INTERACT FORUM
More => Old Versions => Media Jukebox => Topic started by: SteveG on November 22, 2002, 12:48:53 pm
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Hello again,
I have posted a new Plugin (version 3.0.22) which is available at
http://www.musicex.com/cgi-bin/downloads/plugins.pl?type=8
It includes the following improvements:
1) When you get the latest MJ v9 (9.8.02) on the fly conversion of files will only convert files that are not the preselected type. What Kurt calls Safety convert.
2) Added a second estimate for time remaining on synchronization.
3) Internal code speed improvements.
See you next week.
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Kurt, in response to your note on completealbum==1...
So if I create a SmartList with just auto and complete album logic then then the other SmartLists also contain the complete album logic along with other crieria , my iPod will just shuffle arouond the files already downloaded and I could also listen to complete albums?
I think you're saying this but this is my twisted way of understanding it.
Steve, I see the right-click options in Media View (didn't even think of that before) however they don't currently appear to work in MJ9 and I've reported that bug.
Thanks to all!!!
MJ is almost too powerful, there is SO much under the hood its tough to appreciate the entirety of it.
-=TIm=-
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Steve, with respect to your comment about random placing in the iPod F* directory structure, I'm curious as to how random that placing is. Basically, when I load my collection of 2500 mp3s on the iPod, the overwhelming majority of the songs end up in the F19 directory. Now, this isn't a huge deal, but it may be somewhat related to the song skipping/timeout issue that others are reporting...
just a thought
paul
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2 quick (hopefully) question for the pros...
1. spending almost two weeks NOT getting my windows ipod to work i went thru MM, MJ, and ephpod before switching to another computer (from win2k box w/actiontec pci firewire card to win 98se dell laptop w/nec chipset pcmcia firewire card) and am actually syncing sucessfully with MJ9 and latest plugin...
so a big THANX!! ;D
only problem is, MJ thinks my 20 gb ipod is 2.0 gb total with 2.0 gb available...why is that and/or should i just ignore and be happy i finally have something to listen to??
2. as i trudge grudgingly out to spend even more time and money on my buggy new toy, any advice on pci firewire cards?? any of them relatively foolproof??
much thanx, beth
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Tim, quick note before I go home...
If you make the smartlist with the code that I gave you, and synch with it, all of the songs called out on it (thus, all of the songs that belong to a "complete" album) will end up on your iPod. You can then use the iPod's "browse" menu to access the music.
If you were to do this and use the iPod's "Playlists" menu, you'd see the smartlist in there, aye... but it'd just be a HUGE list of songs that may or may not be sorted in a manner that makes sense. Use "Browse" and things'll be sorted by track like they're supposed to.
Think of the smartlist as a "loader" list. All it's used for is to get music up on the pod.
Of course, when you start using them, you'll find that synching your iPod with smartlists is frikkin sweet, and you'll find yourself building more and more of em!
Like this one: mediatype=[audio] genre=[rock] ~t=120 ~sort=random
That'll give you two hours of rock music, picked at random from your entire library. Each time you synch, it's a different list. Good for when you want to listen to music but can't decide what you want... just load it up, hit play, and get surprised.
Okay, gonna be late for the ferry. Cheers, guys... I can't wait to fiddle with the "safety convert" -- sweet!!
Big ups to Steveo. Have a good weekend all.
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Steve:
Got your note regarding the file naming convention. I'll check mine to see if they are indeed getting placed randomly, but let me ask another question.
How hard would it be to convert the file name itself to a random (or sequentially) numbered file name? That's what ephPod does (or has the option to do), and it seems to solve a lot of problems.
Sometimes you can get very strange characters in file names esp. with classical music or mixes and stuff. I for example name my files Artist - Album - Track# - Title, pretty standard, but on Various Artist albums (or DJ Albums), I include the actual artist name in the track title so you get something like:
DJ Tiësto - Summerbreeze - 08 - Far From Over [Oliver Lieb Remix].mp3
This by the way is one of the songs that is skipping. I'll bet it's that "ë" that's doing it. I'll change it and try again. 'Course, with Ephpod, it would rename this file to something like 2043.mp3 so that took care of it.
I realize that this makes both the synch a little more complicated and the Copy from iPod to PC a little more complicated, but it might be the route to go to prevent this from happening.
Adam
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I think the link for the new build is pointing to an old build, Steve. I just downloaded it, and the plugin is dated as being modified November 20, 2002, 10:22:00 AM. No safety convert can be found, :'(
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Ok now, i'm going to be out of town for about a week now which means no testing for me :( and we are coming along so nicely too! so when i return i'm hoping for some sweet stuff! so try not to let me down ;)
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Thoughts...
(0) Steve you've done an amazing job. IMHO even in beta MJ is clearly the superior program for managing my iPod and as we've said this 'large format' player is clearly the wave of the future, not just from Apple but Creative and others.
(1) tho' it looks like Playlists will resolve my needs (AND HOW!) I do think they're a more specialized way of handling music. If you think of the average user (which btw none of us are :) ) few are going to want or expect to use Playlists to do what they want and IMHO they (not we) are the sweetspot for market penetration.
In the interests of keeping MJ (or MC) as mainstream as possible it would seem logical to add Media Library view support.
(2) Most of my files (lets say 75%) are also going into /F19 for what that's worth.
(3) I'm still getting frozen screens but active transfers on most transfers. Even to the point that the transfer window is saying (Not Responding)!!! Disconcerting, specially when you're transferring files, as I sometimes am, at 802.11b speeds. :)
-=Tim=-
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2 quick (hopefully) question for the pros...
1. spending almost two weeks NOT getting my windows ipod to work i went thru MM, MJ, and ephpod before switching to another computer (from win2k box w/actiontec pci firewire card to win 98se dell laptop w/nec chipset pcmcia firewire card) and am actually syncing sucessfully with MJ9 and latest plugin...
so a big THANX!! ;D
only problem is, MJ thinks my 20 gb ipod is 2.0 gb total with 2.0 gb available...why is that and/or should i just ignore and be happy i finally have something to listen to??
I think the 2gig thing is a limit in Win98.
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Steve:
OK, I think I've figured out the skipping file deal, at least I can consistently recreate it. It seems to be due to strange characters (foreign) in the file name itself.
I have three examples:
DJ Tiësto
Sinéad O'Connor
Télépopmusik
All three of these artists appear on my iPod fine, but when you play them, iPod skips through each song rapidly w/o playing. Seems to me like those foreign characters in the file name are what's causing the problem. With ephpod's auto-renaming feature this did not occur.
So, I think this makes a strong case for renaming files as either a rule or an option.
I too don't see the new build :(. But (as always :D) I have some stuff to report:
1. Would it make more sense to have the ipod tree sorted like the iPod? Artist, then Album? Right now it's reversed. Classify this as minor cosmetic.
2. I'm not liking too much the option to switch between the different views of the iPod ("Show Queued Files Only"). Unfortunately I don't have a great suggestion, but it seems like for many users this feature is too "buried" and causes confusion if you have that turned on when you click your iPod and you don't see anything there. Maybe you could Queued files when you click the root with a second pane showing all files, and if you click one of the child items (Artists/Albums etc.) you would only show what's on the iPod.
3. When formatting an iPod that has a lot of stuff on it, the Status bar indicator freezes at 1/3. Don't know if this is related to the overall GUI Lock issue or not.
4. I'm not seeing a status bar when I delete a large number of songs from my iPod. Should I be? I not, might I suggest you add on. Nothing special on it, just a bar indicating that it's deleting.
5. To echo Kurt: Must have pretty icons :)
6. I'm not sure deleting is working write on the iPod. I had a strange thing happen. I had 2 "Everything But The Girl" albums, problem was, one Album was tagged with a "the" the other with a "The". In the MJ library it displayed all under one artist. On the ipod it displayed as 2 Artists ("Everthing But the Girl" & Everything But The Girl"). So, I deleted the songs off of the iPod, changed tags and reuploaded. Now neither artist shows up. I'll be sending the iTunes db to you.
7. This one's kind of a biggy I think, but REALLY important. I think only Xplay has been able to achieve this (maybe iTunes), but here goes. If I edit a tag on a song and I then do a sync (of all files or a playlist that included that song) then I would expect that MJ would reupload that song with the new tags. I tested this and it didn't work in MJ. I changed the genre on all the Songs on an Album, did a sync w/Transfer all Files and the new Genre I created ("test") did not show up on the iPod. This is really crucial as changing *any* ipod supported tags should be made on the iPod as well. Probably a last-modified date or I've read in other posts that there's an something in the FAT32 file system that indicates a file change--don't know for sure about that. Anyway, I think you get the idea.
That's it for now. One really amazing thing I've noticed (to end on a happy note) is the transfer speeds are HUGE!. On a sync, the songs seem to be uploading much faster than w/ephpod..sub-seconds per song. Using manual upload is much slower (but I've already nagged about that one).
Keep up the great work.
