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[SteveG]

Hello All,    
   
For anyone who is new to MC, please be sure to get the latest version.  
   
If you want to read an excellent help file (thanks Adam) on using MC and iPod please go to....    
   
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~ashawley01/      
   
For additional information, please check the previous help thread at...    
   
http://www.musicex.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=MediaCenter;action=display;num=1055367255;start=150#150
   
For any issues not covered, please post below and someone will respond ASAP.   Please include in your post your version of MC, version of the Portable Drive Plugin and Operating System.
   
Thanks,    
   
Steve (JRiver)

[canaro99]

kc,

Thanks for the quick response. I missed the item (obviously ).

Steve,

I played the files on the iPod for the "gain" problem. Perhaps there is something wrong with the iPod itself.

I don't think the "red 'x'" is working; all the files are on my iPod.

Also, is it now by design that the playlist files on my iPod, as seen in the explorer pane are only listed in alpha order? Or did I fall asleep while on thread reading duty?

Thanks for the help.

John

[Kurt Young]

Steve,

Just a quickie, and I know I've mentioned it before, but...

Is there any way to associate the MC "Replay Gain" field with whatever field the iPod uses when the "Sound Check" option is enabled?

Essentially, turning on "Sound Check" on your iPod is tantamount to putting a check in the box by "Replay Gain" in MC9's DSP Studio.  The data is (I think) stored in each entry in the iTunesDB, and turning on "Sound Check" just makes the iPod's portalplayer use the data for volume leveling.

If the data is compatible, or if a translation is possible, it would certainly rule.

And, again, would make MC9 the only app for Windows that can take advantage of this feature.

[canaro99]

Steve,

Just re-synched.The red x's still appear; the files are on the iPod, however, they are not visible with windows explorer.

John

[Wobbley]

Steve,

First, thanks for such a great plugin.  Unlike most users, I really haven't had any problems using it (running XP SP1).  Anyway, I've managed to configure MC to encode/decode aac files, but when I try to copy them to my 3G iPod, I get a message that (basically) says that the file type is not supported by the device.  We all know that's not true.  What's true is that MC doesn't handle aac files (without fiddling with some plugins, etc.).  Is there anyway to change the plugin to allow me (and other interested users) to copy aac files to the iPod?

Cheers!

Wobbley

[SteveG]

John,

The 'red x' issue should be fixed in the next MC.

Also, is it now by design that the playlist files on my iPod, as seen in the explorer pane...

If by 'explorer pane' you mean the right view, the files are listed in whatever view order you have selected (i.e. if your sort order is on Name, the files will be listed alphabetically by name. Click on Aritist, then alphabetically by Artist)

Kurt,

I did some testing on this and think I have a way to implement this and get Replay Gain in.  I need to get some time to implement it.

Wobbley,

Unlike MOST users, I really haven't had any problems using it...

I am hoping this came out wrong, I think most users have a lot of success with MC and iPod.  Anyway, in tonight's plugin I removed the limitation on allowing .aac files to get to the iPod. You will have to let me know if you can get them to play.

[Kurt Young]

<snip!>
Kurt,

I did some testing on this and think I have a way to implement this and get Replay Gain in.  I need to get some time to implement it.
<snip!>

OMG, woot!  Let us know if we can help, big daddy!!

(I know, I know, I promised to never call you big daddy again... I just couldn't help it!  )

[Wobbley]

Steve,

yeah, came out wrong.  I was referring to those that had conversion/copy issues, "my iPod doesn't show my songs", blah blah blah...oh well, forget it.  My main point was to ask if we could have the ability to xfer .aac files to the iPod.

Cheers for the adjustment to plugin.  Will try when plugin is available and let you know.

Wobbley

[Wobbley]

-------------- POST FOR iPod 3g OWNERS ONLY --------------

Anyone having problems with iPod skipping first track (and starts playing second track) of an album?  I seem to have this problem w/ almost every album I have on the ol' pod.  For instance, I browse "Albums", I select the first song in the album, the song loads, the timer sits at 0:00 for a few seconds, then the iPod starts playing track 2.  Could this be a ID3v2 tag or VBR issue (even though the new updater is supposed to include better handling of VBR files)?

