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[stevemac]

Hi,

MC 17.0.184
PC = Win 7 x64
Galaxy S3 (Model: GTI9300T, Android Version: 4.0.4, Kernel: 3.0.15-CL674864, using 'Music Player' App)

The other half recently got the Galaxy S3 & wanted music on it.  Created a new playlist, added some songs, connected the device to the PC, JR MC saw it, configured JR MC to sync the playlist (converting all to MP3) & it all worked.

Tonight added some songs to the original playlist & created a second playlist.  Synced the device & had some failures - turned out to be old .M4P files.  Deleted these from the playlist & synced again.  Sync completed - all songs showing 'On Device', however several problems on the S3.  I have observed the following

• Artist and Album views have entries titled 'Unknown'
• New Playlist doesn't have all the required songs in it - only shows 3 of 10 tracks
• Folder view appears to have all the artists listed but doesn't list all tracks
• Looking at the phone's SD card via Window's explorer indicates that all the songs are present

the source files in my library are a combination of FLAC & M4A.  I have set MC to convert everything to MP3
Deleting files & resyncing changes the outcome for some tracks, but it doesn't appear to be consistant.
Changing the setting for the number of tracks to convert at the same time doesn't fix the problem

Anyone have any suggesions on what to check / do to address?

thanks,

Steve

[Matt]

I wonder if the files getting converted to mp3 might not be getting tagged, so the phone doesn't see metadata?

Let us test on our end and follow-up in a couple days.

[stevemac]

thanks Matt.  Some more info below

in the Galaxy S3 Music Player App
Album View

• there are 10 cover art thumbnails with Album = Unknown, Artist = Unknown.  Opening these returns the message No Songs
• Of the 10 cover art thumbnails, 4 off them appear later in the list with valid album & Artist information

looking at two songs that don't appear
Huey Lewis & the News - The Power of Love

• the file is defintely on the phone.
• the filename is 03 - The Power of Love.mp3
• the path is \Music\Huey Lewis & The News\Greatest Hits
• viewing the file properties via Windows Explorer shows Album title, Artist and Composer all have <unknown>

Madonna - Vogue

• the file is defintely on the phone
• the filename is 15 - Vogue.mp3
• the path is \Music\Madonna\The Immaculate Collection
• viewing the file properties via Windows Explorer shows Album title, Artist and Composer all have <unknown>

A spot check of other files that don't have an issue shows these tags have values, however I can find files that aren't showing that do have them.
Kings of Leon - Use Somebody

• filename = 04 Use Somebody.mp3
• path = \Music\Kings of Leon\Only By the Night

So tagging might be a contributing issue, but it might not be the only issue

I can copy the files off the phone & they successfully play on the PC

Happy to provide the JR XML files on the phone if you want them

cheers,

Steve

[JohnT]

I've got a couple of playlists, one with mp3's and the other with flac files.  They both transfer ok to a Galaxy Nexus phone with conversion turned off.  With conversion enabled, I'm seeing some of the "<unknown>" tags and some errors transferring.  Haven't pinned down the problem yet, still looking into it...

[JohnT]

Actually, I was having the transfer errors using MC18 which had a separate problem which has now been fixed.  Using MC17, I haven't been able to repro the problem.  I've been transferring m4p, m4a, flac, ape, and mp3 files in three different playlists, with conversion set to "convert unsupported" and also tried it with "always".  The only thing is, I'm using a Samsung Nexus rather than the S3.  The playlists are ".pla" format and seem to work fine.  Send me a log file (johnt at jriver dot com) and I'll see if I see anything obvious.

[stevemac]

hi John,

Have e-mailed a log file to you.

Thanks for investigating,

Steve

[stevemac]

OK - I have performed some more investigation

The files that don't appear in the Music Player App do appear under My Files and play on the phone

I deleted all music & playlists on the phone (via Windows Explorer) & resync'ed from JR MC.  Sync worked but there are still tracks that do not appear in the Music Player app, Artwork in Albums that are <unknown> & the playlists do not list all songs

Deleted all music & playlists again

Created a new device in JR MC & copied the settings for the Samsung Galaxy S3 (the only setting I'm aware is different is playlist Format (the Galaxy profile doesn't have this setting).  Set the path to be a local folder on the PC.  Synced the device & then copied all the outputted folders to the Phone via Windows Explorer (including the folder playlists which has two .M3U files in it)

All tracks now appear on the phone, Albums are correct, Playlists are correct.

