INTERACT FORUM
More => Old Versions => Media Center 11 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: SteveG on February 12, 2004, 02:35:09 pm
-
Hello All,
For anyone who is new to MC, please be sure to get the latest version from our downloads page or from the first thread on this board.
An excellent help file (thanks Adam) on using MC and iPod can be found here:
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~ashawley01/
For additional information, please check the previous help thread at:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=19017;start=0
For any issues not covered, please post below and someone will respond ASAP. Please copy and paste your system info from MC Help and include the version of the Portable Drive Plugin you use.
Thanks,
Steve
-
Everyone,
A new build of MC i(10.0.68) is now available with the following improvements for iPod....
1. Fixed: Errors during on the fly conversion of files to portables.
2. Fixed: Rename of tag info on portables.
3. Changed: Rename of tag info will not allow changes to Artist, Album, Genre, Name or Track Number on handhelds.
4. Changed: Handheld transfers require more squish space on large players. (for the database, etc.)
5. Fixed: Smartlists with random track listings did not synchronize with handhelds properly.
6. Fixed: Synchronizing information back from a handheld player could cause playcounts to get bumped twice.
Prior to this build, if you had "random" as a smartlist rule, synchronization would have been messed up. Hopefully this resolves most issues from yesterday with the exception of Audible files and the report of Replay Gain not working correctly. If all is going well, these will be the next items addressed.
Thanks.
Steve
-
Hate to break it to you, but just done a sync and... still no playlists.
I'm about to try an initialise and a resync. (The new and improved whizzy speed makes this a lot less painful than it used to be). I'll let you know the results.
-
This build (.68) is working for me. I notice that the playlist groups came back? (In parentheses after the playlist name.)
-
Just did an initialise from within MC and a resync (30GB in 45 minutes - not bad!) and my playlists are back!
Hurrah!
-
Thanks for the positive reports. The playlist group is in for a little while again until all is settled down. That was causing some of the problems.
Thanks,
Steve
-
4. Changed: Handheld transfers require more squish space on large players. (for the database, etc.)
What does this mean? Does this mean that more "empty" space is needed when doing a sync? If so, how much space is necessary -- i.e. how much space should we be keeping empty on the iPod?
Thanks for clarifying this,
Larry
PS. In response to a question from the previous iPod thread, my Audible files are ".aa" files.
-
What does this mean? Does this mean that more "empty" space is needed when doing a sync? If so, how much space is necessary -- i.e. how much space should we be keeping empty on the iPod?
Yes -- you'll need to leave whatever is larger between 4 MB and 0.5% of the total space. MC will warn you if you exceed it.
We need to make sure there's enough room for the database and for if converted files end up to be a little larger than expected.
-
No change or improvement here using .69 on 30GB ipod.
Restored, initialized, transferred 5k+ files. 1.1 GB free. Approx. 26 GB transferred
Files are there, but no playlists. Attmept to resynch says it would leave -25GB+ space.
-
No change or improvement here using .69 on 30GB ipod.
Restored, initialized, transferred 5k+ files. 1.1 GB free. Approx. 26 GB transferred
Files are there, but no playlists. Attmept to resynch says it would leave -25GB+ space.
Could you try it again and leave more space open? Say 10GB? If that works, try 5GB. We should be able to solve this in the next few builds, but for now this might get you going.
-
BTW Replay Gain is working for me as well with build .69, I have about 200MB free on the iPod.
-
Reinitialized w/ v.69:
1. 849 songs, 1 audible book
2. 13.7GB free space
3. 5 smartlists, 1 fixed playlist
Result:
1. No playlists :(
3. Audible book PLAYS :)
-
Due to work load, I can't retry until this weekend. Good luck & thaks for trying.
-
I posted this in a separate thread. I guess it belongs here too!!
----
Hey!! I found a pattern!! I can get 100% reliable syncs, playlists and all...
1. When I "Auto-Eject on Close" = NO PLAYLISTS
2. When I manually "Eject iPod" = PLAYLISTS APPEAR
Best of all...audible book PLAYS!! :)
Woohoo!! 100% repeateable for me...
----
Hope this helps others :)
-
10.0.69 is working flawlessly for me doing on-the-fly conversions from APE to MP3. Thanks!
-
After full iPod restore and MC initialization, I still have no playlists and Audible files still do not play. This build basically behaves just like last one as far as the iPod functions go.
The stats were:
5607 songs
25.6GB filled, 11.5GB free
Two smartlists used in sync -- neither one used "random" option -- they were simply lists of artists or albums to include or exclude. Both of these smartlists referenced other smarlists and playlists.
Larry
-
markp,
Excellent catch.
Everyone with the no playlist issue, be sure to eject ipod from within MC until tonight's build when this will go away.
Steve
-
Markp -- is the Audible issue also 100% repeatable for you in this manner? In other words, does ejecting from within MC ALWAYS lead to Audible files playing, and conversely, do Audible books always NOT play when ejecting otherwise?
Thanks,
Larry
-
Sorry, I did not mean to imply that Audible playback was affected / toggled by eject method. Audible files play for me with both methods...
Somehow, I got audible files to play yesterday even before I noticed the eject thing... Audible files DID start to play AFTER I flushed and re-imported all my files to MC10 library...
-
To "flush" them, did you just delete them from the library (without deleting them from the drive)? Did you try other things like "update library from tags" first?
Thanks for details,
Larry
-
Hi,
And found another "bug":
Changed tags (e.g. changing the artist-name due to a spelling-error) are not updated!
Kind Regard,
Rien
-
To "flush" them, did you just delete them from the library (without deleting them from the drive)? Did you try other things like "update library from tags" first?
No, did not try update. I simply "deleted from library" and re-imported.
-
Hi,
And found another "bug":
Changed tags (e.g. changing the artist-name due to a spelling-error) are not updated!
Kind Regard,
Rien
How are you noticing this? In other words, after you change a tag, what do you do to determine that it isn't changed? Do you first click somewhere else in MC? I've noticed that changes to tags aren't applied until something else is highlighted, so I though that perhaps this had something to do with your problem (i.e. perhaps you close the program before it had a chance to apply the changes.)
Just theorizing,
Larry
-
I've been out of the loop on the iPod side of things for a month or so waiting for the latest build to become more stable. I finally upgraded at build 65 and was quite dismayed. I'm now up to build 69 (though I havent tested it yet).
Currently I have a 15GB g3 iPod and fill it with about 12GB of mixed MP3, M4A, M4P, and AA files.
I understand that I need to restore my ipod, copy over a purchased M4P file to the ipod, close itunes, Initialize the iPod in Media Center 10 and then begin the sync process in order to get purchased AAC files to play.
Are there any similar tricks regardin AA (audible) files? In a post above it was mentioned that maybe removing and re-iporting AA files to the library might help the problem.
are there any other steps I need to make? Why doesn't Media Center find the file needed by M4P as part of the initialization process? (Is the file generated by iTunes during the first M4P file copy to the iPod or does it exist somewhere within the iTunes file structure?
Chris
-
Just synced w/.69
I did NOT Initialize. I just synced. And I got my Playlists!!! Happy, happy, joy, joy ;D
iTunes files play fine.
No Audible, though.
I did do the Eject iPod from within MC, for the first time ever, actually. I've never used that before (always used the safely Remove Hardware icon in my icon tray).
Also, I got one message about a duplicate file and guess what, it really was a duplicate! However, the file NAME was different, so obviously it is not checking on filename.
-
Hi,
And found another "bug":
Changed tags (e.g. changing the artist-name due to a spelling-error) are not updated!
Kind Regard,
Rien
How are you noticing this? In other words, after you change a tag, what do you do to determine that it isn't changed? Do you first click somewhere else in MC? I've noticed that changes to tags aren't applied until something else is highlighted, so I though that perhaps this had something to do with your problem (i.e. perhaps you close the program before it had a chance to apply the changes.)
Just theorizing,
Larry
I went to my Ipod (in my case: drive L:);
Expanded the artists (clicked on the +-sign);
I say two times the artist : Status Quo (1 time spelled as Status quo and 1 time spelled as Status Quo);
I clicked on the artist Status quo;
Highlited the songs;
Clicked File Properties;
Clicked Tag Info;
Changed the artist name to Status Quo;
Clicked outside the name-tag to update the tags;
Saw in the right window that the artist-name was changed;
Clicked on another dirve (e.g. c:\);
Clicked again on my IPod drive;
Expanded the artists again;
Saw that the name of the artist was still Status quo.....
Kind regards (and sorry again for my poor English... I am dutch...)
Rien
-
Everyone,
MC 10.0.70 is now available. It includes...
Fixed: iPod playlists would not save if player disconnected from outside of MC.
I will look more into Audible this weekend.
Rien,
Artist, Album, Genre, and Track # editing on Portables has been disabled, but the change was not made to the Properties AW. This will be disabled shortly.
-
Number of plays are not updating for me. The number of plays certainly disappears for me from my iPod when I eject, but the library's sum doesn't get updated.
-
Steve, with this new iPod code have any changes been made to cater for multiple iPods?
My wife and I both have our own devices. Previously, syncing one iPod then the other without closing MC in between would completely corrupt the second iPod, meaning an initialise and a full reload was necessary.