Wobbley

[SteveG]

Adam,

Your synching bug is fixed in tonight's build of MC 9.1 and in the Plugin.

_K_C,

In tonight's version, if conversion errors occur, they will no longer report as they occur, but they will report after each set of 10 files gets transferred. I assume you would like to see this wait until the end of all the files. I can add this in.

Steve

[Phil Lee]

No joy on the iPod Manager front here. MC created the 7 key correctly in the registry but there is no application listed in the iPod Manager. I guess I'll just have to make do with starting MC manually.

[JC]

-------------- POST FOR iPod 3g OWNERS ONLY --------------

Anyone having problems with iPod skipping first track (and starts playing second track) of an album?  I seem to have this problem w/ almost every album I have on the ol' pod.  For instance, I browse "Albums", I select the first song in the album, the song loads, the timer sits at 0:00 for a few seconds, then the iPod starts playing track 2.  Could this be a ID3v2 tag or VBR issue (even though the new updater is supposed to include better handling of VBR files)?

Wobbley

I just tested about 10 different albums on my 30GB iPod. I did not have this issue. All tracks started as expected.

[coxkevin]

Steve,

Here are my the results of my testing against v9.1.207 / 9.0.34:

Media Center Library (30 files)
- Bangles, Greatest Hits (14 Tracks, all at 320bps)
- Bangles, Different Light (12 Tracks, all at 320bps)
- Bing Crosby, Golden Greats (Track 15 "Swinging On A Star", 128bps)
- Bing Crosby, The Radio Years Vol 2 (Track 25 "May The Good Lord Bless And Keep You", 160bps)
- Audible File, Morning Edition, June 19, 2003
- Audible File, The Art of Happiness

Setup
- Formatted the ipod from inside Media Center.
- Created "Bangles Test" Smartlist With Album="Different Light"
- Created "Bing Test" Smartlist with Artist="Bing Crosby"
- Created "Additional Tracks Test" with [Track #]==1,15,25
- Created "Audible Test" with [File Type]=[aa]

Test 1
Synchronized with
- Select Artist Field set to "Artist"
- "Bangles Test" smartlist selected
- Delete files not in list checked
- Update tags checked
- Options: force file conversions during uploads checked, normalization set to 95%, conversion to 160, high speed.

Issues
- The first 10 songs appeared to transfer correctly, but after the last 2 songs were transferred the playlist assignments for the original 10 were wiped out.
- The last 2 songs transferred were fine.

Test 2
- Within MC, left clicked on the iPod drive under "CD, DVD, & Handhelds".
- Expanded the iPod drive by left clicking on the "+".
- Expanded the "Playlists" within the iPod by left clicking on the "+".
- Left clicked on "Bangles Test" playlist within the iPod.

Issues
- The songs listed in the iPod's playlist had red "X"s through the icon and would not play within MC when I double clicked on them. This was a consistent problem throughout all the tests. The specific error message was,  "Media Center was unable to play any of the files in the playlist. Please make sure that the path in the Media Library points to the right location. Also double check to make sure that you are not unintentionally filtering these files."
- Anything under the iPod's Artists / Albums / Genres groupings played fine from within MC.

Test 3
Resynched with
- All settings as in Test 1

Issues
- The 10 songs that were originally not assigned to a playlist on the iPod (Test 1) were now correctly assigned.

Test 4
Synchronized with
- "Bangles Test" and "Bing Test" smartlists selected
- All other settings as in Test 1

Issues
Everything worked fine!

Test 5
Resynched with
- All settings as in Test 4

Issues
Everything worked fine!

Test 6
Synchronized with
- "Bangles Test", "Bing Test", and "Additional Tracks Test" smartlists selected
- All other settings as in Test 1

Issues
Everything worked fine!

Test 7
Resynched with
- All settings as in Test 6

Issues
Everything worked fine!

Test 8
Synchronized with
- Only "Bangles Test", and "Additional Tracks Test" smartlists selected
- All other settings as in Test 1

Issues
Everything worked fine!

Test 9
Resynched with
- All settings as in Test 8

Issues
Everything worked fine!