Adam
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I'm hoping someone can provide some help or point me to some area of documentation that I could use to diagnose the problems I'm encountering. I've been unable to solve these:
I'm running the latest beta (had to because I couldn't convert or see my IPod). I'm now able to convert and I see my ipod referenced as E: drive.
I've tried to 'send to' and 'drag and drop' my albums onto the ipod drive. Nothing seems to transfer nor can I view the files already on my ipod (I had to use MM to get files there and to see what's on the ipod). Also, I'm unable to locate this 'sync' feature everyone continues to talk about.
Would someone please provide advice?
Buddy, ?
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buddy:
When you say you're using the latest beta do you mean MJ Version 9? That's fine. But after you installed that you have to make sure you get the ipod plugin (link at the top of this post). If you didn't do that things won't work.
Also, MJ won't work with an iPod that has songs uploaded from MMJB (at least I don't *think* Steve has built for that yet). It might, but the best solution is to right-click on the iPod in MJ and select "Format for MJ".
Regarding sync, it well be in the same place, but it only works with MJ Version 9
Please bear with the plug in, it's still very much a beta. If you're trying to switch from MMJB and want a very stable application to upload songs to your iPod, I highly recommend ephpod at this point (it's free at www.ephpod.com).
MJ's will be the best I've no doubt, but unless you're willing to put up w/some bugs it *may* not be the right tool for you quite yet. That's you're call of course.
Adam
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there's been talk in these threads about downloading from the ipod a "number of times played" stat. That'd be great down the line, but i wonder, does the ipod even keep that info?
Also, just because i'm too lazy to start a new thread and someone might read this and be able to help.
i bought a version 5 license way way way back in the day... for v9, that's not going to cut it, is it?
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BMP,
Aye, it does. Well, that is to say, we think it can on a PC.
On a Mac, iTunes keeps track of play count and date played, just like MJ does. When you play a song on your iPod and then synch with iTunes, the iPod updates iTunes' play count data. Pretty slick, eh? I dunno if the iPod tracks play date, though.
But so far, no Windows app can do it yet. ;)
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Advice:
BMP: no the v5 license isn't going to cut it for v9. :)
Bug:
The skipping problem for me doesn't appear to be connected to the filename at all. Today it skipped tracks 1 and 2 on starting a playlist. If I forced it back to those tracks (I had to do it a couple of times) it got them. More speculation but could it be the situation suggested earlier: a combination of trying to find them in that jam-packed F19 directory (I DON'T know if they were in F19 btw, I will try to remember to check later) and a skip 'cos of the delay? Tracks 1 and 2 weren't long filenames and they had no foreign characters (one was called Cotten Jenny) . If EphPod distributes the files more evenly across the directories this too could be the reason that EphPod skips less??
Thanks and ideas?
I finally grasp the "Playlist against an MJ9 view of my iPod database" concept and I'm uploading new playlists. The challenge for me now is to find a way to bring the MP3's I want to send to my iPod under 20 gig without compromising too much. Right now I'm excluding specific albums and using the completealbums==1 argument (thanks Kurt and Steve!!) Ideally I'd be able to set ratios against specific artists (in my case Neil Young and The Who8)) as I have a disproportionate number of tracks from them.
-=Tim=-
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Well TimB I think we've found 2 sources for the skipping track bug. I don't have a disproportionate number of songs in my F19 directory. I checked them all and they each seem to be within what would be considered random limits.
So, foreign characters (not long file names) and too many songs in a single directory seem to be the cause. At least so far.....
Adam
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Well TimB I think we've found 2 sources for the skipping track bug. I don't have a disproportionate number of songs in my F19 directory. I checked them all and they each seem to be within what would be considered random limits.
So, foreign characters (not long file names) and too many songs in a single directory seem to be the cause. At least so far.....
Adam
Agreed that both are possibilities! ;D
Could it be the way I highlighted, dragged and dropped the files into the iPod queue that caused them to go to F19 so heavily? Or possibly that I dragged them in two batches (A-M and N-Z which I did 'cos I'm using an unpowered PCMCIA card and I didn't want to run out of iPod power in the middle of a 20 gig library load). I know it sounds like a stretch as I'd suspect the actual library selection comes in the upload and not in the queueing up but I'm trying to work out some different about the way I did my files.
Of course another option is that there's an issue with the filesystem on Windows formatted iPods tho' that wouldn't explain why the jumping apparently happens less when using EphPod. :)
-=Tim=-
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Aye, I'd like the modifier that limits the amount of one area per smartlist... so that they don't get too heavy. Tim, I was going to direct you to a request that I made about this very thing (http://www.musicex.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=beta;action=display;num=1036869985), but it looks like ya already found it! ;D
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Aye, I'd like the modifier that limits the amount of one area per smartlist... so that they don't get too heavy. Tim, I was going to direct you to a request that I made about this very thing (http://www.musicex.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=beta;action=display;num=1036869985), but it looks like ya already found it! ;D
I keep on telling my wife that I'm smarter than I look but she still doesn't believe it. :)
Yeah I thought I'd just put a plug for it in here too as I suspect that even with 20 gig we're going to want limiting methods to control our MP3 loads. Now a 40 gig iPod would be cool, however I'm sure that a month after they arrived we'd be out of space again. ::)
-=Tim=-
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Hey everyone,
Thanks for the comments. I will sift through them tomorrow and get to work, but the most alarming comment I saw was that the wrong Plug-in is posted. I screwed up on my way out Friday and posted an old version. I just put the correct one up, so for anyone who was seeing what were resolved issues reappearing, please just get the latest Plug-in and these problems should go away. Sorry about that.
Steve
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MJ: 9.0.80
iPod Plugin: 3.0.22
OK today was my first venture into synchronisation. It went very smoothly. I started from a fresh iPod and synched with 1 smart playlist to start off with and increased the number of playlists being synched until I synched with all 22 I had created for synching. The way the playlists are set up, a lot of tracks appear in several playlists. At no point did this cause a problem.
Here are the issues I found:
1. I had 10 or so tracks uploaded to my iPod which weren't in playlists. On the iPod file listing the playlist column was empty. Resolved by selecting delete files not in lists
2. The MJ interface froze during synching. It unfroze when synching was complete. This would have been disconcerting if I hadn't known that other people had had the same problem.
3. The F19 folder contained 914 files compared to 48 in the next highest folder. The other 18 folders contained between 26 and 48 tracks.
4. I renamed some playlists after I had synched with them. The old playlists remained on the iPod and the new playlists were added. I had to manually delete the old playlists to get rid of them. The synch dialog coped with the renames which was good.
Apart from those minor quirks it all seemed to work really well although I have yet to listen to anything on the iPod. All in all the plugin is working well.
Great work Steve, thanks. :D
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it seems whenever i click "delete files not in list" option, it makes MJ crash on synch until i format the ipod. latest build of each.
cheers.
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I've been trying to figure out how to word this question for a few days, uploading each new version of both the beta and ipod plug in. I know I'm not going to explain this right, so I'll just fudge it and see who understands....
Like many of you, I came here from Ephpod, looking for a way to better organize my whole collection and easily maintain my Ipod (10gig).
As such, I had two ways of putting files onto my Ipod in Ephpod- dragging entire albums/artists on, or making playlists in Winamp and dragging them on. At any given time, my content is a mix of the two. Additionally, I was very happy using Ephpod to make genre playlists, as well as using their auto-recently-imported playlist function. Further, when I import a new album onto my Ipod, I would frequently make that album a playlist so that I could easily access it the next day- I would have a rotating list of 5-10 album playlists that would go with the genre playlists.
I'm trying to get into smartlists using MJ, and while I've made a couple of cool playlists (2hour rock, etc), I don't see how to make playlists of the content I've dragged on there.
In general, as I read through the help file, I find it annoying trying to learn smartlists by flipping through the various pages in the help file.
Is there a place where I can print out all the smartlist commands, or at least read them in one place?
Secondly, what are other former ephpod users using to find similar playlist functionality to what I've detailed above?
Thanks in advance for your help- I hope my post doesn't drive the Ipod thread offtopic.....
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mclaugh:
I get what you're saying and I've probably been the most vocal one to support it. Steve gets it too, but has been focusing on other stuff first.
Basically what would solve your (our) issue is to add another tree item to the Synchronize dialong box. That would be Artist. Expaning the Artist item would list the Albums for that artist, expanding an Album would list the songs on the album.
Now, in theory you would be able to put a check mark next to *either* an Artist (in which case all Albums/Songs would be selected for sync) *or* you could expand an Artist and select Album(s) to sync, by default this would "gray out" the Artist checkbox forcing it to be selected). Finally, as a 3rd option you could expand an Album item and select individual songs.
To me this would be ideal because I could make playlists that I want and sync them, and I could also just have whole Artists/Albums to sync with. But I wouldn't be forced to make a smarlist for each of the Artists or Albums that I want sync'd.