So still not sure what is wrong, but have a workaround.  I suspect something's off with JR MC's communication / transfer to the device and the creation of the .pla files

[stevemac]

upgraded to 18.0.45 tonight & attempted sync again.  Same issues recurred.

regards,

Steve

[Arbiter]

To add info to the sync issues, here's what the sync screen looks like :



As you can see artist albumb and more or less anything else than the name tag is left blank. The files are correctly tagged m4a files (used external encoder -> neroeenc) and they do display and playback just fine in S3. But since jrmc can't see the tags rights, it tries to sync everything back again popping lots of errors.


Tried on both v17 and v18

[joetiii]

Interesting to note that I did not have sync issues in MC17. Upgraded to MC18 along with a 64GB card and now I have these same problems

[joetiii]

Well I thought I had this figured out. I tried adding one playlist at a time and then synced with my SIII. Worked fine for 3 playlists. When I added the fourth, I did not get all the files to show in the playlist on the device. Anybody have better luck than me?

[joetiii]

Created a new device in JR MC & copied the settings for the Samsung Galaxy S3 (the only setting I'm aware is different is playlist Format (the Galaxy profile doesn't have this setting).  Set the path to be a local folder on the PC.  Synced the device & then copied all the outputted folders to the Phone via Windows Explorer (including the folder playlists which has two .M3U files in it)

All tracks now appear on the phone, Albums are correct, Playlists are correct.

So still not sure what is wrong, but have a workaround.  I suspect something's off with JR MC's communication / transfer to the device and the creation of the .pla files

Steve,

So I was able to figure out how to create a new device and set the path to a hard drive folder. I set up the options for encoding properly and synced to my new device. Then I proceeded to reansfer my files over to by Galaxy and started getting messages that some files could be copied but might not play back properly because format is unsupported (flac). I went back to my device options and it clearly says that all files should be coverted to MP3. So it seems that JR MC has another issue going on with it as well. Any thoughts?
thanks

joe

[stevemac]

Hi Joe,

not sure what's going on (I thought the S3 supported flac - will double check)

In the "dummy" device folder(s) are there FLAC files present?
In the "dummy" device config

• In Files, Paths, & more, what're the values in Supported Types?  For me the values are mp3;wma;wmv;jpg;gif;avi;mpeg;mpg;asf;dvr-ms;mp4 (I never removed the image & video types as I don't sync that content at all)
• in Conversion - Audio what's mode set to (Always convert, Convert unsupported formats or something else)?

regards,

Steve

[joetiii]

After some time has passed I am thinking this is not an S111 issue but rather a MC18 problem.  I have been creating a dummy device on my hard drive and then then copying the folder to my S111.  I have recently changed some playlists and went to sync them. First time I did this I had had onlly 34 gb of files..... so I added some songs and playlists. When I sunced again, the plaist grew, but the file folder size remained the same. Strange. After I copied the folder to my device from explorer, I opened the galaxy and could see some playlists were on the device, but the files are not. When I go back to MC18, I see these files and they show a staus of "In Que". If I recheck sync, their status stays the same. Whats up with this and how to fix???

[joetiii]

Anybody take a stab at why I have hundreds of songs on my device that show InQueue and will not transfer to my device when I have plenty of GB still available?

[zxsix]

Adding more to this...
Can dupe on both Samsung Galaxy S3 and S4 models.

Library is mostly flac.  Handheld options set to convert all to mp3 during sync.
Wiped SD card, connected phone to computer.
This is the first time MC had seen the S4.
Set up the handheld options and checked boxes for playlists to include in sync.
Sync'd to 100%.
Disconnected phone and used during the day for calls and sms, no music played.
Reconnected phone later and now MC wants to sync over 5000 songs again.
If I sort the device's display by song name, here's what I am seeing.

Track #, bitrate, and rating fields seem to be lost on the files on the phone.
Sometimes genre is swapped to a different genre that I don't use in my library.  No idea how that's happening.
These of course don't match to the flac in MC library, so it wants to resync them.

[helpme]

AS well as the sync issues already mentioned by a number of users. (re-syncing files every time and not transferring all playlists)

I can add another issue:-

For those playlists that do transfer to the S3 in full they work fine...until the phone is powered down completely. On restart the songs are still present but the playlists disappear ?