Test 10
Synchronized with
- Only "Bangles Test" smartlist selected
- All other settings as in Test 1

Issues
Everything worked fine!

Test 11
Resynched with
- All settings as in Test 10

Issues
Everything worked fine!

Test 12
Synchronized with
- "Bangles Test", and "Bing Test", and "Additional Tracks Test" smartlists selected
- Delete files not in list checked
- Update tags checked
- Options: all options as in Test 1, but normalization is UNCHECKED

Issues
Everything worked fine!

Test 13
Resynched with
- All settings as in Test 11

Issues
Everything worked fine!

Test 14
Resynched with
- "Bangles Test", "Bing Test", "Additional Tracks Test smartlists selected
- All other settings as in Test 12, but normalization is CHECKED.

Issues
Everything worked fine!

Test 15
Resynched with
- "Bangles Test", "Bing Test", "Additional Tracks Test", and "Audible Test" smartlists selected
- All other settings as in Test 14.

Issues
- During the decode of the audible files, I received an error message for each aa file that said "Failed to decode FILENAME.aa" where filename is the path and filename for each of aa files.
- I had assigned the audible files to a genre, but not an album.  When they were transferred to the iPod, an unnamed album list was created and the audible files were NOT assigned to it.

Test 16
Disconnect the iPod and tested playing files.

Issues
- Strange error.  I could not play the aa files when I browsed by artist, selected the artist, and pressed the play button while "All" was highlighted.  They played fine everywhere else.
- No problems with premature cut-offs of songs that were transcoded.
- The aa files remembered where they were when you played them, went away to music, and then came back.  Major triumph!
- Everything else appears to work fine.

I did some testing on this and think I have a way to implement this and get Replay Gain in.  I need to get some time to implement it.

JACKPOT! I feel like I just won the lottery.  Well, maybe not quite that good, but I am excited!!!

I'm on the road until July 11th and won't be much help to you.  The procedures are here if you or anyone else wants to run similar testing.

Steve -- have a Happy 4th!!!

Cheers,
kc

[Magic_Randy]

Steve,

I just installed .207 and tried the new option for Artists.

Thank you thank you thank you...

Who says you can't please all of the people all of the time.  The option is great.

Randy

[_K_C_]

In tonight's version, if conversion errors occur, they will no longer report as they occur, but they will report after each set of 10 files gets transferred. I assume you would like to see this wait until the end of all the files.

Yup.  That would be great.  Thanks.

[ashawley]

Is anyone else having missing Artist fields on the iPod?  I resync'd w/my old iPod last night and I'm missing Artist info.

Now, I haven't restored this one in quite a while.  Wondering if the Artist implementation stuff had something to do with it.  

Steve:  thanks for fixing the Smartlist bug.  Now I'll be able to hear tunes that I haven't heard in a long time.

Man, if you could get "Soundcheck" to work, you would yet again kill the competition!!  

Then all we have is playcounts and we've got everything (and more) than iTunes.  Schweet!

Adam

[Wobbley]

JC,

Are you using ID3v1 tags (regardless of whether you're using ID3v2 tags)?  I am thinking that the problems has something to do with the fact that ID3v2 tags are stores in the beginning of an MP3 file frame, and ID3v1 tags are stored at the end of the MP3 file frame.  So, if the iPod reads an ID3v1 tag, since it's at the end of the file frame, the iPod has essentially "read" through the MP3 to get to the ID3v1 tag, and thus has no problem starting the song.  But, if the iPod has to read through a complex ID3v2 tag before it plays a song, then it might "hang" on that song...maybe something to do with  buffering.  I have no idea really, I'm just guessing.  But I have this problem with ALL of my albums.  I encode VBR w/ LAME.exe, using --alt-preset extreme -Z on WindowsXP SP1.

Oh well, I guess I'll surf the apple boards for some info.

Thanks for the reply.