So, I'll get off of my soapbox and let Steve get back to work, but what you've suggested is definitely a want by many users (at least I know of 3 now ;) )
Steve: just a note, tried the new plugin after you posted it yesterday. Still getting GUI lock on syncs and freeze up on the status bar. Can we give this one a high priority, it's really icky. Also, would love a transfer speed indicator on sync if it doesn't effect performance too much (you know "7.00MB /sec").
Adam
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Adam,
I agree with you about the sync for artist/album- it does allow the functionality I'm looking for. I suppose my worry is that I will run into space problems by using smartlists- while I can specify a time for the smartlist to run, I can only estimate how much space it will take on the Ipod.
With Ephpod, you can have an organization system we're you're not truly syncing, but are maintaining random playlists as well as certain artists/albums. This way, I get to keep my static "essentials" on my Ipod, as well as a rotating mix of content that can either be played by genre, recent import date, or my mood.
Being able to sync artist/album is definitely a good start.
Has anyone had success defining the Ipod drive (E: or F: or whatever) as a rule in a smartlist? That way, I could define a smartlist something like this:
type=audio, drive=F:, genre=jazz
That would give me all the mp3's marked jazz on my Ipod, and would mimic those genre playlists you can auto-generate in Ephpod.
While you may wonder about the usefulness of such an option, I can think of two immediate uses I have for it. One is for work, the other for driving in the car w/ others. This weekend, I drove my parents to a pre-Thanksgiving party w/ my relatives, and set the Ipod up the night before w/ a playlist of the Jazz and Pop Genres. It was perfect- my mom doesn't want to hear Fishbone or Public Enemy as we drive to my Aunt's house (My parents did like the Sigur Ros, though).
Know what I mean?
Thanks again to the MusicEx guys- you guys are getting so close to the Ipod sweet spot, I can smell it....
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Everyone,
There is so much to sift through. Let me start with a couple of things. In regards to the random placement of files. This seems to work for me and others. For those of you who are seeing a predominance of folder F19, lets not worry about this for right now.
TimB, can you give me a specific example of a right-click option that is not working for you?
Can anyone confirm or deny JGourd's response to Beth regarding 20 GB display in Win98?
Does anyone have success playing files on iPod with filenames that have foreign characters with programs other than Ephpod?
Adam, if you change the tags on files and want the new tag info to be reflected on iPod, Reupload the files and select "Overwrite".
McLaugh, sorry the Smartlist documentation is as good as it gets other than playing with it or posting questions here. If there is something you want to do and can't, request it and more likely than not there is a way and your question can serve as a tutorial for others.
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TimB, can you give me a specific example of a right-click option that is not working for you?
Yup, again note that this is a Win98SE issue for me. This all works fine on my XP Pro laptop (which is the machine I use for loading my iPod).
For example:
If I right click on a non-Smartlist playlist then select Send To... then Playlist then Create/Select Playlist... I get no response. Up to that point all the menus appear but nothing happens when the dialog box is supposed to come up. On my XP machine I get the dialog box to select Tree (I think thats its name) and Playlist name.
If I right click on a Smartlist playlist and then select Delete. Nothing happens and the playlist is still there even if I restart MJ9.
I haven't checked every right click option but this happens on every one I have checked.
Hope this is helpful! :)
-=Tim=-
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TimB,
That is incredibly helpful. I just duplicated on a 98 and have someone working on the fix.
Thanks.
Everyone,
Help me duplicate the GUI locking. Can anyone give me some steps to duplicate this behavior?
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Steve:
Don't want to harp on it when you said not to worry about it, but I need to retract my earlier statment. I too am seeing most of my files being stored in the F19 folder. Just wanted to add that.
Also, regarding tag editing. I understand if you change a tag that you need to reupload/overwrite. What I was talking about was during a sync that if a file's tags have been changed in anyway (at least for the tags iPod reads), then the sync should pick those changes up and reupload the song. Hope that makes sense. This really only applies to sync.
Adam
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Everyone,
Help me duplicate the GUI locking. Can anyone give me some steps to duplicate this behavior?
Steve,
I don't have my system info handy (MJ is at home), but I can tell you this much about the gui lock.
It happens when synching if I click on anything else (causing MJ to lose focus). It also happens by itself about 7 seconds into a sync. MJ remains gui locked until synch is over. Synch completes successfully, though.
It locked on me last night while synching with the newest plugin and mj. (BTW, I can't find the safety convert option... where is it?)
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TimB,
That is incredibly helpful. I just duplicated on a 98 and have someone working on the fix.
Thanks.
Not trying to be cute here but we've had several problems (one MAJOR one that Matt knows about with .81 I think (maybe it was .80)) with 98SE. I know that its not the preferred platform for most folks these day but any way we avoid these situations? Like a test suite on a 98SE machine? Just a thought.
For me I host my files on a 98SE machine and do most of my housekeeping on it too so its a particularly sensitive subject.
That said, thanks for the prompt attention to this issue. :)
-=Tim=-
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Everyone,
A new build is posted. It includes:
1) a progress dialogue during file deletions
2) Automatically renames files with non-standard characters so that they will play on iPod.
3) Random folder assignment should be more, uhhh random.
Kurt,
The safety convert is automatic. If a file does not need to convert because it is already the selected bitrate and type, the file will not be converted.
TimB,
Your comment on 98 is heard and not disuputed. We are trying to not ignore 98 but resources are thin.
Steve
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after some extensive testing with the new build, i have the following observation.
There is a smartlist i made, just a simple, random 2 hour list of 1 genre.
Anytime i go to synch with that smartlist in the sync queue AND "delete files not in list," something goes wrong.
It either crashes MJ right away (this usually happens), or (and this has happened a couple times, can't recreate), it uploads 3 songs or so and then stops.
how can i help you more with this?
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Steve:
Regarding GUI lock. Same as Kurt, it will ALWAYS happen if you select another app and it will *most likely* happen when you do a large sync/copy to MJ (1500 files in my example). If I do a sync and it doesn't need to upload many files (meaning: most of the songs that are part of the sync are already on the ipod) then it works fine, but anytime you sync/upload a large set of files it will freeze.
Running WinXP Home, Latest Service Pack and all on MJ Ver 9 w/the latest plugin.
Adam
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I sent out an issue with playlists not showing up on my iPOD. I discovered that I have to format the iPOD to MJ. Silly me.
Thanks for your help anyway
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I sent out an issue with playlists not showing up on my iPOD. I discovered that I have to format the iPOD to MJ. Silly me.
Thanks for your help anyway
I'm not sure that formatting is intuitive, is there any way to check this for the user and advise them if it needs to be done?
Just a thought. :)
-=Tim=-
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MJ: 9.0.83
iPod Plugin: 3.0.23
I downloaded the latest plugin and MJ yesterday and this morning tried to synch my iPod to update my random playlists. For some reason MJ did not register any of the files on the iPod. It has gone back to the really old problem of showing only the Contacts and Calendar folders. The iPod hasn't been connected to the PC since my last successful synch using MJ 9.0.80 and plugin 3.0.22 on Sunday.
I haven't got time to format my iPod and upload to it again since I have to go to work now but it is strange that it has suddenly stopped being seen by MJ. It is also worth noting that all the music still works on the iPod itself.
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I'm not sure that formatting is intuitive, is there any way to check this for the user and advise them if it needs to be done?
Just a thought. :)
-=Tim=-
Yeh I used the IPOd updater and never gave it a second thought. Accidently ran across it when I was right clicking on iPOD drive letter. Fixed alot of issues.
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Those of us who have been testing this since day one know all these little details. New folks are in a cloud.
I suggest that someone take on a documentation project for the iPod Plugin and publish their work here.
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Steve:
Did some a simple test last night. Didn't have time for extensive testing but here's my results (good stuff).
1. Formatted the iPod Drive for MJ - The progress meter on formating still sticks at about 1/3. This is on a full iPod that it happens.
2. Started a Sync to transfer all my tunes - The status bar kept focus and worked fine for a while. I didn't attempt to steal focus from MJ because I wanted to see if it bombed. I walked away and my screen saver came up (just WinXP standard one) and when I went to check MJ, it had gone into GUI lock. I don't know for sure, but I can only assume it happened when the screen-saver came and took focus from MJ.
3. All the songs that had foreigh charters in their file names copied over fine and play fine! Good fix.
4. Songs that were copying but not viewable on the iPod are there now. Somehow this must be related to a database issue, but I haven't done a lot of stress testing (deleting songs, adding them back etc.) so we'll see.
Thats it. Great build.
Adam
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Those of us who have been testing this since day one know all these little details. New folks are in a cloud.
I suggest that someone take on a documentation project for the iPod Plugin and publish their work here.
This is a great idea in general.
However if this is a problem that 100% of users are going to see then a programmatic solution, if possible, might be better for this specific situation.
:)
-=Tim=-
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Everyone,
A new build (3.0.24)
Please get the latest version 9 when it is available later today.
1) There was a problem with some changes to the registry that may have caused problems with recognizing the Plug-in. This is fixed in the next 9
2) GUI lock should be fixed.
3) Rate of synchronization is added.