[adamt]

Unfortunately we don't have an S3 to test on, but I tried on three phones (Samsung Galaxy Note, HTC EVO 3D, and Samsung Galaxy Nexus) and none of them caused any problems.  Maybe these problems are very device specific?  Perhaps it's due to the stock music player on the phone.  All the phones I tried used the "Play Music" app by Google.  Any new information? 

[zxsix]

I don't use stock music player, I user PowerAmp.

Tested last night.  I have 6 playlists that each contain 1200 files.
I leave the phone connected to the USB the whole time and don't use the phone.
Flac files get transcoded to mp3 with artwork to be embedded.
step 1: sync 2 playlists equalling 2400 tracks total.
sync completed.
hit the 'recheck sync' button and after it does it's work says 0 tracks to sync.

step 2: leave original 2 playlists checked, check 2 additional ones.
sync completed.
hit the 'recheck sync' button and after it does it's work says 0 tracks to sync.

step 3: leave original 4 playlists checked, check 1 additional one.
sync completed.
hit the 'recheck sync' button and after it does it's work says wants to sync over 1200 files.
check playlists folder on device and not all of the selected playlists are there.

I've posted logs before but I never hear back after I do all that work.
If you want to have a look, I'd be happy to wipe the music and playlist folders off the phone and provide you with log files of both the successful and failed logs.

Also would be really nice if the playlists would be sync'd as m3u files instead of as .pla as most android music apps don't support .pla

[adamt]

Okay, I was finally able to reproduce something very similar to this.  I want to verify that it's the same problem. 

I eventually ran into the same problem where every time I clicked "Recheck Sync" it would look like it was updating the device.  When I clicked "Details" in the device pane, it shows the files lined up to by synced again (In Que).  Clicking on "Sync" started the process, but all the Que'd ones had errors.  It doesn't seem to warn you in any way.  Unfortunately It's not exactly like your problem in that only a few select files were screwed up, and in that the tags were't altered at all.  It behaves in a similar manner to your problem though.  The next time you try syncing, can you click "Details" and tell me what it says?  Whether or not they come up with errors?

Thanks.

[adamt]

Now I've been able to reproduce the same thing without the errors.  Tricky...

[zxsix]

I don't get errors in the status column.  It will actually sync them all again, taking a full 90 minutes to a few hours each time depending on how many it thinks it needs to resync.

Here's what I'm seeing today.  I don't have logging turned on for this, but let's start with screenshots...
It was all sync'd up last night and the sync area of the action window said "finished".
If I look on the SD card today in the file manager on the device, or via Windows Explorer with phone attached to usb,
there are usually 2 files on the root of the sd card, jrinfo.xml and jrstate.xml...  THOSE ARE MISSING as well as some of the playlist .pla files that should be in the \playlist subfolder.

Now today, without any new files being imported, no changes to the selected smartlists, and no music played on the device, I connect and it wants to sync over 5000 files!  


5000 is a lot, so let's narrow it down to some specific examples...
This is looking at the device details pane.
Notice the highlighted pairs of songs.
The rating, tracknumber, genre, and bitrate fields are different in the source flac file than in the transcoded mp3 file that was sync'd yesterday to the phone's SD card.

The status field is indicating that it wants to delete the current mp3 file off of the device and will transcode and download a new copy from the source flac.
It apparently thinks the file has changed and thinks it needs to sync an updated copy.

So let's look at Zoot Suit Riot a little closer.
In windows explorer, viewing the phone's SD card, I right-click on that song's mp3 file and choose properties.
The date/time stamp is from last night around 9pm when the last sync completed.  This tells me that there is no player or other app on the phone that modified the file's tags in any way.

So why does MC show the genre field as jazz on one and swing on the other?
It is under Swing in my MC library.
So what about the file tag?  Back to windows explorer, properties/details on the actual file on the phone, and it shows the genre as Jazz!


FYI, some of the other songs, the genre is showing values that I don't use in my library at all, such as "alternative/indie"  It only shows that for the files on the device, never for files in the library.

Let's have a look and open the file up in the mp3tag application.
Hmmm, genre there shows Swing!

I'm at a loss on how it is sees the incorrect genre values.  I only do tagging in MC.  I use no other music apps on the PC.  The music app built into Windows 8 doesn't support flac files, so it can't be that.