Has this been changed or is this still "work in progress"?
-
Steve, with this new iPod code have any changes been made to cater for multiple iPods?
My wife and I both have our own devices. Previously, syncing one iPod then the other without closing MC in between would completely corrupt the second iPod, meaning an initialise and a full reload was necessary.
Has this been changed or is this still "work in progress"?
Just out of curiosity, did you assign each iPod it's own unique drive letter? I synched 2 iPods without closing MC in between and it didn't have the problems you describe. I actually synched both (one at a time) while they were both connected to the computer, and while they were both in the MC tree at the same time.
Larry
-
Using 10.0.70 --
1. Still getting the freezing at 30% of Initialize if I don't do a complete Restore first. Of course, I probably don't need to initialize at all anymore, but thought it might by some fluke give me Audible playback.
2. Still no Audible
3. Playcounts don't seem to be transferring one way or the other. Playcounts on the iPod (viewed in MC) are always 0. Playcounts in MC are more realistic, but don't seem to include any plays on the iPod.
-
Using 10.0.70 --
1. Still getting the freezing at 30% of Initialize if I don't do a complete Restore first. Of course, I probably don't need to initialize at all anymore, but thought it might by some fluke give me Audible playback.
Are you positive it's actually locking up? I've found that with the latest builds, initializing over a large group of files takes several minutes, during which time the Task Manager shows two "Not Responding" entries for Media Center. If I let it go long enough, however, it eventually does finish and MC is once again "responding."
Larry
PS. .70 brought back the smartlists on the iPod, but audible files still don't play.
-
Same as lalittle
-
I just did an "Update Library from Tags" and my audible file tags all reverted to their original state -- i.e. I lost all my tag editing changes. I was able to restore my previous library (I had backed it up before the update) and get my tags back, but I though that this might be one more clue as to what's going on with Audible support in MC. Why would the Audible file tags be completely different after doing the update?
Larry
-
I just did an "Update Library from Tags" and my audible file tags all reverted to their original state -- i.e. I lost all my tag editing changes. I was able to restore my previous library (I had backed it up before the update) and get my tags back, but I though that this might be one more clue as to what's going on with Audible support in MC. Why would the Audible file tags be completely different after doing the update?
Larry
Just to add to this, when you guys do get this worked out, PLEASE make it so our own custom tags show up on the iPod for Audible files -- this is a NECESSITY. I've seen other programs that use some sort of "default" tags -- which don't seem to be editable -- that are often not conducive to using them on an iPod. For example, we get some "weekly" audible content that we rename to reflect the date of the file in the title. The "default" tag for these files, however, is the same for every one, which means that when these are placed on the iPod, they all show the exact same name. Other audible files do contain the date in the title, but it doesn't fit on iPod screen, so you don't see it. One thing I REALLY liked about MC (back when my Audible files were working) was the fact that Audible files transferred to the iPod used the MC tag info.
Please maintain this capability,
Larry
-
Hi all,
The Ipod plugin seems more stable now. I was having problems with it crashing and crashing MC after the 1st synch each time I plugged it in but the .70 build it didnt do this.
However, I noticed that everytime I've been synching it has been sending one album across again and again. The said album had a "|" character in it. When I changed that character to a slash, it stopped transferring over each time.
Also, the space left on ipod after transfer in completely inaccurate. I have an almost full ipod (500mb left of 30gb) and it shows 27.8gb free.
And even with the "synch ipod info to MC" box ticked, no last played or ratings info gets transferred. I also tried the "synch ipod info to MC" option on the right click menu of the ipod but nothing happened and songs I had played one minute earlier on the ipod didnt show that info in MC after the synch.
Suggestions: Take away the "transfer complete - ok" window. It's unnecessary, since there is only one option.
Questions: What happened to "Auto album artist" as an option to send to ipod. This was really useful for me with movie soundtracks and scores. I set the album artist to the name of the movie so that the songs were all in one place and easily viewable when searching by artsit or from genre. And in MC I had the real artists listed in the artist field so that I could see who really did each song. It'd be useful to have this feature back or a yes/no answer so that I can think of another workaround.
Would it be possible to also make a "year - album" option, similar to the "album artist auto" option so that we could have the albums appear in year order on the ipod. That would be cool.
Thanks very much. Keep up the good work.
Bri
-
Suggestions: Take away the "transfer complete - ok" window. It's unnecessary, since there is only one option.
I like the confirmation just so I can walk away and still verify that the sync finished normally. It's a fairly small thing to hit "okay," and since it's likely that you won't be right there when it finishes, it's a nice reminder that you did a sync (when you do them all the time, it's actually not hard to forget if you recently did one.)
Larry
-
Using 10.0.70 --
1. Still getting the freezing at 30% of Initialize if I don't do a complete Restore first. Of course, I probably don't need to initialize at all anymore, but thought it might by some fluke give me Audible playback.
Are you positive it's actually locking up? I've found that with the latest builds, initializing over a large group of files takes several minutes, during which time the Task Manager shows two "Not Responding" entries for Media Center. If I let it go long enough, however, it eventually does finish and MC is once again "responding."
Well, you know, it doesn't really matter, because either way it is something broken in MC. This was never true before the .6x versions and the process does quite literally stop in its tracks and give every indication that it is frozen. Maybe if I waited for some time this would free up, but it's still a bug.
-
Well, you know, it doesn't really matter, because either way it is something broken in MC.
I won't argue with that -- I was just trying to make sure that the error report was as accurate as possible.
Larry
-
Using build 70 most everything is working for me (playlists, all my files are coming in, AAC, M4P). The only problem I am having is with Audible files. Since I have about 30 books on my ipod this is quite irritating but it's nice to see that everything else seems to be in order.
-
Everyone,
Thanks for the reports. I have fixed the Playcount and Rating bug and that will be available Monday. Brian, your bug with the '|' is also fixed. Audible fix is still in progress. Madcow, I do not have 2 iPods here to test, but with the new system, synching with 2 iPods should be OK. I can test next week.
I cannot duplicate tlongacre's lock during Initialization. Can anyone else?
I also cannot duplicate Brian's incorrect space left, anyone else? If this one is isolated to Brian, I have some possible theories on how this could be screwed up for him.
Steve
PS The Album Artist (auto) went away to facilitate track matching in the new system which gets complicated if one of the key fields (i.e. artist) is changeable. Modifications may be possible, but not immediately.
-
Using .70, I (after restoring) initialized & synched 5k+ songs via smartlists.
Playlists appeared, along with all songs.Disconnected with "eject". Playlists still there. Listened to & rated 1 song.
Resynched - got "80" errors for what appeared to be all files. Looking at playslists from within MC10.70, it appeared I had 5k+ (26GB) of 1 song (i.e., name repeated over & over in the list for all playlists). Rating had not transfered to MC for the 1 song I had listened to (which was differnt from the one song that appeared on the lists on the ipod).
Reinstalled 9.316, and had to use a "restore" to go back to it.
-
I'm away from home base right now but the comforting thing for all of us is knowing that Steve will fix the bugs. :)
-=Tim=-
-
I'm having trouble getting ratings to sync back to MC from the iPod with build 70. Just doesn't seem to be happening. :(
-
madcow -- nah, it won't happen in .70. Steve is talking about the *next* version which won't be available until Monday.
-
Anyone with Audible playback problems, please try the following.....
After a reinitialize, try transferring one Audible file. Verify that it plays. After this, synchronize or transfer whatever you want, but make sure you do not delete this first audible file. Check if playback works.
Under this test, Audible files seem to always play for me. Any feedback would be great.
Thanks,
Steve
-
This totally reminds me of the last time I had a wierd problem with Microsoft software. I inquired about my problem, and the lead programmer for that part of Microsoft kept me informed of his progress, and was obviously working on my irritating problems on sunday night, and asking if the troubleshooting he had done was reproducable for others with the problem, so he could get it fixed and in my hands by Monday. Yeah, that's almost exactly how my last Microsoft problems was handled. Everything except the easy method of contact, the prompt responses, the abliity to get the message to person actually doing the work (on Sunday), and the feedback, and the obvious desire to fix the nagging problem. Other than those things, they were kindof sortof similar, but still totally different in every way. 8)
I don't even have an iPod yet, but am considering one, and I keep up on this thread (and the previous one) because it is totally refreshing to see a company so determined to make their software work right. :D
Thanks Steve
-
Anyone with Audible playback problems, please try the following.....
After a reinitialize, try transferring one Audible file. Verify that it plays. After this, synchronize or transfer whatever you want, but make sure you do not delete this first audible file. Check if playback works.
Under this test, Audible files seem to always play for me. Any feedback would be great.
Thanks,
Steve
Steve,
You're on to something here. I followed your instructions and it worked exactly like you said it would -- Audible files are now working on my iPods when synching with MC! I was curious if it was necessary to actually unplug/replug the iPod in between the two syncs (i.e. in between the "single Audible file" sync and the "full sync.") To check this, I synched my second iPod without removing it in between the syncs -- I just did the two syncs one right after the other (I started with an initialize.) The Audible files work this way as well -- i.e. the unplug/replug is not necessary. I also should mention that I ejected the iPod after closing MC, which confirms that the eject issue is in fact fixed. Smartlists are still working as well.