4) Upload failures during synch should notify what file they failed on.
bmp,
Try with the newest version to see if you get an error on a file. Also, try to narrow down the problem by using smaller numbers of files if possible.
TimB, JGourd, mhonard,
The documentation thing is a good idea, but it is hard to come up with hard and fast rules yet. Formatting definitely helps, but it depends what programs you were running before. Is it always a good idea? maybe. I designed the Plug-in to be able to start from a clean format from Windows. I would recommend to anyone who is having problems to Format their iPod from within Windows because this is a baseline that all can share. There are many reasons not to do this if users are going back and forth between different applications so that is why I am holding off on documenting this. Your point is well taken and I will document soon.
Steve
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This plugin is so fantastic, I just dunno what to say. Synch is FAST, it works just the way I hoped for. The GUI lock is gone. There was a slight GUI lock when I was changing channels with MJ behind the synch dialogue, but that's it. That's awesome!
Formatting iPod for MJ does cause a noticable GUI lock though. There were about 3000 songs on the iPod when I did it, and MJ was locked up for about 3 minutes.
You've got a winner here, at least from where I'm standing. Just need a few touch-ups and it's time for pretty icons! ;D
No bugs to report or problems noticed tonight, so I'll suggest a couple minor touch-ups on the synch select dialogue:
* Make it so that you can put a checkmark on a playlist group and have it select all playlists and groups underneath it.
* Make it so that the "Playlists" level isn't the top level in the tree... start one level lower if you can.
Edit: While synching, MJ said that I was sending 3273 songs, but my iPod only shows 2443 in the About dialogue. None of the music appears to be missing, though. :shrug:
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MJ: 9.0.84
Plugin: 3.0.24
Windows XP Home
I got my iPod back up and running in MJ by formatting it using the Apple updater, installing the latest version of MJ, installing the latest plugin and using the format for MJ option.
I then went for broke and synched all my synch playlists, a total of 1611 songs totalling 9Gb. Like Kurt says, the synch box came up and said it was synching 2600 odd songs. I guess it totals all the songs in all playlists, not allowing for duplication.
After the first 9 songs had synched I once again suffered from the dreaded GUI lock. The synch dialog remained frozen on the 9th song for 30 to 40 minutes until the synch had completed. It then disappeared and I had a full iPod.
Apart from the GUI lock, the plugin worked perfectly. The transfer speed is excellent and the synching works as it should. Great work Steve.
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XP Pro
Minor crisis last night, nothing earth shattering tho'.
I have a Firewire PCMCIA card with no power. Tried a full iPod load and ran out out power about 90% in. Usual very short notice from the iPod, even tho' I was present and heard the first beep there was not remotely enough time to unmount and get the iPod to a power source. Total loss of iPod's knowledge of the data. But that's not MC's fault. When I tried to recover the data with MC's rebuild option (forget what its called for MC) it crashed about 1/3 the way through in Media Core.
I was using Playlist sync for this entire load and tho' there were 4800 files and 22 gig of data while I was doing the sync there was no warning of "too much data" from MC9. When I was recovering from the loss of power I did notice a warning screen on size but (a) It hadn't appeared before (lack of focus?) and (b) the sync continued. I ran this sync as the only task on the PC so it wasn't me losing the warning screen focus. :)
Also, is there a way to cancel a sync? Is it hitting the close window button on top corner right of the sync screen, maybe a "Cancel" button on the sync screen would be helpful.
I'm starting this posting with bad news but ending with good:
Peaking at 3000 kbps the sync speed was amazing (particularly considering that I'm using Ethernet to grab the files from my main PC and a PCMCIA card to load it).
I love the progress screen (tho' hours, minutes and seconds would be nice, I think I've use my mental math allowance for the rest of the year. :) )
The power of MC9's playlists is just amazing, to handle the power issue above I've split my load into two lists, artist = A-M and N-Z, with a recharge between the two, and MC and my regular (ie non-load) playlists which are based on both of them is just handling it fine of course. (Present tense as A-M is loading up as we speak.)
This is so cool dude.
-=Tim=-
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Now running N-Z load, first half loaded fine.
On checking the A-M load I notice that most of the files are still going into F19.
-=Tim=-
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Everyone,
Thanks for the reports from last night.
I have just posted a new Plugin(3.0.25) which includes:
1) Fixed GUI Lock on Format, Delete, and iPod to PC transfers
2) Added Cancel to Synch, Delete and iPod to PC .
3) Synch displays time remaining in Hour:Minute:Sec format.
Kurt,
We will add the Playlist Group check idea into MJ 9. In regards to the Playlist root, this is by design to allow for movement of items via drag and drop in the tree.
Since everything looks pretty good, any promotion of us outside of this forum would be greatly appreciated. I will not be able to respond to any issues much until Sunday. Have a good Thanksgiving all and thanks for the help.
Steve
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Since everything looks pretty good, any promotion of us outside of this forum would be greatly appreciated. I will not be able to respond to any issues much until Sunday. Have a good Thanksgiving all and thanks for the help.
He's on his way home to Philadelphia! Thanks, Steve, for a job well done.
I'd like to echo Steve's request to help spread the word. Thanks for what you've done already.
It's hard for us to say much on other forums without people thinking we're greedy capitalist pigs, but when you say something it means a lot. Anything you can do would be much appreciated.
Jim Hillegass
JRiver
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Steve/Jim:
(Another one of my verbose posts)
I've one thing to say "WOW!". What an awesome build this was (haven't even been able to try the one posted today yet).
With that said I'll just post some minor nitpicky things for enhancements/fixes when Steve gets back. But first, on with the kudos.
I stessed tested a number of things last night and was NOT able to get MJ to fail w/some minor exceptions. My MJ Library shows the exact number of songs as my iPod does....that's just so nice and clean ;D. OK, now the nit-picking:
1. I saw GUI lock on formatting, it'll be nice to see that fixed.
2. Don't know if you added this in today's build, but for consistency's sake, it would be nice if the Delete dialog had a progress bar as well, rather than just "Deleting Files"
3. I *really* tried to get MJ to crash on sync (transfer all files, 1796 songs) and for the most part I couldn't. I was able to minimize MJ and do other stuff. One thing I did notice halfway through sync or so, whereas earlier in the sync I was able to maximize MJ and get both MJ and the sync dialog, halfway through sync, I could only get the sync dialog--MJ would not display behind it. When sync finished I could only get MJ back up by right-clicking on the task-bar and selecting Maximize. So there's something slightly funky.
4. There is a minor bug with syncing files that have foreign characters in them. I uploaded my entire library, everything worked fine. The files w/foreign characters where properly renamed w/the "#" sign. They played fine on iPod. I then added another Album to my library and did another sync w/Transfer All Files checked. In theory it should have zoomed through ALL songs but the new album I added. This didn't happen. All songs that had foreign characters were re-uploaded like they didn't exist on the iPod. It didn't cause any problems (meaning I didn't have dupes on my iPod) but it slowed sync down just slightly. I imagine for people w/lot's of music w/these characters this will be a problem. Basically what I think is happening is MJ isn't recognizing the song as being on the iPod because the file name is different. Probably just need to do a comparison w/what the new file name will be once transferred. Hope this is making sense.
5. Any chance of changing the transfer speed from Kbps to MBs? It'd save a little real estate and is easier to read. Minor, but see what others say.
6. The "format for MJ" Msgbox test is confusing. It mentions other applications, but it doesn't mention at all that you'll be losing all of your data on the iPod. Probably want to warn users about that.
7. Repeat, but I'm thowing it in for good measure: the Upload Files progress dialog is different than the sync progress dialog. I prefer the sync progress dialog, can we make them consistent. Also, consider getting rid of the updating the status on Queued files. It seems to slow down the upload. Suggest refeshing at the end, or at the beginning change all to "uploading", then change to "complete". When the entire download is finished.
OK, that's it for bugs (pretty brief), now for enhancements still pending ;D
1. Synch by Artist/Album
2. Pretty icons
3. It was mentioned about doing a check to see if the ipod was formatted for MJ automatically. Could this be done by simply adding a file to the iPod when formatting that the MJ plugin checks for? Then, when the iPod is connected and that file is not present, a wizard could be launched prompting the user to format to MJ. This is what Xplay does. It doesn't have to be a big file at all, stick it in an MJ folder on the root. Just a thought.
4. I know this is a biggy, but the UI for interacting w/the iPod is really kind of clunky overall. By that I mean that functions are hidden in right-click menus and not readily evident. One thing that you might consider is a frame in the bottom of MJ that is displayed when the iPod is selected. You're already doing it when you display the Upload Files button, what about displaying that whenever the iPod is selected and adding Sync, Format, and "Advanced Tools" there. Some of the Advanced tools to add would be ones available in Ephpod (probe for lost music, rebuild iPod database, check for dupes etc.)
5. Another shout out for improved syncing w/respect to tag changes. This is the functionality where if you edit a song's tags in MJ, and you do a sync, that song should be updated on the iPod. Right now the only way to do this is to delete the song from the iPod and reupload it. Sync needs to check for last updated date, if it's newer than the version on the iPod then it should be changed.