The only solution that's worked for me, temporarily, is to delete all files off the SD card (\music folder, \playlist folder, and the 2 MC files off of the root of the card).
Then reattach MC.  Select a couple of the playlists, which puts about 2000 files on the phone.
Next day, attach phone and MC says 0 need to be syncd.
Select a couple more playlists to sync and it syncs approximately 2400 more songs.
Import a new album.
Click recheck sync button.
Shows 12 new files need sync. performs sync fine.
Next day attach phone and MC says 0 need to be syncd.
Working fine up to that point.
Select 2 more playlists to sync, which would now have all the songs I want to be on the phone.  Syncs and says completed.
But now the playlists aren't all there and those 2 files that should be on the root are missing.
Next connect, wants to sync the 5000+ files again.
Back to square 1.
Not sure why it broke.  Buggy after 5000 files or more on device?  Doesn't like some of the files in one of the later playlists I selected (some have oriental and European characters in song titles)?  I see some of yours do also.

[zxsix]

Here's another issue to look at...

In file manager on android, check /mnt/sdcard/Playlists
It should be empty because I'm not using that device with JRiver.
Delete any files if they exist here.

In file manager on android, check /mnt/extSdCard/Playlists
It shouldhave some playlist files in it from yesterday's sync because this is the device used with JRiver.
Leave these files alone.

Enable logging in JRiver.
Connect android to usb.
device appears in the tree in MC.
Click on the SDcard one, not the phone one.
Works for a little while then displays the contents of the SDCard on the phone.
Shows a status of "on device" for all songs and in the action window it says 0 files to sync.
Yay!  that's good so far.  I expect this because I only have a small amount of files selected to sync and it usually works fine until later when I add more playlists to be syncd.
Nothing needs to be done so...let's cancel.
Clicked the X to close the device in the action window.
Navigated to 'recently imported' in the pane that is displaying the device contents.
Disconnected device from USB.

BUT, here's an issue...
In file manager on android, check /mnt/sdcard.
It just put 6 .pla playlist files in that folder, time stamped just now!
Why is it writing to that device at all??
Wrong device + I never clicked sync button.

Now check /mnt/extSdCard.
Still has the 5 playlists that I sync'd yesterday with yesterday's date.  And is still missing the one playlist that didn't sync properly yesterday.

Here's a logfile of this whole thing from just prior to attaching the phone through disconnecting the phone.

[adamt]

The difference between the windows file info and the mp3 tag application is very interesting.  Would you mind sending the flac and mp3 files for both songs you were demonstrating to adam (at) jriver (dot) com?

[zxsix]

The difference between the windows file info and the mp3 tag application is very interesting.  Would you mind sending the flac and mp3 files for both songs you were demonstrating to adam (at) jriver (dot) com?

Dangit, I resync'd last night and that file is correct now.  Needed something to listen to today, so I did a few small playlists worth.
Here's the original flac and the one that's on the SDCard today (correct genre showing).
This way we'll have them when I can dupe the problem again later.

[zxsix]

Might be helpful to know how I have portable options set, though I can't see those settings right now without phone connected.
Here's what I can remember, let me know if you need any other info.
most source files in library are flac, a few are mp3.
option is set to ALWAYS convert to mp3 normal.  I choose this since I don't embed art in the source files, I use folder.jpg.
option is set to embed album art during transcoding to mp3.
option is set to delete items not in the selected playlists.
I don't use handheld cache, so files are transcoded on each subsequent sync and I have no stack files in the library.
File path options:
music =    Music\RemoveCharacters([Album Artist (auto)], ., 0)\RemoveCharacters([Album], ., 0)\
I use this since many songs have multiple periods in them and android doesn't like that.
playlists =  Playlists

[adamt]

Thanks for the info! I'm looking into it now.  If you can reproduce that problem with the changed genre names sometime, it would be really helpful to have.

[zxsix]

Thanks for the info! I'm looking into it now.  If you can reproduce that problem with the changed genre names sometime, it would be really helpful to have.

If history is any indicator, that won't happen until I sync some additional playlists and get over 5000 songs.  I'll do that when I get home tonight and see if I can get it to break.  Good news is I will have log files of it when it happens.

[adamt]

Okay, I've been grappling with this for a while now.  Unfortunately I've been able to reproduce very similar things, but never the exact same problem it seems.  Quick question, does your S3 connect via MTP, PTP, or just as a drive?  In android notification drawer when you click on "USB connected", what does it tell you?