Thanks for sticking with this, and thanks for reporting the workaround. It sounds like you're zeroing in on this issue.
One thing I should mention is that if there are a lot of files on the iPod, the initialize takes a LONG time, during which the Task Manager reports MC as "not responding." My last initialize probably took more than 5 minutes.
Thanks again,
Larry
-
Well, Audible sort of works for me. The files play correctly, but for some reason the smartlist doesn't show up on the iPod, although I can see on the iPod within MC9.
Bill McNair
-
Anyone with Audible playback problems, please try the following.....
After a reinitialize, try transferring one Audible file. Verify that it plays. After this, synchronize or transfer whatever you want, but make sure you do not delete this first audible file. Check if playback works.
Under this test, Audible files seem to always play for me. Any feedback would be great.
Thanks,
Steve
Following this methodology I was able to get my audible files to play! Thanks for the workaround Steve and I hope this leads to an overall fix for the bug.
Chris
Media Center Registered 10.0.70 -- C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center\
Microsoft Windows XP 5.1 Service Pack 1 (Build 2600)
Intel Pentium 4 1971 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 1047 MB, Free - 544 MB
Internet Explorer: 6.0.2800.1106 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82 (xpsp1.020828-1920) / Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2800.1400 / Shell32.dll: 6.00.2800.1233 (xpsp2.030604-1804) / wnaspi32.dll: 4.71 (0001) , ASPI for Win32 (95/NT) DLL, Copyright © 1989-2002 Adaptec, Inc. / Aspi32.sys: 4.71 (0001)
Ripping / Drive E: Copy mode:Normal CD Type:Auto Read speed:Max
Digital playback: Yes / Use YADB: Yes / Get cover art: Yes / Calc replay gain: Yes / Copy volume: 32767
Eject after ripping: Yes / Play sound after ripping: No
Burning / Drive E: HL-DT-ST CD-RW GCE-8481B Addr: 1:0:0 Speed:48 MaxSpeed:48 BurnProof:Yes
Test mode: No / Eject after writing: Yes / Direct decoding: Yes / Write CD-Text: Yes
Use playback settings: Yes / Normalization: None
-
I am having difficult getting my Outlook contacts to show up on the iPOD.
I go to my computer and open the IPOD (H) drive. Then I dragged my vCARD files from OUtlook Contacts to the "Contacts" folder on the (H). They all go in.
But they do not show up on my iPOD. Am I doing something wrong? Am I supposed to do it through MC? They are in that folder, but when I eject the iPOD, they are not there.
-
This really has nothing to do with Media Center. Take a look at http://www.ipodlounge.com for information and tools that can help you accomplish this.
-
Everyone,
10.0.71 is on its way. It includes......
13. Fixed: Problem sending tag info to portables with a '|' character.
14. Fixed: Playcount and Rating synching to MC from Portables.
15. Fixed: "MC not responding" message during initialization of Portables.
-
There has to be some way to compare the tracks on an iPod and what is in the library. After several successful synchs I noticed I suddenly had 70 tracks more on the iPod than in the library but have no way to see what is missing (or not removed).
How would I go about creating a smartlist to do this. It would have to compare the library with the iPod then show what is not in both locations. I am using MC 9.1.316 and a 3G 40 GB iPod.
Thanks,
Dave
-
Here is one easy thing to try -- show the "filename" field on the iPod view and then sort by filename. I had some oddities like you and discovered that I had a bunch of songs listed that had no files on the iPod (and they obviously wouldn't play).
-
Everyone,
10.0.71 is on its way. It includes......
13. Fixed: Problem sending tag info to portables with a '|' character.
14. Fixed: Playcount and Rating synching to MC from Portables.
15. Fixed: "MC not responding" message during initialization of Portables.
Did the recent discovery of the Audible workaround (thanks for finding that, by the way) get you any closer to a fix? Do we still need to try the workaround with the upcoming build?
Thanks,
Larry
-
I can confirm that this build has successfully transferred my ratings over.
However, the "estimated space remaining" is still hopelessly wrong. For instance, I've just done a sync of a full iPod (27.8 GB full) where no tracks had changed since I last synced. Hence the space remaining should have been exactly the same as it was at the time I synced (about 70MB). Nope, MC reckons that after my sync I would have about 27.8 GB remaining. ?
-
Yep, the estimated space remaining is a bit funky. It told me I'd have 18.5 gig free after syncing...
Aside from that, everything is working well.
-
me too with the estimated space thing.
Also I've noticed another disparity:
In the ipod view there are lots of songs with negative values for the last played date. I know that I should reinitialize and resynch fresh, but for now I just tried synching from my library without the "Synch ipod info to MC" checked. I figured that any info on th ipod would be overwritten by MC if it were different. But that didnt happen. All the negative last played values remained.
Does that mean that if there are other disparities, in other tag info, that MC wont align the files on the ipod to match? Or is it just because I have some bizarre negative values?
I will reinitialize and resynch afresh when I have time.
Also, can you confirm that now, if I move a files around my hard drive but leave all of its tag and filename info intact, MC will be able to find it when synching ipod info to MC.
Thanks a lot,
Bri
-
Just sync'd with 10.0.71 and used the Audible workaround. Yea! Houston, we have lift off!
Oddly, at the end of the sync, I had one file that came up with an error message -- error number 23. What is that?
Is there a list of the error codes somewhere?
-
I just downloaded and installed build 71. Ratings changes that I iPod are being uploaded to MC, as well as play counts and last played. However, I'm seeing the following issues:
1) The last played time is off by 1 hour as shown in MC. I've double checked that the iPod and PC are configured to be in the same time zone (US Eastern). I've also tried un-checking the "Automatically sadjust clock for daylight saving changes" on the time-zone applet in XP.
2) Changes made to ratings in MC are not downloaded to the iPod.
3) I'm also seeing that the available space after sync is out-of wack.
40GB G3 iPod
Windows XP Pro
MC 10.0.71
-
Oh, also, Larry is right, the Initializing does work. It just takes a long time and seems to get stuck. But this time I just walked away and decided I'd let it take however long it wanted and it did eventually finish.
I have a 40gig iPod which was full when I did the Initialization.
-
Regarding the initialisation I have a 30gb iPod with about 25gb worth of tunes, it took ages and came up with "Not Responding" during this time no communication occurs with the iPod (the circular icon on the pod indicating disc activity did not appear) I gave up after about 20 mins as I had to go to work so I ended the task and no initialising had been done - all tunes were intact.
This is with 71.
-
Everyone,
Space available in the synch is fixed tonight. In regards to intialization taking a long time, is this considerably longer than a week or so ago (pre new synchronization changes)?
Larry,
A change to correct the Audible workaround is not available yet.
tlongacre,
Error codes are standard Windows errors. Error 23 is - Data error (cyclic redundancy check).
MikeW and Bri,
Under the new system files which are already on iPod are not resent and thus new Ratings and tag info would not be applied unless the file is deleted and resent. I may need to revisit this.
MikeW,
On the iPod, have you selected US Eastern or US Eastern (DST)? Is your date, month and year set correctly on iPod?
Bri,
My best guess for the negative last played times is that your clock is wrong on the iPod which could cause what you are reporting.
Dave,
MC 10 does this automatically on each synch. In 9 (and 10) if you select 'Delete files not in synch' and synchronize, the files on iPod that are not in the synch should be removed. There is not a way to isolate the files on iPod which are not in MC 9. The extra files in 9 could be attributed to files which you sent to iPod and then subsequently deleted and reimported into MC followed by a synch to iPod without having initialized iPod. This is a problem that no longer exists in 10.
Steve
-
MikeW and Bri,
Under the new system files which are already on iPod are not resent and thus new Ratings and tag info would not be applied unless the file is deleted and resent. I may need to revisit this.
So does that mean right now if you sync a bunch of songs over and then later Rate them all in MC, the Ratings wont be xferred over to the iPOD?? ?
Does that also mean if I sync over files and then change the tag info in MC, that also wont be updated on the iPOD? ?
If thats true, I'm not a huge fan of the new implementation. IMHO Those 2 things should really be updated to the iPOD whenever they're updated in MC.
If I recall, in the 'old' system you were able to update just the tags on the iPOD when they changed and didn't need to resend the whole song. This should be reimplemented.
If your already planning on 'fixing' all of this, then please just disregard.
Thanx
-
^ I agree with the above post - keeping MC and the iPod in sync should be as transparent as possible, in both directions. This means changes made within MC should automatically propagate to the iPod in the same way as changes made on the iPod currently go back to MC...
-
Here's what I've found about the last-played, off by-an-hour issue:
Start out as follows:
1) The iPod is set to "US Eastern", not "US Eastern (DST)"
2) The time zone on the pc is set to "(GMT-5:00) Eastern time"
3) The "Automatically Adjust clock for daylight saving changes" is checked
4) After playing a song on the iPod, and synching w/MC, the lasted played shows a 1:02:05 instead of 02:05
Exit MC, and uncheck the "Automatically adjust clock for daylight saving changes", click "apply", and Restart MC
The last played time is now correct
In all cases, the time shown on the PC matches that shown on the iPod.