Wobbley

[JC]

JC,

Are you using ID3v1 tags (regardless of whether you're using ID3v2 tags)?  I am thinking that the problems has something to do with the fact that ID3v2 tags are stores in the beginning of an MP3 file frame, and ID3v1 tags are stored at the end of the MP3 file frame.  So, if the iPod reads an ID3v1 tag, since it's at the end of the file frame, the iPod has essentially "read" through the MP3 to get to the ID3v1 tag, and thus has no problem starting the song.  But, if the iPod has to read through a complex ID3v2 tag before it plays a song, then it might "hang" on that song...maybe something to do with  buffering.  I have no idea really, I'm just guessing.  But I have this problem with ALL of my albums.  I encode VBR w/ LAME.exe, using --alt-preset extreme -Z on WindowsXP SP1.

Oh well, I guess I'll surf the apple boards for some info.

Thanks for the reply.

Wobbley

I'm not sure right now ... but I'll check when I get home this evening. What's the quickest way to tell if I have both types of tags?

[SteveG]

Everyone,

New Plugin tonight (v 9.0.35). I recommend getting it with the next build of MC 9. 1 available later today.

Phil,

Try deleting or renaming another one of the numbered registry keys and see if it causes the associated program (i.e. MusicMatch) to disappear from the list.  If it does, then see if you can see any differences between what they are writing in the registry and what I am writing.  This works well for me here so I can't really see what is going wrong.

Kevin,


Test 1 and 2 issues, these bugs were just introduced and are now fixed in today's version of MC.

The problem with transcoding .aa files is that MC does not support this. This is true whether going to the iPod or from within MC.

You should be all set. A happy 4th to you as well.


Randy,

Your welcome. Glad it all works well for you.

_K_C,

Tonight's build should do what you asked for.


Adam,

Can you get the latest build of MC 9.1  and then check what you have set when you right-click on iPod and select 'Select Artist Field'. Whatever field you have selected here will contol the field that gets filled under 'Artist' on your iPod. If it still not working make sure you have 'Update Tags' selected in your synch to compensate for anything that is not updated with your 'Select Artist Field' selection.


Wobbley,

I am not sure. Can you try to isolate what might be causing this for you and let me know? Try sending some ID3v2 and ID3v1 tag files and compare the results. If you can also try adding VBR to the mix and see if you can come up with somehting. Thanks.

JC,

To find out what types of tags you have in MC 9.1, select some files and then look in the lower left corner window, select 'Format' and you will see the tag information for the file.

[Wobbley]

Steve,

I've managed to determine that it doesn't matter if I start with the first track of an album...this is what happens:

I select and album, select a track to play.  The track shows as if it's about to start playing.  The counter says "0:00", and the song doesn't start playing.  After 4 seconds, the track name begins the horizontal scroll (my track names are usually too long to fit on the screen without scrolling), just after the track name starts to scroll, the iPod jumps to the next track and starts playing.  If I use the |<< button to go back to the track the iPod skipped, it plays it fine.  And, as I said, I've now discovered that it doesn't matter if I start with the first track on an album or not; it happens when I select any track of an album.  Also, if I select a track that is the only track on the album on the iPod, it does the same thing, but since there's no song to skip to after the song I've tried to play, the iPod just goes back to the main menu.

I'll try your testing tonight and see what I can come up with.

Thanks for help,

Wobbley

[JC]

Wobbley,

I confirmed just now that I have both ID3v1 and ID3v2 tags for the files I tested yesterday.

Hope this helps you out a bit.

[ashawley]

Gents:

I don't think the track skipping could be related to tags in anyway, I mean the iPod doesn't read tags, so there wouldn't be a correlation between the version of tags you're using and skipping tracks.

I'm not sure if this isn't an iPod bug.  But it happens regardless of program, I can tell you that.  I have been seeing it more and more.

Try the trick of starting the album by pressing the Play/Pause button rather than the center button.

Steve:  I'll check that setting tonight. Gotta admit that I've been trying to follow this whole Arist/Auto-AlbumArtist thing and you guys have me completely lost.

I just populate the Artist Field and that's what I want on the iPod.  Yes, I know about various artist albums, I just name those w/the title of the album and include the artist in the song title.  Doesn't work for all but it does for my simple mind.  

Adam

[canaro99]

Is anyone else having missing Artist fields on the iPod?  I resync'd w/my old iPod last night and I'm missing Artist info.