[zxsix]

I'm using an S4, son has the S3 now.
There is no longer USB drive mode in newest versions of Android.
I get option in notification drawer of MTP or PTP mode and select MTP.

[zxsix]

Ready to sync for today, so going to document here and record log files.

• Rated 5 songs from artist "The Neologist" and a couple other artists, which causes them to be removed from the "Unrated by Album" smartlist
• MC is closed but library server is running in tray.
• connect S4 phone to USB in MTP mode, windows explorer appears showing the SDCard and the Phone partitions.
• Let's check that Zoot Suit Riot song from yesterday to make sure it didn't get modified by android today...
• Drill down to it and right-click/properties.  Timestamp is 7/10/13 at 19:33 last night.
• jrstate.xml and jrinfo.xml are timestamped 7/10/13 at 21:11
• I made sure that the phone's internal storage Playlist folder is empty of files by deleting the .pla files that are there now.

Let's open up MC and see what sync has to say...

• device's SD Card shows up in tree under drives and devices so click on that to show details in the pane.
• About 30 seconds of spinning mouse cursor and the files list appears.  It says 0 files to be sync'd.
• Sort on the status field and there is an handful set to "delete on sync".  Those are the ones that I expected to be deleted from the Unrated by Album playlist.
• Zoot Suit Riot is there with status of "On Device" so it doesn't see it as changed and isn't trying to resync it.
• Sync button is pressed.  Changes to finished very quickly since there is only deleting and no transcoding/copying to do.  All items in device details list show "on device" now.

Here's the log file to this point.

• Reset the log file.
• Clicked "Recheck Sync" button in device details pane.
• BOOM!  Wants to sync 2962 files.
• Zoot Suit Riot looks different and wants to sync now!

link to full size image file

So,
you have the flac source file already that I sent last night.
you have the mp3 file as it was on the device after syncing last night.
now here's the mp3 file that MC now all of a sudden thinks is different.
I'm canceling the sync.
Here's the log file at this point.

• Checked /mnt/sdcard on phone, which was empty a few minutes ago.  Now there are .pla playlist files in there timestamped 7/11/13 at 16:28.  MC should not be putting any files on that partition!
• The .pla files where they should be in /mnt/extSdCard are still dated 7/10/2013 at 21:08.
• /mnt/extSdCard/jrinfo.xml and jrstate.xml are still dated 7/10/2013 at 21:11.  Sounds right since I canceled today's sync.

Hope that gives you some more ammo.

[stevemac]

MC 18.0.209
Samsung Galaxy S3 (no SD card)

Noticed all the updates & decided I'd try syncing with the S3 again & see what happened

Phone is using MTP
Music is in \Music\
Playlists in \Playlists
JRiver xml files in \
Files set to convert to MP3


Deleted all files & folders in \Music and \Playlists
Configured handheld to sync 1 small playlist only
Sync worked.  All files, albums, & playlist available on phone

Configured handheld to sync another small playlist (2 files)
Sync ran, but didn't complete (hung).  I disconnected the USB cable to clear the lock & then reconnected
2 files on the device, however are showing unknown in the phone music app.  Playlist not present on phone
Checked sync & it identified the 2 files as missing.  Synced again and it completed.  Files one phone, present in media app, but playlist not present
Checked via windows explorer & two copies of each song present on phone (1 copy marked as dup).  Deleted both files & artist folders
Synced phone.  Both files now on phone & visible in phone's music app.  Pretty sure the playlist was visible

Configured handheld to sync another playlist (Large one)
Files converted & copied OK, music available in phone's music app, but playlist not present

Disconnected phone and reconnected
JRiver Handheld screen stuck on working for some time (like it was taking a long time to confirm what songs were on the device).
JRiver appears hung.  Windows advised unresponsive & I let it kill it

Restarted jriver
Phone identified, however all files performed in the last sync need to be resynced.
checked jrinfo.xml & it contains references for these files.  Files are on the phone
Deleted files & folders & resynced.  Files on phone, 2 of three playlists present (new one is there, original is not)

To summarise
Appears to be an issue how MC determines what files need syncing
Problem with playlists not being written to the phone (.pla)

I have previously seen the issue with incorrect genre etc (as zxsix has reported) but have not seen it tonight

Let me know if you would like me to perform more testing / capture logs etc

cheers,

Steve

[adamt]

Thanks a lot for your testing.  Those DUP files are interesting and I was able to reproduce that once.  Getting closer.

