod interface shows no songs at all.

Any ETA on a fix for this?  I really don't want to go back to using iTunes.

Thanks.

[SwellGuy]

Please upgrade to the latest version of MC, initialize the ipod in MC, and try resyncing (a small amount of files, initially).

[0239666]

It worked. For a while. I first synced with one album and it went on fine. The I synced with about 4 albums and they went on. Then bigger again and it was fine. The I tried to sync 804 tracks and a bit of the way in the uploading of a song stalled and didnt budge. All of MC froze this could be a different problem than the one in this thread. Now when I go to sync a song on to the ipod it freezes on the upload. Could this be a problem with the ipods hard disk or a software problem? I'll try and sync a few extra songs using iTunes when I get home to see if they will go on.

[dlmax63]

I've got the same problem with songs not appearing on 30G IPod 5G [model: MA446LL; version: 1.3]. Currently running XP Pro as admin. It first appeared after updating to MC 12.0.514. Uninstalled and reinstalled 12.0.497 and the problem persists. Every time I plug my IPod in, MC forces me to reinitialize it. Then, after doing so and syncing (time consuming!), I eject and the IPod shows no music files. When I look at memory usage on the IPod, capacity/available indicates that the files are there even though I can't see them. I'll go ahead and upgrade, again, to 514 in the anticipation of being told to.

I've been using MJ/MC since v5. This is the first time that something has gone wrong that's catastrophic enough to make me find another player. What gives? Has Apple changed something to try and mess up other apps such as JRiver?

I use MC because of the capacity to tag so well and create playlists to my specs. Does anyone have any suggestions for using ITunes to create custom playlists? It looks like I'll need to use it for the time being!

[SwellGuy]

What do you mean MC forces you to reinitialize?

MC could hang up if one of the files is corrupt - so try to determine if it happens on a certain file.

Ther could also be a problem with the drive on the iPod. Try running chkdsk on it.

[dlmax63]

What do you mean MC forces you to reinitialize?

Poor choice of words. Let me try to clear this up...
  1) sync using MC (everything appeared to work normally)
  2) eject IPod
  3) verified that IPod indicates there are no songs (but does indicate disk is almost full)
  4) plug IPod back in
  5) MC indicates that it does not recognize the files and offers to perform a restore(?)

I didn't copy down the exact words, but the message directed me to restore the IPod and go through the whole process again.


I have found a workaround for this problem, however I synced using ITunes (word of caution, make sure settings are set to not totally HOSE your library). After syncing using ITunes, I ejected and verified that my music appeared as it should on the IPod. I then closed ITunes and opened MC. I plugged in the IPod again and MC was able to read the files on it fine. I then synced using MC (with "Delete from Handheld any files not in Sync List" selected). MC acted as it should and I was then able to use it again including all of my playlists. Although I would prefer to never have to sync using ITunes, it appears that in this case it was usefull just to get it working again.

[JimH]

Although I would prefer to never have to sync using ITunes, it appears that in this case it was usefull just to get it working again.

Using iTunes may have just updated the firmware on the iPod.

Recent versions of MC can also do that by right clicking on the iPod under Drives and Devices.

[suzieg]

My copy of MC12 is at version 12.0.473 and when I check for updates through MC12, it tells me there are no new updates available.  I was unable to figure out how to re-initialize the iPod through this version of MC12.  I seem to recall in earlier versions, there was the option to reinitialize by right clicking the device.  I reinitialized the iPod using iTunes.  I put about 100 mp3 files onto the iPod using iTunes, which worked fine.  I then closed iTunes and opened MC12 and synced 5 albums using drag and drop and that worked fine.  I then ejected the iPod and plugged back in.  I let the check synce function run and then deleted about half of the music in the sync list sunch that I attempted to sync about 2700 songs.  I ejected the iPod and discovered it didn't work.  The disk space on the iPod reflected the additional songs, but the only songs actually visible were the ones I had synced previously.  I then plugged the iPod back in and used drag and drop again to put another album on it.  Now, that didn't work.

Please give me a status on your attempts to fix this problem.

Thanks.

[suzieg]

Another note.  In MC12.0.473 I don't have an option under Drives & Devices to update the firmware on my iPod.