OK now for the good news. I've done a lot of ephod & Xplay recommendations on Apple's Site and ipodlounge. I've held off for recommending MJ until things are stable: well, they are stable!!!! I'll be pushing MJ bigtime!!
Thanks for the awesome work guys.
Adam
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MJ: Ver - 8.0.388
Plug-in Ver - ? Still says 3.0.16
Three Problems:
1) I'm new to this, so I may be facing problems that have already been addressed. I scanned the posts, but if I missed something, I apologize in advance.
2) Although I update the IPOD plug-in, the version info still says 3.0.16. I've deleted the plug-in from my machine and re-installed, but no joy. I deleted the plug-in from within MJ, but now when I update the plug-in, it doesn't show up under the handhelds in the plug-in manager. Any advice would be appreciated
3) When I upload files to the IPOD, the playlists don't come across. I've formatted the IPOD for MJ, and had no luck. I've also tried the 9.X beta, but it didn't work. I currently have the 8.0.388 installed.
If someone can advise me, I'd be happy to repay the favor by helping with documentation effort when it gets started.
thanks.
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I concur with Adam's list for new features, with three additions:
1. Play count download from iPod to MC.
2. Composer tag functionality
3. Compatibility with an XPlay-initialized iPod.
I'd like to emphasize again the importance of deleting/re-uploading a synched song if it has changed since the last upload, as well as the importance of pretty icons. ;D
Have a good vacation, Steve. Seeya Monday!
Kurt
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1. Synch by Artist/Album
TimB: IMHO this is very important from a product perspective. Tho' MC's playlists are incredibly powerful most regular humans aren't going to think about Playlists and certainly won't think of them first..
2. Pretty icons
TimB: Yup
3. It was mentioned about doing a check to see if the ipod was formatted for MJ automatically. Could this be done by simply adding a file to the iPod when formatting that the MJ plugin checks for? Then, when the iPod is connected and that file is not present, a wizard could be launched prompting the user to format to MJ. This is what Xplay does. It doesn't have to be a big file at all, stick it in an MJ folder on the root. Just a thought.
TimB: I agree. You hope most of the users of this are going to be new to MC. Formatting is not obvious at all.
4. I know this is a biggy, but the UI for interacting w/the iPod is really kind of clunky overall. By that I mean that functions are hidden in right-click menus and not readily evident. One thing that you might consider is a frame in the bottom of MJ that is displayed when the iPod is selected. You're already doing it when you display the Upload Files button, what about displaying that whenever the iPod is selected and adding Sync, Format, and "Advanced Tools" there. Some of the Advanced tools to add would be ones available in Ephpod (probe for lost music, rebuild iPod database, check for dupes etc.)
TimB: Another big yes. This functionality isn't obvious unless you know to right click. I like Adam's idea.
5. Another shout out for improved syncing w/respect to tag changes. This is the functionality where if you edit a song's tags in MJ, and you do a sync, that song should be updated on the iPod. Right now the only way to do this is to delete the song from the iPod and reupload it. Sync needs to check for last updated date, if it's newer than the version on the iPod then it should be changed.
TimB: Nice to have but IMHO this is less important compared to the other ideas above.
OK now for the good news. I've done a lot of ephod & Xplay recommendations on Apple's Site and ipodlounge. I've held off for recommending MJ until things are stable: well, they are stable!!!! I'll be pushing MJ bigtime!!
TimB: Me too, sometimes I think Adam and I are tag-teaming which is cool too.
Thanks for the awesome work guys.
TimB: Yup
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Neald,
Make sure you delete all copies of hh_portable.dll and then try downloading the Plugin directly from the website (not within MJ). YOu should have version 3.0.25. If not, you are not getting the correct Plug-in.
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Make the move to Media Center...resistance is futile. :)
-=Tim=-
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Neald,
Make sure you delete all copies of hh_portable.dll and then try downloading the Plugin directly from the website (not within MJ). YOu should have version 3.0.25. If not, you are not getting the correct Plug-in.
With MC9 I also have to quit it before I get the plug-in to install correctly.
-=Tim=-
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I have downloaded MJ 8 and installed the latest plug-in. No dice. I installed MC 9 and installed the latest plug-in, no dice. How the heck do I format my iPod with MJ? How do I do anything? Do you have to have a Plus version to use Handheld plug-ins or something?
Some beginner direction will be nice if you intend on people using this...whether it's a beta or not. Especially considering I'm hardly a beginner...
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It will work. V9 is your best bet. It doesn't require the paid version. Did you try reading through this thread? It might help. Steve's message a couple back, for instance.
This week things may be slow because tomorrow is a holiday in the U.S.
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Hey AMG, maybe I can help.
Sorry, but what do you mean by "no dice"? Is MC crashing or is it just that you don't see the iPod.
Here's how it *should* work. Open up MC/MJ. You should see a tree item, CDs and Handhelds. Expanding this should show you your iPod w/i'ts drive letter. Like "I:\ipod". If it doesn't try renaming your iPod's volume name to IPOD in explorer. Once you see this, you can click it, and expand it to see Artists/Albums/Genre's and Playlists. To format your Ipod for MJ, just right-click the root of the ipod and select the reformat option. This is also where synchronize is.
To upload files to your iPod there are a couple of ways to do it, but I'll give you the simplest: Select the files you want, then right click, select Send To>CDs & Handhelds>I:Ipod (your drive letter may vary). Then click the iPod tree item, and in the main pain you should see the files to be uploaded. You'll also see any songs that are on there. You can right-click the iPod and select Show Queued Files to only display files that are pending upload. Click the upload button and your set.
I must say that Sync works better IMO right now. There's a transfer all files option that works great.
Hope this helps, I agree that there needs to be much work done on the UI.
Adam
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I am away for the next week and a half. I am driving to Chicago to work a tradeshow as an AV consultant. Although I will have my iPod and a few notebooks with MJ on them, I will probably have no time to persue any testing for J River :(
I stay up to date while away and if I find anything killer I'll post, otherwise, enjoy a week without me ;D
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4. I know this is a biggy, but the UI for interacting w/the iPod is really kind of clunky overall. By that I mean that functions are hidden in right-click menus and not readily evident. One thing that you might consider is a frame in the bottom of MJ that is displayed when the iPod is selected. You're already doing it when you display the Upload Files button, what about displaying that whenever the iPod is selected and adding Sync, Format, and "Advanced Tools" there. Some of the Advanced tools to add would be ones available in Ephpod (probe for lost music, rebuild iPod database, check for dupes etc.)
Adam
A short-term thought on this, how about a tool tip that comes up when you hover over the iPod or drive letter that says "right click for iPod updating options"?
=-Tim=-
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Adam,
Thanks for getting back to me so quick! Well - I figured it out. My ipod was a mac ipod. I have macdrive and thought that would make it work ok, but, once I converted it over to a windows ipod MJ/MC began to work ok. no real complaints from at this point on the interface, but, it doesn't work right when you have a mac ipod (even with the ipod visible in windows). that's kinda a big problem at this point. imho the plug-in shouldn't leave alpha without being feature complete in that manner.
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MC: 9.0.84
Plugin: 3.0.25
Windows XP Home
I had a slight problem when I did my morning synch to update my random smartlists today. The synch process started and got to around 260 songs and the GUI locked again. The synch progress bar became active again at around 2400 songs and was active until it completed the synch of the 2600 songs in my playlists.
Here are my comments on the other comments:
1. I'd like to echo the request for album/artists synching. At the moment I have smartlists created to do this but like the others say, this isn't intuitive.
2. Pretty icons would be nice.
3. I don't find the right clicking on the plugin a problem but I can understand why less experienced PC users might miss that option.
4. The suggestion for tagging an MC formatted iPod is an excellent one.
5. Synching when tags are updated would be very nice but is less important than the other requests.
I'd like to add that I'll be recommending MC for use with the iPod too. Although I'm nowhere near a prolific a poster at the other iPod forums as some of you guys, every little helps.
Finally, as usual, thanks to Steve for all your hard work on this plugin. It really is great.
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Wow...nice job, very impressed. 3.0.25 was my first try at this pluggin and I had no problems at all. I formatted for MJ and then synched the All Music playlist and I am good to go. The only thing I noticed as others have stated is that the file transfer count is off. I think it is counting the songs accross all playlists synched and not the actual file count.
Thanks again, not sure if I will ever fire up Ephpod again.
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Time to get promoting the plugin and MC guys. Someone has posted on the Apple forum asking which is the best software for synching an iPod. Both TimB and myself have replied to the thread. If anyone else wants to reply, go to:
http://discussions.info.apple.com/WebX?50@171.73kyazckduV.6@.3bbc7eee
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Maybe it should have some documentation before you promote it too much. Otherwise, you're going to have a bunch of people (like me) that were frustrated with their initial experience...regardless of their technical know-how.
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Maybe it should have some documentation before you promote it too much. Otherwise, you're going to have a bunch of people (like me) that were frustrated with their initial experience...regardless of their technical know-how.