[stevemac]

You're welcome

Any chance there's also something flunky about the samsung MTP implementation or the MTP drivers on my PC?  I see references on the web of other programes having issues syncing with the S3 via MTP.  Happy to provide driver details & try updates for them

Steve

[zxsix]

I can say that I have tested the last 4 versions of samsung drivers and the ones microsoft finds when you let it get them on its own from the internet.  Have same results from each.
Not saying its not a samsung problem, but I know that installing different drivers wont solve anything.

[zxsix]

Here's a solid log file from my S4 for you.
Start from scratch, so...   \Music and \Playlist folders and two jriver .xml files were deleted off the SDCard via android file manager.
Launched MC and reset the log file.
Attached the S4 to USB.
went into handheld settings to make sure the correct checkboxes were checked on the playlists to be sync'd.
Began sync and let it run overnight.
Clicked finish button in the morning.
Clicked on the device in the tree and it opened a view for the device.
Took a few minutes to populate the songs on the device.
Clicked the recheck sync button at the top.
Now it wants to sync over 4000 files again  
Also, looking at the files on the sdcard, the \Playlists folder is empty, so it didn't save any of the playlist files that it should have.

Now you have everything I've been describing in one continuous log file with the device constantly connected to the pc for all of the steps.

[zxsix]

After the failed sync detailed in the prior post, I decided to try something else.
Again, deleted \playlists, \music, and the 2 xml files from the root folder of the SDCard.
Attached S4 to computer.
Went into handheld options and de-selected some of the playlists, stripping it down to just two to be included in the sync.  This reduced the total number of tracks to be sync'd.
After sync completed, pressed finish button.
Then pressed recheck sync button.
This time it worked properly and shows 0 files to sync!
Here is the complete log file.

Looking at the file manager on the device, the unrated by album.pla file is in the \playlists folder, but the hot songs.pla file is missing.

[zxsix]

Any updates on this?
I'm holding off on updating to version 19 until you specify whether you're still working on this for v18 or not.
Don't want to change things on you right in the middle.

[Louis]

I don't think these Sync Handheld device issues are exclusive to the Samsung phone, I'm experiencing the same behaviour trying to sync the Sony Xperia S LT26i

[LtTawnyMadison]

Hi all - There is another thread about this same issue. I posted what worked for me there. It's not an ideal solution (ideal would be only using MC) but at least it's something.

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=81707.0

[nitephlight]

After the failed sync detailed in the prior post, I decided to try something else.
Again, deleted \playlists, \music, and the 2 xml files from the root folder of the SDCard.
Attached S4 to computer.
Went into handheld options and de-selected some of the playlists, stripping it down to just two to be included in the sync.  This reduced the total number of tracks to be sync'd.
After sync completed, pressed finish button.
Then pressed recheck sync button.
This time it worked properly and shows 0 files to sync!
Here is the complete log file.

Looking at the file manager on the device, the unrated by album.pla file is in the \playlists folder, but the hot songs.pla file is missing.

these are logs from the mc18 side correct, would you be able to recreate a failed sync attempt and pull logs from Android logcat as well? my guess is that MC itself report that it is syncing as intended but its also ignorant to the distinction between USB storage drive and MTP storage drive. most applications are ignorant to this because for all intents and purposes copying files back and forth works the same way in both cases.

what DOESN'T work the same way is the passing of metadata and the r/w rules (once MTP mounted Windows cannot directly edit files on that drive like you could with USB mass storage mode)

[zxsix]

I have moved on to version 19 but could create new logs once a Dev is ready to work on them.

[Etsijä]

I've had the same sync issues with my Samsung Galaxy SII for ages with the free version of JRiver Media Jukebox 14.  They are related to the fact that during the syncing process, MJ seems to change the genres of a lot of songs to something different than what they are originally -> sync program thinks the files have changed and wants to resyc them.

I am now finally considering to buy the MC 19, but am reluctant to do so if the problem still persists...

Some time ago I read from somewhere that the problem of screwing up the genres in metadata when transferring files to a phone might actually be an Android problem, not at all related to MC...anyone have any info on this?  Meanwhile, I might do a simple test of transferring the song manually and seeing whether the genre is screwed up.