Now, I haven't restored this one in quite a while.  Wondering if the Artist implementation stuff had something to do with it.  

Adam,

I does my heart good to see the experts have the same problems. KC helped with this in the last thread....

Basically, right click on the iPod drive letter and select which field you want for artist -- I did and the missing artists reappeared.  


John

[crowfan]

All,

I have the latest 9.1.208 build and the latest iPod plugin build (9.0.35)....I am having the missing artist problem.  All of the songs are on the iPod, but they don't show up under Artists.  It's about 80% of my 20 gig library that's missing artists.  I did the right click on the iPod and selected Album Artist Auto for the artist type (this is what I use in MC and it's all correct there).  Tried to resync and it told me there wasn't enough room.

Also, I can right click the iPod drive once, but after that it disappears from the tree and doesn't come back.  The iPod screen returns to the iPod menu, not the "Do Not Disconnect" that should be there...

Any ideas??

Thanks

[Dan Da Man]

Steve,

I tried the primitive search methods of this board to no avail.

My iPod is syncing as it had been the last couple days, but now it gives me an error after synching and the list of errors.  The error is "DO_NOT_SHOW_ERROR".  I think, as a result of this error, my iPod is not listing any songs, although when I connect, I can see the hidden folder with all the music on there.

I just got it yesterday, so I could rebuild it, of course.  Ohhh, this did seem to show up when I upgraded from 9.1.206 to 9.1.208 and to the lastest version of your iPod plugin.

Dan "da Man"

[crowfan]

Correction to my previous post:  After I put my 3G iPod in the dock, it appears in MC and in Windows Explorer.  After about 10 seconds, it disappears from both no matter what I do.  I just performed a restore and I was trying to format the iPod for use with MC9.  It wouldn't let me because it disappeared before I could do it.  The only way to get it to reappear is to unplug it then plug it back in, but even if I do that it disappears after 10 seconds again....

crow

[JC]

crowfan,

Confirm that you have "enable disk mode" turned on in your iPod Manager. Not sure if this will help, but it sounds like you may have this turned off.

Hope this helps!

[crowfan]

JC,

Thanks for the reply.  Doesn't that enable the FireWire disk mode, thereby disabling the music features?

I was able to solve the problem, though I'm not sure how.  I reformatted the iPod (I "Restored" it with the iPod updater).  I purposely did not associate the iPod with MC as the "Default Application" through the iPod Manager at the end of the Restore process. Then I opened MC and formatted it before it could disappear.  Then I began the syncing process, which worked OK.  Now all of my files are there, with the correct artist information.  

I think that maybe the setting of MC as the "Default Application" in the iPod manager causes this behavior (the disappearing iPod).  Not sure if this makes a lot of sense, but that's the only thing I did differently and it seems to have solved the problem.  I don't want to re-test it, as syncing my iPod takes about an hour and I don't want to have to do it again (I've done it twice in the 12 hours I've onwed the iPod).

Thanks!

[JC]

JC,

Thanks for the reply.  Doesn't that enable the FireWire disk mode, thereby disabling the music features?

Not sure what it is supposed to do, but it allows my iPod to appear as a removable drive in both of my WinXP pro machines. I am able to sync using MMJB (way back in the day) as well as EphPod, and MC9 while in disk mode. No music features are disabled on my 30GB iPod.

Not sure if it is designed to behave this way, but when I turn off the disk mode, my iPod behaves exactly as you described. Appears briefly, then disappears. Incidentally, I have MC9 associated as the launch application on both machines.

Regardless, glad that you got it working.

[crowfan]

Another issue altogether...

Is there a way we could have any songs that have unassigned albums appear in their own category under the Artist on the iPod like they do in MC?  I have Jason Mraz's album "Waiting for my Rocket to Come," plus one other live acoustic song which is not assigned to an album. In order to hear that one live song, I have to go through "Jason Mraz", "All" on the iPod, which shows every song on the album plus the one extra live track.  I'd like to be able to access this live track without having to go through "All"; I'd like to be able to select "Jason Mraz", "unassigned" or something like that...  