I feel this way a little too. However, and I know I'm nagging, most people don't read documentation and most people aren't going to come into INTERACT. Something needs to be done UI-wise, even if its a minor thing.
I'm pushing MC to the masses and I'm trying to think of "easy to do" stuff but until you understand how MC works the UI isn't really obvious and you risk turning people off.
Here's another idea, not saying they're alll 100%, just spewing them out...when you download the plug-in or open it the first time maybe auto-open the dox or "read me first" dox.
-=Tim=-
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another plugin request to maybe take some of the pain away from not having the artist/album tree during synch.
ephpod does it and does it quite nicely. is it possible to make an option to create playlists for all albums with more than x songs?
say i brought over a whole genre playlist, that brought maybe 20-30 albums with it. now it's a pain to get to them through browse because i have hundreds of mix playlists which makes countless entries in the browse section just have a song or two, and i'd really just love to be able to quickly browse my full albums without having to make a playlist for each.
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Quick request and mini-report, Steve...
This thread has been linked in a couple posts over at iPodlounge.com for new users. When you close it and start a new one, could you link the new one in the final post?
iPod's looking good but still getting skips (a lot of 'em). I'm not talking about non-standard characters in filenames, plain english ones get skipped too.
Always the one that I select to play, and often the one right after it too. The only solution is to use the Previous button on the iPod and back up to the track before the one that I selected. The only way to hear the first song on a list (Album list, Genre list, Playlist list, etc) is to let it skip the first song or two, pause it, hit Previous to get to the first song, and let the iPod's hard drive finish spinning. Then, unpause it and the song plays great.
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iPod's looking good but still getting skips (a lot of 'em). I'm not talking about non-standard characters in filenames, plain english ones get skipped too.
Always the one that I select to play, and often the one right after it too.
Me too (or that could be me two too!)
;D
-=Tim=-
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Hello Everyone,
Thanks for the comments and suggestions over the long weekend.
Let me do some work on this today.
Kurt and TimB,
Any specific hints you can give me to consistently duplicate this. Any particular file that always skips that you could send me?
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I get an occassional file skip too. I think it is a problem with the iPod rather than the plugin though. It happens occassionally on my iPod when I start playing a track using the middle select button rather than the play button. It is not reproducable and I can go a couple of weeks without it happening.
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From what I've seen around the Net, the Ipod skipping is due to the Ipod loading up its memory when you select a song to play. So, as it loads up, it ends up skipping the first song and playing the second, despite the fact that the first song was also loaded. It is not specific to the inferface program you use w/ the Ipod (MJ, ephpod, xplay, etc).
I can't seem to find any quick links to post along w/ this, but I've read it- you'll have to trust me. One thing they tended to say was that if the first song was kind of "long" that it would get skipped.
Hope this helps- in exchange for this info, can we get artist/album sync? (sorry, couldn't resist).
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Kurt and TimB,
Any specific hints you can give me to consistently duplicate this. Any particular file that always skips that you could send me?
The only consistent thing for me is that it ALWAYS happens when I'm starting to play a list of songs, not necessarily a playlist however. For example after being occupied (long story) this weekend and not using my iPod for several days I went to a playlist and tried to start at song 13, it tried to play 13 and 14 and then played 15.
I too think its an iPod issue. However I think the word is that EphPod has the problem less than other applications (including MC9).
-=Tim=-
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Aye, I'm the same as TimB.
It happens both when the iPod has been "cold" for a while and also while it is playing. Whenever I go to a new list (an album, a genre, or an actual playlist), scroll to any song, and hit the center button, it will skip the track that I select. Let's say that I'm trying to play song #5.
The iPod will skip #5 and try to play #6
-Sometimes- (most of the time, but not always) the iPod will skip #6 and play #7.
If I want to hear #5, I must use the Previous button to go back to #4... at which time the iPod will skip #4 and play #5.
If I want to hear the first song on a list, I select it, wait for the iPod to skip it and begin playing song #2... Then, I'll pause, hit the Previous button until #1 is queued up, and unpause. The iPod plays successfully at that time. This is tricky, though, because hitting pause at the wrong time (while the iPod is filling its buffer) can freeze the iPod (known bug).
I can't find any correlation between the issue and the individual songs that I'm trying to play or the characters that are featured in their tags or filenames. It always happens (that's 100% of the time always), just like described above, when I play a new list of songs. It doesn't matter if I use the round center button or the bottom Play button to start playback... it does the same on both.
This is "normal" behavior for my iPod since I switched to MJ for 100% iPod interface. Before, using XPlay, this behavior did not occur... perhaps it has something to do with the way that MJ is writing to the DB? Would you like a copy of my iTunesDB file?
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Skipping: It is not specific to the inferface program you use w/ the Ipod (MJ, ephpod, xplay, etc).
I don't have this problem with the first song using ephpod. With MMJB this problem occurs sometimes, but not only concerning the first file in a playlist (or album).
(winpod 20, win xp)
Greetings from Switzerland, Fex
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Thanks for the tips. I will do what I can. I have to finish something else first today.
Kurt, Thanks for the offer, but to see the skipping, the DB would not be enough, I would need files too.
McLaugh, you got a chuckle out of me.
Seriously, on the topic of Artist/Album synch, I am hesitating on this because everything is stable and to add this is a pretty major change which has the risk of upsetting what we have. I would be more inclined to take this risk if I understood better what the need is, and I plead ignorance, I don't get it.
For example, if in the tree I have Artist - The Beatles with two Albums - White Album and Rubber Soul - if I synch both albums, the iPod will have the files that are on both albums but no Playlist that groups them together. Do you want a Playlist that would group these items so that you could click on a Playlist and get all Beatles Songs from both albums? If so I would strongly recommend Smartlists to accomplish this, because then the work of the organization of the Playlist shifts to MJ where we do a really good job rather than to iPod where the Playlist structure is only one level deep.
I may be rambling here. If anyone who is a huge proponent of Artist/Album synch is willing to talk about this, email me a phone number where I can reach you during the day and I will give a few of you a call and maybe you can straighten me out.
Thanks,
Steve (steve @ jriver.com)
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Steve:
As the biggest proponent of this (Artist/Album sync), I'm shooting you an email. I'll even put together some screen shots!
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For example, if in the tree I have Artist - The Beatles with two Albums - White Album and Rubber Soul - if I synch both albums, the iPod will have the files that are on both albums but no Playlist that groups them together. Do you want a Playlist that would group these items so that you could click on a Playlist and get all Beatles Songs from both albums?
I think there are two issues here:
(1) Some people want to play albums. Sometimes I want to hear Rubber Soul in its entirety. After all in many cases this is how the artist originally wanted the piece to be heard. Tho' I now mostly use playlists I also only use the completealbum argument to control the loading of MP3s to my iPod.
(2) I suspect that for some folks the start is the artist/album perspective and they then move to playlists. This is definitely true of me. You're going to miss these folks who I suspect will represent the majority of your beginning user audience and then you'll never get them back later on.
That's my two centsworth.
:)
-=Tim=-
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For the Artist/Album thing, I'm going to do two things. First, I'm going to quote a post a made a while back about it, and then after I'll explain my usage so you can see where I'm coming from.
First, the quote-
Like many of you, I came here from Ephpod, looking for a way to better organize my whole collection and easily maintain my Ipod (10gig).
As such, I had two ways of putting files onto my Ipod in Ephpod- dragging entire albums/artists on, or making playlists in Winamp and dragging them on. At any given time, my content is a mix of the two. Additionally, I was very happy using Ephpod to make genre playlists, as well as using their auto-recently-imported playlist function. Further, when I import a new album onto my Ipod, I would frequently make that album a playlist so that I could easily access it the next day- I would have a rotating list of 5-10 album playlists that would go with the genre playlists.
Second, here's what I did last night in Ephpod-
-Opened up program, went to playlists. Deleted playlists of albums I didn't feel like having on there- it asks "do I want to also delete songs associated w/ playlist", I answer yes.
-Change over to my "rip" folder, for CD's I've ripped that day. Choose a few folders & drag them onto Ephpod screen- they auto import. Once they've imported, I right click on one song from each album and choose "make playlist from album". These albums are now listed on my playlists screen, and are easily accessible along w/ my custom playlists.
So, while I can navigate to any album by selecting "browse-artist-album", I can start playing certain albums I want to hear from the playlist screen- it's like highlighting the recent imports. While I understand that I could probably make a smartlist that would take recent CD's I've ripped and put them on the Ipod, I would rather pick and choose.
Again, sorry if this doesn't make sense.
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Another small update. Using MJ9.84 and plugin dated the 27th.
I caught a post at the lounge: "Initially I had problems putting 3000 files into one directory (F00) with the iPod skipping over the first track in an album. By telling Ephpod to share out the collection across all folders this went away"
That got me thinking. I counted files in the folders and came up with this:
F00 9
F01 13
F02 9
F03 10
F04 10
F05 8
F06 8
F07 8
F08 9
F09 16
F10 6
F11 6
F12 12
F13 8
F14 13
F15 12
F16 9
F17 10
F18 13
F19 2291
I can see now why that'd happen... mebby. How bout this: Make folders F00 through F39 baby! Spread them files OUT! ;D Heck, it could set a new standard in playback stability with the iPod. Or it could break the iPod and make you have to run a restore on it. I'm game if y'all are.