-
Madcow and snuffy,
As of today, tag changes to files in MC to files on iPod will not go to iPod. Here is what is coming shortly....
If changes are made to tags in MC and the files are already on iPod, the files will be deleted from iPod and resent when synching so the modified file and data will both be updated on iPod.
MikeW,
What happens if you set iPod to US Eastern (DST)?
Steve
-
The initialization problem started with. . . (I reported it when it happened, trying to remember now) the new version that started to work again with the iPod. We were up to 10.0.38, I think, then there was a long pause and we came back in at 10.0.60 maybe? That was when the initialization started to "freeze" (although as Larry pointed out, if you wait long enough, it does eventually finish -- I did not have to wait 20 minutes, though, only somewhere between 8-15 minutes, I think.)
I vote with the others, tags should definitely be updated back and forth between the iPod and MC anytime there is a change.
-
After changing the time zone on the iPod from "US Eastern" to "US Eastern (DST)", the time on the iPod was an hour off. After correcting the time on the iPod, and playing an item. The behavior is the same as when "US Eastern" is selected: The last played shows correct when the "Automatically adjust clock for daylight saving changes" is not checked, and is off by an hour when it is checked.
-
steve,
i'm getting tempted to try the new plug in...
Is there any way to maintain my playcounts and ratings on the ipod and get them into media center (have used the ipod for over 4 months so my playcounts i like a lot).
Last time I played with the ipod and media center (maybe aroun 10.040) I lost ALL of my ratings :( which has scared me to touch mediacenter until you have crackd the nasty apple code.
I know there is no direct sync between MC and ipod but maybe you know a work around?
If there was a way to edit play counts in mediacenter, that would be a start (or import XML playlists from itunes)
thanks
-
Everyone,
New MC is now available and includes....
Fixed: Ability to transfer m4b files to iPod.
Fixed: Available and used space in portable synching dialogue.
Fixed: Audible (AA) files wouldn't always play on iPod.
In regards to Audible, you should now no longer need to do the workaround from Monday.
MikeW,
I must check this out tomorrow.
iPodman,
The new MC should (if the option to update tags from iPod is selected) update MC with ratings from iPod (if they are non zero) and add playcounts to MC. Having said that, it has been working for a day correctly so you should back up your library if you are concerned about things getting goofed up for another couple days.
-
STeve...
I just synced with version 10.072...
The ratings from the ipod transferred into Media Center (well the ratings on mp3 files and not aac but I think that is an apple limitation, no?)!!!!
My media center play counts seem quite inaccurate though ... some songs it says I have played 18000 times when I know they have been placed just once!!!! Other songs that I know I played 8 times show 0. weird. again, the aac play counts are set at 0 even though many are my most played
i will admit, i did not let media center reformat the ipod, because if i did that i figured my data wouldnot be there to send info into media center
ALso, how can I get playlists from the ipod onto MC? I tried exporting them as a html, but the file is blank, without any songs listed
thanks
-
Hello Steve,
After installing .72:
Trying to expand the "artists"-tree: MC crashes!
Do I have to initialize the IPOD with every new version?
Thanks,
Rien
-
Rien,
You do not need to intialize for each new version. I cannot explain the aritst tree expansion crash. Can you expand other tree nodes (i.e. Album) without problem?
ipodman,
There is not a way to get iPod playlists from iPod to MC unless you can export them somehow into a format that iPod can import (such as m3u). In regards to the playcounts and ratings, you may need to intialize with MC. It does not appear that you have done that since installing 10 and so the file which stores the playcounts information may be formatted in a way that MC cannot understand which would account for the weird values. AAC playcounts should sync into MC without problems.
Steve
-
If I initialize with media center, then the current play counts and ratings on the ipod will be erased, no? What I was trying to figure out if my existing playcounts on the ipod which are quite extemsive can be synced into media center. I have just started using media cnter, so my play counts there are basically nonexistent.
I plan to make the leap to mc full time for my ipod soon.. i just wish I could keep thos playcounts I built up for several months
-
iPodman,
Yes, if you initialize, all the data will be lost from iPod. If the format of iPod now is not recognizable (i.e. playcounts) that data may be gone in relation to MC.
Steve
-
Steve,
Is this a bug or a feature?
using .72 -- I went to sync the iPod. I had "show files at root" turned off because if you try to eject with that on, you have to sit and wait for it to see all the songs which is a pain. But when I went to sync, it told me that I had -37.1gb and would not let me sync (a message box came up saying I'd exceeded the limit and needed to remove some songs). It finally occurred to me to turn on "show files at root" and when I did, the size count was correct and I didn't get that message anymore and it did the sync just fine.
-
Hi Steve,
You are right regarding the negative values of my last played info.
I discovered that my ipod was a few minutes in front of my pc a few days ago and corrected it but hadnt reinititialized since then. I was kinda hoping that Mc would had put a positive value or zero value in the files on the ipod to fix the error.
But i got around it in the end by deleting affected files and resynching the correct files from MC.
The plugin is working fine for me now. Last played and number of plays seems ok.
-
Steve,
mmmm... strange. Now (after a cold boot of my pc) MC doesn't crash when I expand the artists-tree. I'm happy that I didn't initialize my IPOD again (and have to transfer 8000 songs again....).
Kind regards,
Rien
-
Steve,
Is this a bug or a feature?
using .72 -- I went to sync the iPod. I had "show files at root" turned off because if you try to eject with that on, you have to sit and wait for it to see all the songs which is a pain. But when I went to sync, it told me that I had -37.1gb and would not let me sync (a message box came up saying I'd exceeded the limit and needed to remove some songs). It finally occurred to me to turn on "show files at root" and when I did, the size count was correct and I didn't get that message anymore and it did the sync just fine.
Hi,
I got the exact same behavior with 10.0.72 also. But I must say that 'show files at root' is really speedier than when I last checked that feature on. So for now I will live with that minor annoyance.
Nel.
-
Steve,
The last played time issue is a small one -- I was just letting you know because I noticed it (part of the responsibility of being a beta tester). It's hardly keeping me up at night.
Just let me know if there is anything else I can do...
-
Steve,
Looks like you've cracked it. All my aa files now play!
Just synched with .72 for the first time and it all works for me. Ratings and last played are all just as they should be.
Some Smartlists are not working now but that's MC not the plug-in.
Thanks again.
Ash
-
The last played time issue should be resolved tonight. The 'show files at root' will go away with some other changes tomorrow that will make it unnecessary. For tonight, do not deselect "Show files at root' option.
-
Minor iPod sorting annoyance (found while accidentally deleting songs from iPod):
1. Sorted on Rating, low-to-high
2. Selected a handfull of songs w/rating = "1" (= junk)
3. Deleted the items
Annnoyance: List reverts the list (rating high-to-low) without prompting. Actually, no matter what the iPod sorting, after delete, list ALWAYS reverts to sorting by Rating (^), then Name (v)
Note: I NEVER usually delete songs from iPod directly, but this re-sorting thing seems odd.
-
Strange problem here. Using 10.73 with the plugin that came with it (9.9?). When I try to synch as I always do, I get an empty dialog box with just a lower case "h" in it and a red X. I have tried uninstalling the plugin, deleting hh_portable.dll, reinstalling MC, going back a few versions, initializing, restoring with Apple updater, etc. All the usual stuff. Been a long time MC user and an Ipod user for two years, been through the Ipod plugins since the beginning.
I think I have tried everything. Installed ephpod to get my tunes back on it, so I know the ipod is fine.
Thanks,
LJ
-
markp99,
Did you save your view with sorting low to high for the iPod view? I cannot duplicate this when I do.
LarryJoe,
Definitely do not install any plugins other than what comes with MC 10. You should have plugin 9.0.99 with MC 10.0.73. If you have the correct version and you get the error when you click on synchronize and before any files start to send, can you email me your iTunesDB file?
Thanks. (steve @ jriver.com).
-
Steve - I installed 10.74 which I assume has the preffered plugin. Same deal :(
Did a search on my hdd for itunesdb and the only one that came up is in the ephpod directory. I sent this to you and hope this is what you need to get me sqaured away.
LJ
-
Check that, I found itunesdb on the ipod and sent this to you. I asume this is the one you need.
Also, I formatted the drive through XP, then restored through ipod updater, then tried MC again and got the same result. Very strange, I will also send a snapshot of the error.
Thanks,
LJ
-
Hi All!
I've been told to post my msg here... I'm not quite sure about this, should i post all iPod related bugs/problems here?
Anyway, here's my original post (i'm currently using 0.74):
Sorry for the large text, but my issues are a little complicated to explain...
My smartlists still do not sync correctly to my G3 iPod. I've created about 400 of them. When i do a sync, there's always one smartlist on the iPod that has some strange characters as first two letters of the smartlist's name. Inside MC, i can see the smartlists and the tracks on the iPod - if MC is not crashing when i click on the "+" sign of the "Playlist" tree node, which is happening one or two times after the sync. If i eject, the iPod shows no playlists. I've tried this several times, and i've initialized the iPod before trying. I even have tried to reduce the number of smartlists a little, but the effect was the same.