[Louis]

Etsijä  - Some time ago I read from somewhere that the problem of screwing up the genres in metadata when transferring files to a phone might actually be an Android problem, not at all related to MC...anyone have any info on this?

You could be on to something there, in my case I'm wondering if my Xperia Z / Android 4.2.2 isn't doing something to the files that screws up MC 19 for the next sync. For instance Sony's SensMe feature in Xperia examines all the tracks and downloads info to create automated playlists based on some mood. It actually works rather well but maybe that feature or the Android OS itself is somehow touching the file to leave MC 19 hopelessly bewildered in ways numerous posts here have reported.

I can start fresh with a clean slate, sync a bunch of playlists sucessfully then on completion immediately sync again to find hundreds deletions and errors in the status and with every subsequent sync the situation further deteriorates into a complete mess with only a handful of playlists left on the device, despite nothing having been changed in the MC 19 settings or playlists.

[lalittle]

With regard to this issue potentially being due entirely to Android and having nothing to do with MC, it seems significant that if you simply copy and paste the files over to the Android device (Galaxy S3 in my case) using Windows Explorer, it works fine.  If the issue were due to Android, wouldn't it still fail in this case?  In other words, as far as the Android OS is concerned, shouldn't an MC sync be the same as copying files over to the unit?  Doesn't the fact that copying the exact same group of files over to the unit using Windows Explorer instead of MC seem to indicate that the issue does in fact have something to do with MC?

Larry

[zxsix]

Hard to say.  Since my source files are flax and require transcoding during the copy process to the phone, I can't test just copying with explorer.   
I notice that mine seems to behave if I have less than 4000 songs.  One I edit the smart lists to go over 4000ish on the device it starts messing up.  I get the songs I think, but some playlists are absent.

[lalittle]

Hard to say.  Since my source files are flax and require transcoding during the copy process to the phone, I can't test just copying with explorer.   
I notice that mine seems to behave if I have less than 4000 songs.  One I edit the smart lists to go over 4000ish on the device it starts messing up.  I get the songs I think, but some playlists are absent.

The admittedly limited workaround that I've been using is to sync to a folder on the PC, then use Windows Explorer to copy the contents of this folder over to the appropriate folder on my Galaxy S3.  The obvious issue with this is that it's a simple "copy" operation to get the files onto the handheld, which means that it takes a long time since the entire library has to be transferred every time.  I've considered using another program (like "Smartsync" for example) to "sync" the folder to the handheld (i.e. just the new and changed stuff would need to be copied over), but I've just never gotten around to it because I'm still assuming that JR will crack this and that MC will be able to sync directly to the device.

In the mean time, you could try this method just to verify (as I did) that you can copy over the same set of files to the device using Windows Explorer.  There could be "extra" issues with the transcode operation, but I'm still using mp3's so I can confirm that it's the MC sync operation that appears to be directly related to these issues.

Larry

[zxsix]

I have done that in the past and it worked, m3u playlists instead of .pla of course.   Problem is the 18GB of wasted drive space in the temporary holding folder.  I have used foldersync on android and it works, but slowly.

[nitephlight]

With regard to this issue potentially being due entirely to Android and having nothing to do with MC, it seems significant that if you simply copy and paste the files over to the Android device (Galaxy S3 in my case) using Windows Explorer, it works fine.  If the issue were due to Android, wouldn't it still fail in this case?  In other words, as far as the Android OS is concerned, shouldn't an MC sync be the same as copying files over to the unit?  Doesn't the fact that copying the exact same group of files over to the unit using Windows Explorer instead of MC seem to indicate that the issue does in fact have something to do with MC?

Larry

MC sync is not the same as simply copying files over. the sync action not only creates a folder structure pushes media files to folders (based on how you want them organized), but it also builds a database file on your phone that is read and written over each time you connect your device. it is designed to track meta data from the device and update MC upon sync. it creates 3 files on your device based on the sync settings you set in MC: JRInfo.xml, JRState.xml, List.xml

the problem with android sync is that it most newer phones do not support USB mass storage mode (which is the predominant protocol used in portable media players, save the special little iPod of course  ) the newer MTP mode behaves differently when syncing and even copying files back and forth.

[WinoOutWest]

I have 2 S3's an S2 and a Asus Transformer all syncing this way and for the most part pretty painless once it is set up.

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=82601.msg563484#msg563484