[RhinoBanga]

b515 is on this board:

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=47036.0

[SwellGuy]

It looks like the iPod ran out of space while transferring files and then wasn't able to write the database. So now the iPod is full of orphaned mp3's that the database doesn't know about. There wasn't enough space on the iPod when you attempted that last transfer so that also failed.

Newer version of MC will detect these orphaned files and will ask you if you want them removed.

We are aware of this running out of space issue and are working on a fix.

In the meantime, you can initialize the iPod (right-click on the iPod in the tree on the left) to remove all files and clear the database, then you can reduce the size of your sync and try it again.

You will also find "Update Firmware..." in this right-click menu (iPod firmware updates are not assessed from Check for Updates in the Help menu). (If "Update Firmware..." is grayed out, it means we are unable to update the firmware on that model iPod.)

[suzieg]

I initialized the iPod so it was completely empty and since i have less music in my library than the size of my iPod, I decided to try to sync the whole library.  It worked!

Thanks for your help.
--Suzie

[0239666]

I ran chkdsk and there were no errors. And the "No Music" thing has started happening again.

[SwellGuy]

How big was the transfer?

[0239666]

I didn't do a transfer. The songs that were on it (and are still on it) stopped showing up on the iPod after I connected MC12.

[SwellGuy]

Do you have it set to "Auto-sync on connect"?

If you can capture this happening with logging it should help us figure out what's going on.

[boydn]

I had my new 160gb sync'd but, noticed some minor problems in the database.  My not being very smart decided to initilialzing and reloading it.
15-16 hours later I noticed it finally said "less then one minute" in the status.  It stayed that way for almoxt 2 hours and I ejected it to an empty Ipod.
Any ideas

[0239666]

Yea I'll log the problem if you tell me how. When ever I try and sync a song it just hangs. Will it still log the problem. Its not set on Auto sync. I only tried to drag across on file and it says its uploading and just stays uploading the transfer doesn't finish. I cant cancel the transfer and I cant exit the program. Disconnecting the ipod frees up the MC again. It'd be good to nail this problem on the head.

[SwellGuy]

We think we have an idea what is causing the problem with the 160GB classics and are working on a fix.  The problem has to do with the size of the database and/or the artwork files we write to the iPod. Until we post a fix for the problem the only way to work around the problem using MC is to initialize the iPod and only fill it to about half capacity. We plan to have a fix in a day ot two.

[0239666]

Excellent.

[m1abrams]

I had my new 160gb sync'd but, noticed some minor problems in the database.  My not being very smart decided to initilialzing and reloading it.
15-16 hours later I noticed it finally said "less then one minute" in the status.  It stayed that way for almoxt 2 hours and I ejected it to an empty Ipod.
Any ideas

I have actually seen this issue too.  Every time it happens for me I notice that one of my convert threads seems to be hung up on a track.  Note all my songs are in FLAC format and I have MC convert to mp3 using 2 threads.  If I cancel the sync at this point it will finish up and then I can do a resync and that track that was hung will convert just fine.  I have not reported that until now because I assumed it was do to the fact that my music is on a network share and the conversion tool got hung up.   However maybe a good fix for this would be some type of watchdog on the conversion, a simple idea would just have a timer for each process thread that can be roughly based on file size * a pretty big number so that you assume the machine is very very slow so you do not have to worry about the speed of the machine.  This will at least keep it from deadlocking when we have it run overnight.

[0239666]

It can also hang on the uploading of a track. Because I thought it might have been the conversion of flacs, apes and was that was messing up the transfer so I used just mp3s and it still hung on an upload.

[lalittle]

We think we have an idea what is causing the problem with the 160GB classics and are working on a fix.  The problem has to do with the size of the database and/or the artwork files we write to the iPod. Until we post a fix for the problem the only way to work around the problem using MC is to initialize the iPod and only fill it to about half capacity. We plan to have a fix in a day ot two.

Just to update, the "half capacity" suggestion didn't apply to us.  My brother's 160GB iPod was being synced to less than half it's capacity when we saw the issues (cover art problems, re-check sync inconsistancies, some songs wanting to constantly re-synch, album tags missing or scrambled, etc.)

Larry