Another strange thing i've noticed is the following behaviour: on the "synchronice handheld player" dialog, if i click on the "select none" button, the number showing the available space after the sync is correctly resetted. Now, if i click on the tree node containing my 400+ smartlists, and select "select all subitems", the available space number stays the same for some seconds. In version prior to 0.70, that was the point where MC would "lock" the applications while calculating the free space. The newer versions are acting differently: i can click on "Start", and MC will start synching - but will delete a large number of files on the iPod (i have "delete unselected..." on). it seems that MC is not ready calculating free space (or "flagging" the smartlists), and so it syncs only part of the smartlists.
I _never_ had problems synching the large number of smartlists to the iPod with MC before 0.70.
-
I've noticed something that may be connected to the problems i'm having with synching smartlists.
In 0.59, the files are stored on the iPod with a "123456.mp3" or "1234567.mp3" naming scheme. The new MC versions are using "12345.mp3", if i remember that correctly.
While synching with 0.59, MC displays about 25.000 as the total # of tracks, because it counts every track in every smartlist (even identical tracks in different smartlists). On previous MC versions, the filename (=number) could go as high as 9.999.999. With versions after 0.59, the number building the filename can only be as high as 99.999.
P.S.: Just did a complete sync with 0.59 (Argh... This takes 3.5 hours every time!) - it worked perfectly, all my smartlists are visible on the iPod! Inside MC, i still do see one smartlist with two strange letters @ as first letters of the filename. Maybe this one was left over from the sync with 0.74.
-
LarryJoe,
Using your iTunesDB, I was able to synchronize and add files and view the files you have. I am unable to use 'Delete files not in synch' because I do not have your actual files. Do you have 'Delete files not in synch' checked? Where does the crash occur, during the deletion or when the files start to transfer or when the playlists transfer? Lets try to narrow this down. Can you intialize and then synch one playlist with 100 files and see if that works. Then synch another playlist of 100 files and let me know the results.
Addict,
This is the place to post iPod issues.
What is the name of the smartlist with the weird characters? Does MC crash when you click on the '+' in MC (not viewing it on iPod)?
The available space stays the same while MC recalculates the available space taking into account files that will not be resent (because they are already on iPod) and any conversion you have selected. With 'Delete unselected' checked, any files with different tag info from MC (Artist, Album, Genre, Name, Track Number) or files with tag changes are deleted from iPod and resent. This should not occur on subsequent synchs unless data changes or if you have not resolved files reported as duplicates based on the matching scheme. The total 3 of tracks synching in the new version is not all playlist entries, but actual tracks that must be sent and after a first successful synch should be very small unless you have different files being sent based on dynamic smartlist rules such as 'random'. The filename number used to be the MC identification key, it is now the iPod index number.
Steve
-
Today installed the .74 but also present in the previous versions:
I'm uploading my files in batches of about 1000 files to my IPOD. After about 3000 files a strange thing happens: The last artist (when expanding the artists tree) has "strange" characters in its name: two squares and "nity Fare".
After uploading another 1000 records ANOTHER (always the last) artist has strange characters in its name!
Regards,
Rien
-
Steve,
I think I got it. The crash was occuring when I pressed synch. I could initialize fine, but the crash would come when I pressed synch. I took your advice and tried just a small playlist and bingo, it transferred. I need to go through my playlists and see which one it doesn't like and check the files.
I should be able to figure this out, but I will be back if not. As always, you guys rock with such personalized support.
Thanks,
Joe
-
Rien,
My best guess is there is a particular Artist name that is causing the problem. Can you isolate the batch of files which causes the problem and see if there is a particular Artist that causes the problem. In particular, look for an Artist name with non standard characters.
Or... email me your iTunesDB file from your iPod and I will test it here. You will find iTunesDB on your iPod in iPod_Control->iTunes.
Larry,
Thanks for working on this. Let me know how it turns out and I will make adjustments as necessary.
Steve
-
I must be doing something wrong, as even .75 is not working for me.
I restored, initialized, synched -- 5k+ songs transfer, playlists transfer, my one audible book work. 1.1 GB space left on the ipod according to .75. So far so good.
I rate and listen to 1 song on the ipod. I try to synch, but .75 tells me that synching would leave -25+GB space free on the ipod. I click OK anyhow, but it tells me space has been exceeded.
This kind of defeats a couple of the primary purposes of using MC for me - I can't synch (i.e., just send back & forth the changed files/info; I have to restore, initialize & resend the whole shebang), and there no longer is any way to just send the ratings & # of times played back from the ipod to the MC database.
I've done this twice now, thinking maybe I did something wrong, but I don't think so.
Anyone have any tips? Is it really working for some people?
Thanks.
Steve
-
Having recalled that someone found it made a difference awhile back to reimport the library, I deleted all of the library entries, reimported all media.
I restored, initialized, synched. Before disconnecting, I checked to see shat sapce would be left if a synched again (i.e., right clicked the ipod in .75 under devices, clicked synch) the screen came up saying that it would still have 1.1 GB space left, which would be right.
I disconnected, listened to & rated 1 song. Shut & restarted .75.
Connected ipod, right click on ipod in .75, click synch - it says -25GB space left. It did not send the rating to MC's data base. It won't synch because it exceeds available space.
.38 is still the last one that worked for me.
Open to suggestions.
-
Serf,
On a couple occasions, thru several failed sync attempts, I found MANY GB's of orphaned files on my iPod. MC did not see them, iPod did not see them.
I started afresh with a clean re-install of iPod v2.1 software, then re-sync'd with MC. Removed the orphaned files.
-
I think when I restored with 2.1 it should have deleted any orphaned files, right? If so, I've done that each time and it has not helped. Do you mean I should uninstall 2.l and reinstall that? Thanks.
-
Serf,
Browse your iPod from within Windows and look in the Music folder where you will find folders numbered from F00 to F20. To really do a good test, reinitialize the player and then you should see that these folders are empty. If not, the orphaned files problem is what is happening for you.
FYI, iPod is essentially a dumb removable drive where you can copy anything you want. The iTunesDB file is the database which makes iPod aware of the music you have copied and able to play it. Because of this, a couple of things are possible. 1) You can have tons of junk on iPod eating up space and the database may be blissfully unaware that any of it is there. To verify this, right click on the iPod drive in Windows, and see what the space available reports. 2) You can have a database that thinks you have many gigs of files and the files may not be on the iPod at all.
When MC reports there is not enough space, it is using Windows functions to ask the iPod (as a removable drive) how much space it has. I would be surprised if this number is wrong. When MC estimates available space after synching it is matching the files in MC against what the iPod database thinks it has and making estimates based on that.
That may be way more than you want (need) to know, but it might shed some light on the problem.
Steve
-
I just restored (as I have before) using the ipod system updater 2.1. There are the folders you describe in the music folder, but no files in any of those folders.
I'll initialize in .75 and try to synch again (4th time), and let you know if there is any difference tomorrow.
Thanks,
Steve
-
I had restored with no problem using ipod's 2.1 software - no orphaned files.
I initialized using .75 - no orphaned files.
I synched 5076 files & had 1.1 GB available on the ipod. I could see files in the root of the ipod w/i .75 & playlists & files were under playlists.
W/o disconnecting, I checked synch & it again said I would have 1.1 GB available after synch on the ipod (though I cancelled the synch before it started).
I disconnected the ipod & closed .75.
I did not listen to any songs or rate any songs or do anything to or on the ipod.
I restarted .75 & connected the ipod. I could not see files in the root of the ipod. I right clicked to synch & it now said (with nothing changed in playslist selections for transfer or otherwise) that I would have -25.6 GB available if I hit OK.
Could be orphaned files, but not clear why.
Database (files) & ipod must be fine, as they work under .38. Seems like its .75 for some reason. Let me know if it would help to send any of the files in. Otherwise, I'll probably go back to .38 as rating & synching is more important than audible (though I'd miss it).
Thanks,
Steve
-
Hello Steve!
Thanks for the reply...
I've done further investigation on my problem (synched smartlists are not shown on the iPod with 0.75, Playlist filename with strange characters), and have the follwing findings:
- Rien seems to have the same problem. The "strange characters" are actually two block-signs, followed by the name of the playlist, -2 chars at the beginning
- the problem is not related to the name of the playlist. I've deleted the playlist & resynched - after this, another playlist would have the strange characters in the filename
- Today, i've synched all my playlists to a 10GB 2G iPod with 0.59. This worked perfectly, and there was no playlist with a strange name on the iPod!
I'm synching to a 40GB 3G iPod - maybe it's the sheer number of files or size of database? Could it be i'm hitting some buffer limits or something like that?
Thank you very much for the "personal" support here - it's good to know someone is listening. (;
-
Serf,
"I could not see files in the root of the ipod. " <-- What do you mean by this? You could not see files at the root of iPod in MC?? If so, please send me your iTunesDB and let me see if I see anything. Also, do you have any other software installed that might be taking control of the iPod (i.e. MusicMatch or iTunes)? One possibility is that those programs are messing up your database. When you have this problem, go to your iPod drive from within Windows and right click on your iPod drive and select "Properties" and verify the space available on your iPod.