Even if you don't, chaulk me up for a "my files are all going to F19" response. ;)
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On the Artists/Albums front, I have two different thoughts on it.
First instinct is "Well, you can make a smartlist that would load up whatever artists and albums, or whatever."
But after that, I thought that it'd be nice to be able to do that without creating a playlist (on the iPod's display). I'm very predictable, and I predict that if I had "playlist-less" synch, I'd totally use it.
I could be wrong (and please correct me if I am), but I don't think that playlist-less synch exists in the iPod world at this time. iTunes, mmjb, ephpod and xplay all synch with playlists, your entire library, or selected files/folders on your computer. MC9'd be the first to offer "other library item" synch. Go for it, dude. 8)
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On skipping, definitely not MC9. I had this problem early on using Ephpod. I did a hard format through WinXP and the problem never returned.
-
Regarding the skipping:
I think it has to be related to the file storage (i.e a predominance of songs in one folder). We've already proven that foreign characters in file names will cause it to skip, it's not that much of a stretch to see that forcing the ipod to search through a folder w/tons of songs in it could cause it to "time out" and skip to the next song.
I don't know if making more folders is the option, or just spreading out the numbers more evenly into the existing folders. Apple made the iPod to handle 20 gigs, they must have tested this (yeah right).
I'll report on mine tonight to see what's what in terms of folder F19. I thought you'd fixed that a while ago Steve.
And on the Album/Artist Front:
When Steve and I talked yesterday he mentioned the difficulty of adding and Artist/Album tree to the sync window as it would require some pretty big changes to the core of MC9. I had another thought last night. This might be an even bigger change to the core, but it could be leveraged to support *all* handheld plugins and thus might be an easier sell to Jim et al.
Imagine when viewing your songs in MC's Media Library that there was another column (think another field in MC's db). This column could be a simple indicator titled "Copy to Handheld" (of course make it product specific, so if you have the iPod plugin it'd say "Copy to iPod" with a pretty logo ;D ). Anyway, this checkbox would allow you to mark songs for upload to iPod. They would stay checked until you unchecked them. Highlighting multiple songs and clicking the checkbox would allow for whole albums or even artists. Then when a sync is done, you first add all songs that have a positive value in this field, then you do the playlists. You wouldn't have to extend the sync dialog box at all, you would have to extend the MC db by one field, but it could be leveraged across ALL handheld plugins. Nifty huh? :D OK, maybe not. Food for thought I guess.
Of course this field could be hidden from the view under options (for folks that don't/won't use it), just like Year or Genre or Length can be hidden
Hope I'm making sense. Just a thought I had.....seems like it would be pretty intuitive too.
Adam
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ashawley's suggestion regarding the addition of a field is good. If that was to be done, it might be best to add a view where you can see your local content in the top half of the screen, and the ipod's on the bottom? It would allow you to see both at the same time so you could easily go back and forth to see what you need to move there, as opposed to going back and forth using the left pane tree.
-
<snip>
It would allow you to see both at the same time so you could easily go back and forth to see what you need to move there, as opposed to going back and forth using the left pane tree.
</snip>
Ohhhhh, I like, I *like* verrrrrrrry much.......
Steve: don't you just *hate* customers some times. ;)
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Hi,
I've been watching the development of this plugin with great interest. I use EphPod with a 10GB WiniPod, but I use MJ/MC for my MP3 management and playing. I like EphPod as it is stable and does it's job, but I would really like to use this plugin and only need the one prog - MC.
Whats stopping me switching is all the reports of skipping tracks. I don't have this problem at all with EphPod. From my reading in other forums I also believe it has to do with the file storage. So, I checked my iPod and I get these stats with my 1054 songs (7GB):
F00 50
F01 68
F02 58
F03 66
F04 45
F05 60
F06 54
F07 49
F08 52
F09 53
F10 47
F11 46
F12 57
F13 46
F14 54
F15 48
F16 40
F17 59
F18 51
F19 51
A very even distribution.
Also, EphPod names the files with a four digit number i.e. 2363.mp3, while the plugin uses alpha chars ? This could also be contributing to the problem. Maybe finding a file by alpha name takes longer than numerical name and causes a timeout and skipping?
Sure hope this can be fixed so I can switch to the plugin.
Mark
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On skipping, definitely not MC9. I had this problem early on using Ephpod. I did a hard format through WinXP and the problem never returned.
I have to confirm this. After "hard" formatting the skipping problem was away. I did the following:
1. "hard" formatting (using xp),
2. start iPod-updater (1.2.1),
3. prepare (format) iPod for Music Center,
4. sync all songs (in a first step only 380, then, in a second step, another 4'000).
The skipping problem now is away (almost for the moment ;)).
Before I did this, every first song from playlists (or albums) skipped after 1 or 2 seconds to the next song. I had this problem in MMJB as in Ephpod (not in this intensity). By the way, the problem with the slow "connecting-time" in MMJB is also resolved with the hard format. MMJB now needs only seconds to connect with iPod.
Hope, this helps (and sorry for my bad english :-/)
Fex
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By the way, I use a lot of "foreign" characters in file names (as Swiss I use german, french etc.). No problems anymore.
Fex
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Windows 2000
20gb WinPod
1.2.2 firmware
9.0.84
3.0.25
Whilst appreciating this is maybe not the best place for a total newbie, some of the thread I would like to offer my comments hoping they might be helpful.
I come straight to the above which appear to be the latest versions having installed them a couple of days ago, having abandoned MMJB and also had a go with ephPod. Both these crashed usually GUI lock up which I noticed has been a problem here in earlier versions.
First the install, I found this to be smooth and easy, the need for a plug in for the iPOD wasn't obvious to me but it didn't take long to work it out. An error message came when I tried to install it through the plug in manager, so I just downloaded the file to my desktop and double clicked, seemed to go in all right.
I agree the format need isn't obvious: I didn't realise you needed to format the iPOD for MJ, so got a strange set of stuff on my iPOD the first time it was used. You soon find the option. Right clicking should really have been second nature to an old OS/2 hack :-(
On the files all going in F19, I found this too, out of 1400 songs 918 are in there, the other directories all have between 18 and 38 files in.
I have just worked out how to set up playlists and transfer them to my WinPod, not bad considering I'm only on my third day.
I had no problems with the software crashing or locking up whatsoever and I find the interface cool, intuitive and informative. So far everything either works how I expect it to, or I am able to work out fairly quickly what to do.
Synching is *fast* much more so than it was with MMJB, and it is satisfying to see the songs counting down smoothly.
I have been playing tunes all day for two days on the iPOD - both from playlists and from browsing, and have had no trouble with tracks being skipped that I can notice.
As I have been running ALLMUSIC.COM alongside my player in a web browser, I was especially pleased a few minutes ago when I tried to find out what happens when you click "Artist Info".
For the first time in ages I have got my credit card out and registered a piece of software as I can already see it exceeds my present needs.
Neat, thanks folks.
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And on the Album/Artist Front:
... Anyway, this checkbox would allow you to mark songs for upload to iPod. They would stay checked until you unchecked them. Highlighting multiple songs and clicking the checkbox would allow for whole albums or even artists. Then when a sync is done, you first add all songs that have a positive value in this field, then you do the playlists ....
Adam
Sounds like iTunes... The first ideas are not the worst... ;)
Fex
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Quillo,
Glad to hear a success story! When you said "For the first time in ages I have got my credit card out and registered a piece of software as I can already see it exceeds my present needs." I knew exactly what you felt! That's precisely what I said to my friends when I registered MJ... if the iPod support had been there when I registered, I prolly woulda wet myself with glee!
Adam, AMG, Larry... Dennis just added a forum for MJ over at the lounge (http://www.xsorbit1.com/users/dennx/index.cgi?board=mediajukebox). How's that for throwing some weight around! ;) Now one of y'all get over there and type up some documentation! ;D
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Congrats MJ, you've made it officially to the 'Lounge!!!
And Kurt, nice weight throwing. Next time I see a dwarf tossing contest, I'm calling you up (and no, not as a tossee, but a tosser). ;D
Fex: while I've never actually seen iTunes, I thought it did this, but then I read that it only did it with playlists, not in the media library. Thanks for setting me straight. Is it still an original idea if I thought of it myself though? ;)
Adam
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Everyone,
Thanks for the support and comments. I had to spend today getting caught up on some other tasks but will try to get caught up here tomorrow.
Thanks again.
Steve
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Good job Kurt, I am on my way over now and will try to post lots of good stuff over the next few days, but mostly on weekends.
Thanks to Steve for this awesome plugin. You developed it in record time. I know folks over at the lounge will be soon be MJ'ers...er...MC'ers.