Can this be done?  It's not a big deal in the example above, but when I have a ton of albums by one artist and a few unassigned songs, it is quite a bear to have to scroll through all songs to find the one I want.

Sorry if this has been brought up before, I did a quick search and didn't see it anywhere.

Thanks

[JC]

crowfan,

A workaround for you in the meantime could be to create an album named "unassigned" and tag the orphan songs to that album (for the time being).

A bit of work, but would at least enhance navigation on the iPod until you see if your suggestion is implemented.

Hope this helps!

[Dan Da Man]

Steve,

I fixed the problem by formatting and resyncing.  However, if I had problems in the future, I'm not sure if I want to do that, for it takes about an hour and a half to transfer all 20GB of music.

Dan "da Man"

[ashawley]

crowfan:

Enable firewire disk mode allows windows to assign a drive letter to the iPod which is required for MC9.

If you never installed the Apple software, Windows would automatically do this, but Apple in its infinite wisdom decided that they thought you as a user would be too tempted to "mess things up" if you had access to the iPod's drive, so they turn it off by default.

Make sure that box is checked, or better yet, uninstall iPod Manager all together.  It's not needed and can at times cause problems.

Steve:  here to report that the Syncing of smartlists based on other smartlists is back in working order again.

A hearty "WOOT" to you sir.  

Adam

[_K_C_]

Ape file sync'ing.

Steve: changing the error message to the end helps a lot, thanks.  The error is still listed as "file type not supported", but that's not a big deal.

I have found, however, that when there's large list of files that don't need to be converted, mc will crash once it gets so far through them.  No warning dialog box, just a complete shutdown of MC.  I'm not sure how "large" the list needs to be to cause a crash, but I'm pretty sure it's in the hundreds.

This isn't a show stopper as I just sync in smaller groups of files, but I thought you'd like to know  

[Wobbley]

Adam,

How do you uninstall just the iPod Manager?  It is not listed in my Add/Remove Programs list of programs.  The only thing listed is "iPod For Windows" and "iPod System Software Updater".  I don't want to uninstall "iPod For Windows" because that will (I think) remove the iPod Service.

Thanks,

Wobbley

[Wobbley]

Adam,

I tried your suggestion of starting the album by pressing the >|| button, but it still skips to the next song, no matter what song I try to play.  To ensure I've been clear in my previous posts, I select an album, and select to play a song, whether it's the first one on the album or not, and (now I know) regardless of whether I use the center button or the >|| button.  The track I select shows in the "Now Playing" window, and the iPod sits there silent for about 4-5 seconds, then the next song on the album starts playing.  If there's not a next song in the album (i.e. the track I select is the last one on the album, or I only have one track from the album on the iPod), it goes back to the main menu window.  It does for albums I've ripped myself (using MC), or album tracks I've downloaded.  I only use MP3 files and I do no transcoding or anything like that before porting to Ipod.  This is really frustrating.

Wobbley

[JC]

Wobbley,

What firmware are you using for your 3G iPod? Until I upgraded to firmware version 2.0.1, I had constant problems with error code 23. After updating to the newest firmware, these problems have been elminated (**feverishly knocks on wood**).

Although the problem you are having is not related, updating to the newest 2.0.1 may help out. If you are using the newest firmware, just ignore me  

Hope this helps!

[SteveG]

Wobbley,

I am inclined to follow Adam&#8217;s observation that the playback problem you are seeing is an iPod issue. Perhaps you could try sending some files with another application to verify Adam&#8217;s results.

Crowfan,

I do not think the 'Default Application' was causing your problem.  I think it is more likely that your iTunes database got a little screwed up for some reason and the reformat cleaned it up. Hopefully you are now all set.

In regards to the <unassigned> issue, I could do this, but I am not convinced everyone would like the result. JC makes an excellent suggestion for now and lets see if others weigh in on this issue.

Dan,

The 'DO_NOT_SHOW_ERROR' most likely occurred because of some new features I have incorporated and your MC and plugin version had possibly gotten out of synch. I think you will probably be fine now. If not, please let me know.


_K_C,

I would like to fix the incorrect message and the crash for large error reporting. Can you refresh for me what specific steps you took to notice these two bugs.

