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[JustinChase]

Hi,

Trying to sync a smartlist with about 150 songs in it just won't go all in one shot.  Leaving it to run overnight results in MC being hung in the morning.  It is set to convert all files to MP3 (High Quality Handheld), and create a cache file.

If the songs are individually selected in small batches, each one will finish, and they can all end up getting put on the device.  Trying to send them all at one time hangs MC.

Out of ideas, any suggestions?

[JimH]

Try the latest build from the MC12 board.

Try MP3 VBR or MP3 CBR 128.

Try limiting the number of encodings to 1 at a time.

[JustinChase]

Thanks for the ideas Jim.

This is actually my Mother (who lives in another city) that's having these problems.  I'm trying to get her to use MC to manage all her media stuff, but she's getting pretty frustrated.

here are her latest comments...

"I just tried syncing about 100 files. It does go slightly faster but the problem isn't resolved. I'm not sure how many files it had done but it was sitting on the same file for a while and then I heard the little handheld disconnected beep, active sync icon went to white and MC eventually told me it was finished. MC will not find the handheld again until I restart. If I attempt an activesync sync while it has stopped but before the beep it will sync. So it's like MC is disconnecting the phone not the phone disconnecting MC.  I have tried different ports on the hub and computer and I have also tried the other cable.

So I think that narrows it down to either bad files, bad MC settings or bad phone."

I personally think it sounds like USB port issues, but I've completely run out of ideas.

Matt mentioned in another thread that there was some better sync error recording in a recent build, but it didn't tell her anything.  Is there some file I need her to find and send to someone maybe?

She is using the latest version of MC, running Windows Mobile 6 and using active sync 4.5 on an XP machine.

[JustinChase]

I asked her to try to move the cached files to the phone using Windows Explorer to see if it was a USB/Windows problem, but she reported that

I was able to move all of my music to the phone using explorer. It took just under 3 hours and it looked like it was 3-4 songs per minute. And it did it all in one pass without hanging.

This tells me there's something with the way MC is doing this causing the issues, but I have no idea what to check, or what to do from here.

Ideas?

[JimH]

Was she converting?  Did she try the suggestions I made above?

[JustinChase]

She does have MC set to convert (High quality portable), but they have all been converted at this point, and are all in the cache file.  It is this cache file that she copied to the card in the phone with Windows Explorer without issue.

She does have the latest version, and I have told her to change to 1 simultaneous sync at a time also.  I don't know if it will help to have her change the conversion to VBR or CBR 128 as you suggested, as the files are already converted.

It's just trouble getting the sync to finish.  It seems that MC is just losing the connection before it finishes.

Thanks for the ideas.  I've asked here to remove the files she copied (again), along with everything on the card (again), and try the sync with MC again.

[JustinChase]

so here is the latest...

After uploading 70 songs of 480 it appears to have stopped uploading, although it is still converting.

Active sync indicates it is still connected.

I'm going to go ahead and let it finish converting as it's about half done.

It just disconnected (I heard the beeps) and reconnected itself, however, MC doesn't recognize that it's connected again. It is now going to go through the process (showing uploading) for every single song and then reporting error.

I forgot to add that after it goes through this whole process when I restart it's going to tell me that the 70 files it uploaded are to be deleted and it's going to upload them again. Which it why it takes so long because it just wants to keep doing the same songs over and over and over again.

Any suggestions as to what to check, what to try?

[JimH]

Erase the cache.  Try a more standard encoding.  VBR, for example.

Turn on logging under MC Help first and send a log to matt at jriver if you have a problem.

Does the disk with the cache have enough space?

[SwellGuy]

justin,

If there aren't any files with DRM involved in the sync, we suggest removing the memory card from the phone, sticking it in a card reader and syncing to the memory as a removable drive. This will sync in minutes versus hours. She will have to manually set up the handheld options so the files get transferred to the correctly.

Audio Base Path: Music\[Artist]\[Album]\
Image Base Path: Pictures\
Playlist Base Path: Playlists\
Playlist format: ASX relative paths
Save cover art to 'Folder.jpg' file [ON]

She will probably have to run the Windows Media Player 'Update library' utility on the device to get the new content to show up in the library.

If this is not an acceptable option, have her turn on logging to a file in Help > Logging, make sure all logging event types are enabled, recreate the sync failure, go back into the logging page and email me a logs (rick at jriver dot com).

Rick

[Matt]

Thanks for the log.

It looks like the core Insert(...) function for the device just goes out to lunch and never comes back.  We've seen this with some other devices, but don't know why it happens.

The card reader advice is good, although we'd still like to figure out why the Insert(...) function stalls out with some devices.

We'll keep digging on our side and let you know if we find anything.

[JustinChase]

Thank you both for your replies.  I'm glad to know it's not something she/we're doing wrong.  Hopefully you can find an internal solution.

She doesn't have a card reader, so I'm not sure that will work for her at this point in time, but she may just buy one as a fix.

She is able to sync about 50 songs or so at a time, and it will eventually finish, so she can just keep doing that until you find a fix, or she gets a card reader. 

If you need/want any more information from her or about her system, please let me know, and I'll get it to you.

[Matt]

These last few days we've been doing a lot of testing with a T-Mobile Wing, which is also a Windows Mobile 6 phone from HTC.

With Media Center, Windows Media Player 11, and Rhapsody the transfer hangs (or crashes in Rhapsody's case) within one hour of transferring vanilla MP3 files.  This happens with multiple computers.

It has to be a device problem.  It may affect other HTC devices as well.

We tried lots of strange workarounds like resetting things after every file, putting pauses in, etc. but it didn't matter.

So I think you may need to do transfers in small batches with a USB reconnect after each 30 minutes, or else use a card reader if you're having this problem with an HTC device.

It's amazing that the most sophisticated and expensive devices out there are this spotty.

[jmone]

For what it is worth, my HTC Hermes WM6 phone (with 2gb) card has not had any problems syncing but I use Vista Ultimate and the Sync is prog is different from XP.  Other possible differences is that I don't sync many at a time (so it is all over in max 10mins) and I convert from WMA Lossless to WMA Med/High.
Nathan

[JustinChase]

Thanks for doing all the research Matt.

It's really wierd that all the files will transfer without problem using windows explorer, but will hang when using MC.  If she sends them in smaller batches, it all works out.

I have an HTC Wizard (Cingular 8125), which is the model *before* the Hermes (that she has), and mine works without issue.

We are both running WM6 on the phones, and using ActiveSync 4.5

The only other difference that I see is that I'm using a cheap 1gb card, and she's using a 2 gb card.  Well, also that MC recognizes my card (and phone) as a GPS device, and recognizes her card as a card.  maybe it doesn't like cards?

thanks for trying.  Maybe this new information helps, maybe not.

Either way, have a great Christmas!!