ADDICT,
Can you try synching the same playlists from the 10 gig succesful synch to the 40 gig iPod to verify that all is well. Then try adding playlists one at a time until you see the problem and try to isolate what is going on .
Thanks,
Steve
-
Synched playlists are not in proper order using .75
When transfering songs to the ipod, MC will simply add new songs onto the end of the playlist/smartlist such that they are not in the same order as they are in MC.
All dates for last played are returning as 2.1 years whenever a song is played on the ipod.
I have initialized, and still get the same problems.
-
"I could not see files in the root of the ipod" meaning when I clicked on "G" (the ipod) in MC on the 2nd connection, I could not see any files in the root. My recollection is that after the initial synch and before I disconnected, I could see the files in the root of the ipod from within MC.
I just reconnected the ipod --- I can't see any files in the root directory, whereas (as I indicated above) I thought I recall having seen files in the root directory of the ipod from within MC (.75). I can see files listed on the ipod under the playlists from within MC (and on the ipod apart from MC).
I'm not sure if this makes a difference in why there is no room to synch. I checked properties from window explorer - there is about 1.1 GB free, as it said in MC when doing the initial synch. Now, when I try to synch the same (unchanged) files, it says there would be -25.6 GB free, as if it does not see any of the files it had sent to the ipod.
This is a new computer and has never had itunes or musicmatch installed on it.
I'll try and send the itunes file.
Thanks,
Steve
-
Is there an idiot's guide to 10.0.75 and the iPod? I just got my iPod today and cannot get any music to transfer to the iPod from 10.0.75. iTunes works flawlessly but MC refuses to transfter my music to the device even after a fresh restore and initialize. I've used MC since the early V9 betas and can't for the life of me figure this one out.
TIA
-
If you sync over a playlist, then you rename the playlist in MC and resync, the old named playlist is still there along with the new named one.
Bug?
-
Seviien,
Changes tonight should resolve the playlist ordering issue. In regards to the last played date, check the date and time on your iPod. My guess is they are wrong which is causing the inaccuracy in the last played date.
serf,
When you see the incorrect space problem, right click on your iPod drive letter and select 'Rebuild database from iPod' and see if the problem goes away (your playlists will go away, but they can be recreated on your next synch).
ddwakeham,
The best guide we have is here....
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~ashawley01/
If you have been using iTunes, try right clicking on your iPod drive letter in MC and select 'Initialize'. This will set your iPod to be compatible with MC. Then, right click and select 'Synchronize' and select MC playlists to go to your iPod. That should do it.
Snuffy2,
This is fixed tonight.
Steve
-
Larry,
Thanks for working on this. Let me know how it turns out and I will make adjustments as necessary.
Steve
Steve - I am still at it and this is driving me crazy. I thought for sure it was a bad file or bad playlist. I still keep getting the non descriptive red "X" error when trying to sych or even manually transferring files. I am able to transfer small groups or playlists sometimes, but not all the time with no rime or reason. I have tried everything, including clearing the library, copying my mp3's to another directory and importing from there. I am out of ideas and faced with using ephpod.
Any other ideas?
-
LarryJoe,
Today I fixed a bug in which playlists may not have always been destroyed which could have caused problems. Try with tonight's version and try doing simple small tasks to try to narrow down the problem.
Thanks,
Steve
-
SteveG:
I tried "rebuild database from ipod" but it did not help. In fact, all files disappeared from the MC view of the ipod, whether from playlists or artists, etc. Tried synching, but it said it would exceed space available.
I installed .76, restored the ipod using updated 2.1, initialized in .76, checked in exploreder and there was 27.8GB available, synched, saw files in the root directory of the ipod from within MC and all of the playlists. Disconnected ipod, started to play an audible book. Reconnected. No files in root directory of ipod from within MC. Attempting to synch again says it would exceed space available.
I'm the only one with the problem?
Thanks,
Steve
-
Serf,
Yes, you are the only one with this problem. Can you try using another program to make sure you do not have some kind of a hardware issue? From your description, everything is good, you unplug your iPod and play some files and then reconnect and MC does not recognize any files. MC is not accessing your iPod during this process which points away from anything we are doing. You could email me your iTunesDB and I can see if it is messed up (my apologies if you have sent it before, but I have not received it, perhaps it is being filtered out).
Steve
-
Still at it Steve, latest build and all with same vague error box. I did transfer 100 songs manually (via "send to") this morning just to get my Ipod up and running again (It was painful not having my tunes for my daily commute yesterday). Very strange. I had been using Ephpod as a bandaid, but this is pretty buggy as well, telling me my ipod is full after only getting through 30% of the transfer.
I may just have to download iTunes to see how that performs with my ipod. I'm out of options. If only the non-descript error box in MC said something.
-
LarryJoe,
If Ephpod and MC are performing strangely, it becomes more likely that there is some kind of hardware issue. Downloading iTunes would be a good test. If you run into problems there, pursue this as a hardware problem. The non descript error box is not being generated from within the plugin it is coming from the system and can be for many reasons not related to MC.
Steve
-
Still at it Steve, latest build and all with same vague error box. I did transfer 100 songs manually (via "send to") this morning just to get my Ipod up and running again (It was painful not having my tunes for my daily commute yesterday). Very strange. I had been using Ephpod as a bandaid, but this is pretty buggy as well, telling me my ipod is full after only getting through 30% of the transfer.
I may just have to download iTunes to see how that performs with my ipod. I'm out of options. If only the non-descript error box in MC said something.
It sure sounds like hardware.
Are you using firewire or USB? Try switching and see if the problem goes. I had similar issues and switched to USB - problem gone. The problem only occurred for me when synching with firewire from firewire drives.
Hope this helps some.
-
Thanks Steve, I will try iTunes tonight.
I am using firewire.
-
Does anyone know if the latest build of version 10 will work with the ipod mini? I'm currently using ver 10.060 and that does not seem to work. Thanks.
-
Does anyone know if the latest build of version 10 will work with the ipod mini? I'm currently using ver 10.060 and that does not seem to work. Thanks.
Please try the latest build.
-
Latest version doesn't work either with ipod mini. Same problem. No error messages. Actually, got a confirmation window that everything transferred. Everything looks fine on the ipod until I try to play the songs. It justs quickly goes thru all the songs in my playlist but doesn't play any songs.
-
Serf,
Yes, you are the only one with this problem. Can you try using another program to make sure you do not have some kind of a hardware issue? From your description, everything is good, you unplug your iPod and play some files and then reconnect and MC does not recognize any files. MC is not accessing your iPod during this process which points away from anything we are doing. You could email me your iTunesDB and I can see if it is messed up (my apologies if you have sent it before, but I have not received it, perhaps it is being filtered out).
Steve
I recall it had been working with MC 10.38. I'll retry that tonight & let you know if it works.
Your description is correct, except (1) the same thing has happened even when, after disconnecting, I don't play any files and after a brief period disconnected I reconnect it & try to synch and (2) when I reconnect, the files show under the playlists in MC - they just don't show under the root of the ipod from within MC and the synch says there is no space even though no file has in any way changed from the files MC put there 5 minutes before.
I could not find an e-mail address for you. Feel free to send it to me & I'll send an itunes.db file I saved from a day or two ago (I had sent it to the forum administrator with a request to forward to you).
Thanks,
Steve
-
SteveG:
Reinstalled MC10.38, restored ipod, initialized ipod, synched over 5k files. They show up in root directory of ipod from within MC, as do playlists. Disconnect. Played song (audible does not play).
Closed and reopened MC10.38. Connected ipod. Files show up in root of ipod from within MC10.38 and under playlists. Synch says (as it should) 1.2 GB space available, and synch of over 5k unchanged files (over 11k if taking playlists into account) takes about 3 minutes.
In otherwords, the ipod synchs fine with other software (MC10.38), but not with anything after MC10.65 (or whatever was safe for ipods) in the sense that it only synchs once & then looses "coordination" with or "recognition" of the files MC put on the ipod.
Hope this helps thanks for trying.
Steve
-
Steve - I tried iTunes (for the first time) and it worked perfectly. Apple makes it pretty simple, I pretty much loaded it, ointed it to my music and the ipod synched to the library.
I guess I'll keep using itunes while trying each new build of MC10 with my fingers crossed. On a side note, boy MC10 and iTunes are very similar in terms of interface, hmmm.. ;)
-
FWIW I'm still getting perfect syncs with a 2G iPod, MC10.0.77. Free space reports correctly, all playlists and smartlists move across, rating & last played data is synced.
-
With .76 I lost playlists. I will investigate further today before jumping to conclusions.
-
FWIW I'm still getting perfect syncs with a 2G iPod, MC10.0.77. Free space reports correctly, all playlists and smartlists move across, rating & last played data is synced.
Yeah, I was too until this past week. I can't explain it. I do not think I have a hardware issue even though Ephpod acted up a bit, but I used Ephpod two Ipods ago before MC developed the plugin and I always found it to be quirky. Given memory address errors and orphaned songs and such, similar to the recent bugs using it. iTunes kind of confirmed that this is a software issue on my system. I killed everything possible running in the background, including processes, virus software, etc. and no go. I did not install any hardware recently either. The only thing I can think of is the XP critical update last week. This just doesn't make sense.