As far as wipping the credit card out, I too have never felt better about paying for software than when I happily register MJ (V7/V8 and now V9).
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well i'm finally back in town, and i see things have prgressed quite nicely!! we got the syncing speed, time remaining and the gui locks seem to be under control. i ran it all last night and everything ran beautifully. although i did have some problems ripping a cd with the new 9 build but thats for a different thread. once i have graphical ratings and playcount updating i will be the happiest podder on earth! great work steve!! ;D ;D
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Everyone,
I will be out tomorrow so will not check the board until Friday. I have a fix for the folder F19 problem and tag updating during synch implemented, but will have to wait to release it until Friday.
Thanks,
Steve
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One thing I noticed and not sure if this is isolated, after I upgraded from MC9 84 to 85 by going over 84, the Ipod plugin did not register, right clicking my Ipod had no plugin menu/features. I could not reinstall the plugin bacause "hh_portable.dll was in use". I had to delete hh_portable.dll in the jriver folder and reinstall. All was fine after. May want to look into this.
LJ
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Steve:
Welcome back. Kurt asked in the 'lounge that someone step up and write a "user guide" for the plugin. I sorta did that and a little more (included the basics of MC). Since there are so many new users, thought it'd be helpful.
If you're interested (or anyone else is) here's where it's at:
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~ashawley01/
Oh, and Steve, tell Jim not to sue me or anything, I didn't get permission er nothin' like that. ;)
Adam
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Welcome back Steve, we missed ya! :)
-=Tim=-
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Steve:
Welcome back. Kurt asked in the 'lounge that someone step up and write a "user guide" for the plugin. I sorta did that and a little more (included the basics of MC). Since there are so many new users, thought it'd be helpful.
If you're interested (or anyone else is) here's where it's at:
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~ashawley01/
Oh, and Steve, tell Jim not to sue me or anything, I didn't get permission er nothin' like that. ;)
Adam
Adam,
Thats brilliant! JRiver should give you a medal rather than sue! Maybe they could commision you to write an Electronic Manual for MJ8 & MC9? PDf format would be good.
Thanks
Graham
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Adam, great job!!! :) :) :)
One thought, you mention MP3 as a save format for CDs. I also use MP3 Normal as my rip format however one cool thing about MJ is its use of lossless formats and iPod's ability to do "safety (or is it safely) convert" to MP3. This is very cool for those with more sensitive ears. You might want to mention this as a side note.
Again, just an awesome job.
-=TIm=-
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Great user guide Adam. I do have a couple of comments for you though.
First, I think it would be good to mention the Apple updater for the iPod. I could only get my iPod recognised by MC after restoring it using the updater and then formatting using MC.
Second, it would be good to show what happens when you try to synch/upload files when there isn't enough space for them on the iPod.
Finally, I think it would be good to explain why you use the file naming conventions you do when ripping. I started off using [TRACK#] - [TRACK NAME] which gave all sorts of duplicate file warnings when synching/uploading. By changing to [ALBUM] - [TRACK #] - [TRACK NAME] I eliminated these problems. It might also be worthwhile showing the error dialogs that appear when this happens.
Apart from that it's great. It would be interesting to get comments from MC/iPod newbies on it now, after all we are all hardened veterans to the plugin now.
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Adam,
Holy Cow!!!! I am going away more often. That is incredibly helpful. When I post the new build tonight I will include start a new thread with that link prominently displayed. Thanks again.
Steve
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Welcome back, Steve! Now GET TO WORK!!! ;D
Just kidding, dude... good to see you're back in da house, though!
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Aw shucks guys, thanks for all the kudos, it was nothin' ::)
Great input from everyone. I'll capture it and add it. Possibly throw it into Robohelp so it'll be easier to navigate...but now we're talking fun!
Good points on mp3 format and Safely Convert and all that. Also good points on the file naming clarifications.
OK, back to work for now....
Thanks again guys!
Adam
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Great job, Ashawly!
I enjoyed reading your guide. It taught me several new things I didn't know. and I followed some suggestions and everything worked fine until I faced Big problem.
After I uninsalled MMJB plugin, from Control Panel- Add or Remove Program, my system doesn't recognize iPod anymore. I cannot find iPod either from Explorere or MC9. I'm lost! What did I wrong?
When I plug in my iPod, I hear the sound but iPod displays "O.K. to disconnect!"
Do I have to start all over again by installing MMJB Install disk? and Install MMJB again? Please help URGENTLY!!! :-[
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After I uninsalled MMJB plugin, from Control Panel- Add or Remove Program, my system doesn't recognize iPod anymore. I cannot find iPod either from Explorere or MC9. I'm lost! What did I wrong?
When I plug in my iPod, I hear the sound but iPod displays "O.K. to disconnect!"
Do I have to start all over again by installing MMJB Install disk? and Install MMJB again? Please help URGENTLY!!! :-[
The same thing happened to me earlier this week. In the end I just reinstalled MMJB, disabled the autostart and enabled the iPod as a firewire drive to get the iPod support back.
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Sei:
Don't sweat, you just need to re-register your iPod as a removable drive. Here's what to do:
1. First, reboot. It's just a good starting point.
2. Open up the iPod Software Updater. That's the tool that shipped with your iPod that you use to update or restore it. Just open it up. Sure, it'll say that no iPod is connected, that's okay. The important thing is that this program "polls" your system for an iPod, so that when you plug in, it'll see it, and "catch" it.
3. Plug in your iPod. It should behave normally. If it does, close the software updater, dismount your iPod (via the system tray icon), unplug, and plug back in to make sure that it'll "catch" again.
4. If it fails any part of step 3, you'll need to put your iPod into "force firewire" mode. Hold down the Previous and Next buttons on your iPod for about 7 seconds. The screen will go to the "checkmark" screen, even if you aren't plugged in. Now, start from step 2 and see what happens. If it catches properly, close the updater, dismount the iPod, unplug, and reconnect. It's worked for me in the past.
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Hi Kurt!
Thanks for help! But,
Where can I find iPod Software Updater? In the install CD bundled with iPod?
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Hi Kurt!
I found in Start-All Programs-IPOD.
Thanks and Sorry!
Finally It is working now. Running Ipod updator restored things! Thank you very much, Kurt! You save me! :D
One minor issue remaining is I cannot see the white IPOD icon in my system tray anymore. I can see 'Safely Remove Hardware' icon, but where is my small white "IPOD" icon?
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Hey Sei, that icon is added by the Apple iPod software. It really doesn't do anything, or I should say it just duplicates what the Safely remove Hardware icon does. If you really like it, you can get it back by reinstalling the Apple iPod software. You can get that bit from Apples Site. Here's a link:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=120119
Also, I think I need to add some edits to my help file.
Kurt: do you know if you first enable firewire disk mode in MMJB and *then* do the uninstall if this problem won't happen? I hate causing folks problems....or should I just add your comments.
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Kurt: do you know if you first enable firewire disk mode in MMJB and *then* do the uninstall if this problem won't happen? I hate causing folks problems....or should I just add your comments.
That's how I had my system set up. On Wednesday I decided that there was no point in having MMJB installed so uninstalled it. All the iPod software went at the same time. After that my iPod wasn't recognised at all by my PC even though I had enabled firewire drive support in MMJB. At the time the only way I could get my iPod recognised was to reinstall MMJB.
I think I'll try your new method to get rid of MMBJ since there is no point in having it installed.
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Hey Sei, that icon is added by the Apple iPod software. It really doesn't do anything, or I should say it just duplicates what the Safely remove Hardware icon does. If you really like it, you can get it back by reinstalling the Apple iPod software. You can get that bit from Apples Site. Here's a link:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=120119
Also, I think I need to add some edits to my help file.
Kurt: do you know if you first enable firewire disk mode in MMJB and *then* do the uninstall if this problem won't happen? I hate causing folks problems....or should I just add your comments.
Adam,
Hi. Have I done something wrong? When i bought my new Ipod 2 weeks ago I did not install ANY of the software that came with it. I just fired up MC, downloaded the plug in. Right clicked Format Ipod, and there it was.
I have sucessfully sent music to it many times. Should I install something else?
Cheers
Graham
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I have sucessfully sent music to it many times. Should I install something else?
You don't need to install anything else. After all if it ain't broke don't fix it.
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As usual, Phil's right Graham. My CD still hasn't been opened.
I just said that because some people like to have the little iPod icon appear in they systray. No use for it, just a pretty picture....
Hey Phil: thanks for letting me know that they same happened to you. That's horrid that MMJB causes that to happen. Guess I need to include Kurt's steps.
Thanks,
Adam
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Hey Phil: thanks for letting me know that they same happened to you. That's horrid that MMJB causes that to happen. Guess I need to include Kurt's steps.
Thanks,
Adam
A bit more info. I uninstalled MMJB again then reinstalled the iPod updater. After a reboot my iPod is recognised as a removable drive and by MC. The only thing i have lost is the iPod watcher icon (plus some bloatware of course :D)
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I am closing this thread and opening a new one for the new build.