In the interim, I am going to try to use iTunes only to synch, but from the 30 minutes or so I played with it, I kind of liked it. Of course it is not as powerful a program as MC, but the basics were pretty clean and intuitive, and it obviously works well with the ipod. But I have been a loyal paying customer to JRiver since MJB 5 and I ain't goin nowhere.
-
warner,
I have not tested this with an iPod mini yet. If you can, try the following... Initialize the iPod from within MC. Drag and drop one file on the iPod and transfer the file. Disconnect and try to play the file. If it does not work, email me your iTunesDB file which is found in Windows Explorer under the iPod drive letter in iPod_Control\iTunes. My email is steve @ jriver.com.
Serf,
Can you send me your iTunesDB to steve @ jriver.com (remove the spaces before and after the '@') for one of the instance where the files appear in Playlists but not under the root of iPod?
Thanks.
LarryJoe,
If you want to pursue this further, put 10.0.77 back on and then perform these tests...
1) Drag and drop 100 files and transfer. Let me know if this fails.
2) If it succeeds a few times. Reinitialize and create one playlist of 100 files.Sync it. Let me know if it fails.
Thanks.
gpvilamil,
Thanks for the report.
gbdesai,
Let me know more as you know it.
-
Hello,
I just want to thanks SteveG for the work since last week. IPod sync is now working fine since 10.0.75. So far my playcounts are updated in MC, the smartlists are updating correctly (no more delete before sync) and the new speed is really a big improvement. ;D
Nel.
PS: I have a quick question : how much work would it be to make a sync and eject option which would bypass the option screen - just do a sync with the last settings and then eject the iPod ? Or even better : provide a toolbar button to achieve this ? (I ask that because even if the speed reading the file at the root improved greatly it 's still a bit annoying to right click on the iPod letter, wait, re-right click most of the time then eject)
-
LarryJoe,
If you want to pursue this further, put 10.0.77 back on and then perform these tests...
1) Drag and drop 100 files and transfer. Let me know if this fails.
2) If it succeeds a few times. Reinitialize and create one playlist of 100 files.Sync it. Let me know if it fails.
Thanks.
Steve - I have done this over and over with both drag and drops and synching small playlists. The result is that sometimes it works and sometimes the same files or playlists give me that annoying red X error message. Since I seem to be the only one with this problem, I realize this could be a tough one to troubleshoot. I don't know what else I can tell you, this is very frustrating.
-
DP
-
LarryJoe,
I know you have done this many times, but sometimes you have successfully transferred. From your reports it has not failed every time. I am trying to establish a baseline to compare against. When it has failed has it always been with the exact same 100 files that had previously worked or is it a different 100 files? For example, did you transfer 100, succeed and then try transferring the same 100? In the new MC 10, if you do not reinitialize or delete after the first transfer of 100 files, these files should all be skipped on the next transfer if you are doing the drag and drop. Lets try to clarify this point as this may be where the problem is. Feel free to use less than 100 for the purpose of this test.
Steve
-
Will do Steve. I appreciate the help very much and the personalized attention.
-
Steve,
Version 10.078 seems to be working great with the ipod mini so far. Was previously using ver 10.076.
-
Hello,
Today in the .78 version (but this bug was already present in the .75):
1. I go to my Ipod-drive
2. Right-click a file
3. Choose: download to pc
..... crash!!!
Regards,
Rien
-
On every sync I am getting songs with negative last played of -315101:04:28 on a whole bunch of songs, and this is happening whether I play them or not. I have cleared the data and resynced, and the same number will show up on those songs. It looks like the last played may be transfering correctly on the songs I actually play, but what would be causing the negative numbers? BTW, iPod clock and computer clock have same time and time zone.
Bill McNair
-
BTW, iPod clock and computer clock have same time and time zone.
Bill McNair
...and the same year? Sounds crazy but I've made this mistake and it caused the sympton you're seeing.
-=Tim=--
-
A synching problem came up with build 78. When I go to do an iPod sync, the playlists don't show up in the sync window -- it's just blank space. If I check and uncheck the "synchronize all files" checkbox at the top of the window, the playlists suddenely show up again. I need to do this little "check/uncheck" procedure in order to see and select the playlist/s I want to sync.
This build is the first time this issue has ever happened to me.
Larry
-
A synching problem came up with build 78. When I go to do an iPod sync, the playlists don't show up in the sync window -- it's just blank space. If I check and uncheck the "synchronize all files" checkbox at the top of the window, the playlists suddenely show up again. I need to do this little "check/uncheck" procedure in order to see and select the playlist/s I want to sync.
This build is the first time this issue has ever happened to me.
Larry
I have the exact same problem with playlist not showing up. Only happening with build 78.
-
Even with .78, my playlists still do not show up on the iPod after synching. I'm still having the same troubles i described in a previous post (one album & playlist name with a "$" and a "block sign" as the first characters, MC often crashes when clicking on the "+" for album and playlist).
The only way to get synching with MC versions later than .59 working correctly, is to initialize the iPod before every sync. This is not really an option, as the sync takes a very long time.
I have renamed nearly all of the smartlists/playlists, using only a-z, 0-9, and "-()[]" characters. I have also reduced the # of smartlists/playlists to be synched. I do not think the names of the playlists/smartlists are the problem.
The fact that i was able to sync the same playlists to a 10GB iPod without any effects still makes me believe the total number of files or playlists may be the problem. My 40GB iPod is full to about 95% (most songs won't change on sync, though), and i'm synching near to 500 playlists/smartlists.
For now, it's back to .59 on a old PC for me. No real problem so far, but the versions are getting more and more different - and the speed improvements are really very, very nice. Please make this work! (:
-
Rien,
This is fixed in tonight's MC.
Bill,
I added a check for negative values in the plugin and will report '0' for ones that are incorrect. This does not answer the underlying issue of why iPod is giving me a negative number. Can you confirm Tim's suggestion above?
Larry and warner,
This is fixed in tonght's MC.
Addict,
The tricky part of your problem, is it is somewhat isolated, I don't have others reporting this. If your theory on total number of files is correct, I would expect others with 40 GB iPods to have similar problems. This is not the case. From your posts, I do not think you have been able to replicate this problem with anything smaller than a 10 GB sync. You also always successfully sync one time after an initialize, but subsequent synchs mess up. Have you tried MC 10 on the old PC which works with .59? or .59 on the PC which fails with 10? I can understand if the answer is no, but it would be a good test. Also, with the last 2 builds of MC, there is now a checkbox in the sync for 'Send Playlist Data'. If you deselect this, you will always sync the files and not send the playlists which seem to be causing you the trouble. By using this option, you can troubleshoot your problem. Once your files are on iPod, if you select 'Delete unselected' and deselect 'Send Playlist Data' you will return to a state where all your files are on iPod, but none of your playlists. When you see the weird characters in a playlist, send me a copy of your iTunesDB ( you will find iTunesDB on your iPod in iPod_Control->iTunes)
steve @ jriver.com
-
Just upgraded to .78 - have been sticking with .38. I should mention that I am running XP, and that all of my files are stored as .ape files, and are converted to .mp3 (192) when sent to the iPod.
When I sent Pete Townshend's "Who Came First" album to my iPod, I rcvd. a pop-up after the transfer about 2 tracks that "failed to transfer with an error code." Those tracks, however, were listed on my iPod with the appropriate times and in the right location, but when I played them, they were 2 Toad The Wet Sprocket songs. Deleted and re-tried. And eventually the proper songs loaded.Is this something I should be concerned about?
-
packyb,
I don't know why this would have happened. If you see it again, take note of the error code and let me know. Those errors are standard Windows errors and I can decipher what it means. I could guess at what the problem is if you had gone back and it failed again, but since it suceeded, I am not sure.
Steve
-
thanks steve.
on a different note, i have been reloading my ipod with songs after a re-format, and have a few observations. first, when i send the files to the g:/ drive, and then select "Show List", the order in which they appear by default is 1. Artist, 2. Album, 3. Genre. is there any way that I can change this to 1. Artist, 2. Album, 3. Track #? i believe that used to be the default.
also, i have noticed that when i select "Only Show Queued Files" in options, and then select "Show List", everything seems to be fine (when iPod is empty). however, when it is uploading MC will show that lets say 10 files on the album have transferred (musical notes next to them) but there will now be a second listing of some of those songs indicating it is "In Queue" but right next to that is the original that has already been sent.
i think that this is probably related, but my transfer was interrupted - it seems that MC just closed itself (my files are in .ape and need to be converted when sent to iPod), and when i look at what was transferred to the iPod, certain songs on individual albums were skipped. not sure if these would have eventually been transferred if the transfer completed, but MC had moved on to the next genre. literally every complete album is missing at least one song. it seems that MC is not loading the songs on to the ipod in their proper queue order. (this makes a difference when you are loading 5,000 songs that are stored in .ape format and have to be converted, and the loading takes several days.)
one last thing, when iPod has songs on it, and i select "Show Queued Files Only," it doesn't show queued files only.
-
Hello,
I had exactly the same problem! With other artists! They appeared in the list, but when I played then I got totally other songs!
Rien
-
Hello,
I can reproduce the problem:
1. Rip a CD
2. Send the songs to the IPOD
3. One or more songs are not transmitted (error code 80)
4. On the IPOD: expand the Albums-tree
5. The upload CD seems to be correct (all songs are there)
6. But.....
7. The songs, which where not tranmitted (see 3) are TOTALLY OTHER SONGS!!!
Rien
-
Hello,
And again....
Expanding the artists-tree:
C R A S H .............................
Sending some (ripped) songs to my hard-disk:
C R A S H .............................
Working for more than half an hour with MC, doing common tasks:
Guaranteed one of more C R A S H E S ..................
Rien
-
Another issue: Various Artists no longer appears on my iPod.
Each artist from a muliple artist album appears separately. When I check the tags in my MC library, under "Calculated," it lists:
Album Artist (auto): Various Artists, and
Album Type: Multiple Artists (complete)
However, if I check the same fields on the iPod drive, it shows
Album Artist (auto): Then the name of each individual artist, and
Album Type: Single Artist (incomplete)
Did I miss a change to MC, or is this an error?
-
packyb,
If you want files to show in a particular way when you click 'Show List' you can customize the ordering however you want. When in that view right click on the tag column headers and select 'Sorting'. First remove sorting to clean the sorting of this view. Then, click on the columns you want to sort in reverse order (i.e. Track #, Album, Artist). Then save this view for this location and it will be there when you come back to it.
In tonight's MC I revamped the Show list, so the status should respond correctly. If files exist on the iPod and you queue them to reupload, they will appear twice, but will not be sent. I changed how the view refreshes so what you were describing about 'Show Queued files only' should not appear anymore.
The queue is no longer sent in an ordered fashion. If you interupt a transfer, don't worry, just resend all the files. Ones that already transferred will be skipped and your conversion will pick up with files that have not been transferred yet.
Portables no longer support anything for Artist other than 'Artist' to facilitate the new synchronization design. When you send tracks to a portable, the 'Artist' field in MC will become Artist on the player.
Rien,
I cannot duplicate this here. Error code 80 means the file is already at the loaction you are attempting to transfer it. I transferred 1000 songs. Ripped five new CDs and transferred them without error.
Sending some (ripped) songs to my hard-disk:
C R A S H .............................
Sending from where to where? From iPod to PC?
-
Thanks for the fixes and the info Steve.
Two questions about the future:
As far as the random sending of files - is that permanent? As a person who uses .ape format, it isn't so easy to just re-send bcs. all files have to first decode and then encode before they can be skipped, which in essence means I might as well start from scratch. (And bcs it takes such a long time to send files to the iPod, there is a higher chance of encountering problems.)
Also, is the elimination of 'Various Artists' on the iPod also permanent? (i realize that I can go back to MC and rename allof my multiple artist albums, but here I am referring to the future and whether MC will support this.)
-
packyb,
The beauty of the new version is that the removal of files from the send which are duplicates happens before they ever get to the conversion step, so no need to worry about the resend.
The elimination of Various Artists is most likely permanent. In order to make synching universally available to all players, we changed to a file matching scheme based on Name, Artist, Album, Genre and TrackNumber. Trying to match based on a shifting Artist field seems like a recipe for errors and so we went with Artist.
Steve
-
Steve,
I just copied then from the Media Library->Audio to my e:\ drive. MC didn't like that and crashed.
Regards,
Rien
-
Rien,
What is your E drive? iPod ? How did you copy the files? Drag and drop?
-
Steve,
The e-drive is my second harddisk: 1 partition of 120 GB.
I dragged and dropped the files onto a subdirectory.
The strange thing is, when I repeated it just a minut ago, MC copied the files!
Rien
-
hi steve - great job on sorting out all the bugs, it seems fine now, although the date imported value when i look at that column is set from the moment you look at your handheld in MC, i.e. no use at all.
can i make a possible request for a new feature?
I have two computers and use my ipod to shuttle music between them. This mainly relies on me remembering what songs i have synced, or when. DO you think you could work on a feature that compares the music on the ipod to the music in the main library, and therefore tells you what files need to go in which direction? Sort of like a Windows Briefcase. This would be useful because very often my library is less up to date than my ipod
-
DO you think you could work on a feature that compares the music on the ipod to the music in the main library, and therefore tells you what files need to go in which direction? Sort of like a Windows Briefcase. This would be useful because very often my library is less up to date than my ipod
From your mouth to God's ears! I could kill for that feature!
-
For those of you who convert on-the-fly or maintain a separate "converted" bunch of MP3s....
Are you able to bring over the last played/rating/playcount information from the iPod to your main library? If so, how?
My main library is in APE format. I maintain a duplicate set of tracks that are pre-converted to MP3. Naturally, the MP3 version gets copied to the iPod. I haven't yet tried synching the play data back to MC, but I would assume that the data would get attached to my MP3 versions of the files and not the "master/lossless" version of the files.
Any insights?
Brad
-
Steve,
Please can you supply a detailed explanation of what the following options do in the sync dialogue.
Delete Unselected From HH
Sync Data To MC
Sync Playlist Data
Thanks
Ash
-
Steve,
Please can you supply a detailed explanation of what the following options do in the sync dialogue.
Delete Unselected From HH
Sync Data To MC
Sync Playlist Data
Thanks
Ash
I'd find this useful as well.
Larry
-
Still seeing the occasional strange result when syncing.
Latest one is as follows. I had a copy of Franz Ferdinand's debut album (both on MC and synced to my iPoD) which was ripped at a low bitrate. So within MC I deleted the files from the Media Library (also deleting from disk) and reripped the CD at a more satisfactory bitrate.
When I synced, all appeared well. The eleven tracks were re-transferred.
But they don't appear on the iPod. Although they appear from within MC, when looking at device F: (the iPod), when looking through on the device itself I see that Franz Ferdinand has completely disappeared.
Looks like my only option is to initialise and resync. Again. :( However, I'll leave it a short while just in case any of the files from the iPod in its current state are useful to you in trying to track down this problem.
-
SteveG:
I had had the problem with a resynch of an ipod not showing the files in the root directory & telling me that space would be exceeded, even though nothing had changed.
It worked in .80, at least once so far. The only differences I could tell from what I had been doing before (other than using .80) were that I formatted the ipod in Explorer before "restoring" and "initializing" and that I ejected from MC (right click the drive & select eject) without also using the "safely remove" green arrow on the task bar, too.
Thanks,
Steve
-
Please can you supply a detailed explanation of what the following options do in the sync dialogue.
Delete Unselected From HH
Sync Data To MC
Sync Playlist Data
Delete Unselected from HH, will delete any files from iPod which are not selected in the current synch.
Sync Data to MC, will copy data such as Rating and Last Played Date and Playcount from iPod to MC. In the case of playcount, the MC playcount will be incremented.
Sync Playlist Data will create the playlists in the sync on iPod. If you just want to send the files and not have playlsits on the player, deselect this. I know for iPod users that seems silly, but for other users that makes sense.
Brad,
I will give you a definitive answer tomorrow, but I think in this situation, both the ape and mp3 files would be updated.
Steve
-
Hi,
I'm having big problems with the ipod plugin.
I'm not getting any playlists appear on the ipod, even though I can see them in the tree when browsing the ipod in MC. Also, about 90% of the files are unbrowsable on the ipod, even though, when browsing in MC I can see them.
I have been downloading the daily builds and synching every day and only noticed it with the current (.80) build.
I have tried rebuilding database on ipod and resynching to no avail. Also tried synching a bunch of times with various options (synch data to mc etc) ticked and unticked. No luck.
The only changes I've made recently was to my playlist rules. I moved the "Sort random" from the end of the list of rules, to the beginning. Other than that, I havent changed the files to be synched or anything else. I've just been synching to update the last played data each time.
A few builds back I got the minus numbers come back for the last played data too. My clocks on pc and ipod were the same and it seemed to happen for no reason. I initialized and resynched to get rid of the problem.
Also, one time, I synched and it said that I had played every album in my movie scores genre at the same time. Strange.
However, this was a couple of builds back, and not my immediate problem right now. The only thing I havent tried yet is reinitializing again and starting from scratch. (I'll try that next). But I only did that about four days ago, so I dont see why the problem keeps coming back.
Feedback appreciated.
Thanks,
Bri
-
ph_bradley and Bedra,
This feature is possible, but won't be included immediately. If it does get included, Bendra must promise not to kill, we are pacifists here :)
Brad,
If you enable 'Update tag info' in the synchronization, it will update all MC files that match a given iPod file's Artist, Album,Genre, Name and tracknumber. In your situation, both the ape and mp3 files tag info would be updated.
Madcow,
When I synced, all appeared well. The eleven tracks were re-transferred.
.
The new files should not have retransferred in this example, unless the Name, Artist, Album, Genre or track number had changed. If you can reproduce this, I will try to track it down.
Steve,
Not sure. If it pops up again, lets track it down then.
Bri,
Lets narrow this down. After rebuilding the database, are all files playable/browsable on iPod? If not, then try a reinitialize. If yes, then sync one playlist of files and see if it appears.
Steve
-
Everyone,
This thread is large again. I will close it and start a new one.
Steve