[park]

Evening all,

1)On the subject of tying the relay gain function in with the ipod: wicked idea. I'm gonna analyse all my audio now. But I'm not sure what's best for the ipod. Fixed (to what value?) or normal?

2)Also, who is responsible for the alarm clock thing not working with MC playlists, apple or MC? Anyone know when it'll be sorted?

3)And anyone know if there are any plans by apple to make text that doesnt fit on the Ipod screen scroll (album names etc included)?

4)And, when browsing albums on the ipod starting at "genre" and looking through movie soundtracks, how do you deal with multiple artists. At the moment, when i enter the "soundtrack" genre I click on "all" to change from the artists view to look at the album names. That's the only way to play anything in any kind of sense in that genre. Is this the best way or do you tag differently? (maybe make the artist tag the movie name).

And sorry, last question,
Does the latest ipod plugin download work perfectly with the recommended 9.0 download of media centre?

Sleep tight,

Bri

[Kurt Young]

Criticism/Suggestion:

I reformatted and reinstalled over the weekend.  Did a default installation of MC and restored my library.  Synched.

No artists.

I know it's a new option, and would like to very seriously suggest setting the default choice in "Select Artist Field" to "Artist"

The best reason:  New users will freak out when their artists are gone.

[_K_C_]

I agree with Kurt's suggestion about changing the default to Artist.

When files are imported for the first time, it's the Artist field that gets populated by default.  I didn't even start to think about the ArtistAlbum and ArtistAlbum(auto) fields until I synced and lost the artists  

[_K_C_]

I would like to fix the incorrect message and the crash for large error reporting. Can you refresh for me what specific steps you took to notice these two bugs.

No problem:
Library of ~2700 ape files
Options set to transcode to 192 CBR
Smartlist where Genre=Rock

1. "File type not supported" error
a. Transfer / sync
b. Cancel when job is partially completed.
c. Remove iPod, go and listen to some music. (optional
)
d. Replace iPod, sync again
e. Plugin skips over the songs that are already synced, converts the rest and at the end brings up a dialog box listing (what appears to be the) skipped songs, with a "File type not supported" error.

I think the only important part is 1.e

I don't think it matters how the files get to the iPod; the problem is the plugin skipping over pre-existing files that would otherwise need to be transcoded

2 Crash
Same procedure as (1) above.
Only difference seems to be that when the number of files skipped is sufficiently large, it causes the program to crash.  I'm not sure if it crashes when the skipped files reaches a certain number, or once it is getting ready to transcode the first new file.

Hope this is clear (and that my observations were accurate!).

KC

[SteveG]

Bri,

1)On the subject of tying the relay gain function in with the ipod: wicked idea. I'm gonna analyse all my audio now. But I'm not sure what's best for the ipod. Fixed (to what value?) or normal?

I don't know yet. I have this working on a limited basis but need to polish it up.

2)Also, who is responsible for the alarm clock thing not working with MC playlists, apple or MC? Anyone know when it'll be sorted?

It is an Apple issue for now, but I may be able to come up with a way around it in the future.

3)And anyone know if there are any plans by apple to make text that doesnt fit on the Ipod screen scroll (album names etc included)?

I don't know of any plans.

4)And, when browsing albums on the ipod starting at "genre" and looking through movie soundtracks, how do you deal with multiple artists. At the moment, when i enter the "soundtrack" genre I click on "all" to change from the artists view to look at the album names. That's the only way to play anything in any kind of sense in that genre. Is this the best way or do you tag differently? (maybe make the artist tag the movie name).

There are many ways you could solve this depending on what works best for you. Try exploring the right-click option for 'Select Artist Field' which will give you the ability to customize what information to fill the 'Artist' field on iPod.  This will give you the potential to utilize the AlbumArist field to perhaps achieve what you are after.

In regards to the Plugin and 9.0, it should be OK. The modifications I am adding are for 9.1 but should not harm older versions.

Kurt and _K_C,

I cannot duplicate the disappearing 'Artist' problem. By default, the plugin will use Album Artist(auto) which by default should use 'Album Artist' if it exists, and 'Artist' if 'Album Artist' is blank. By default, at no time should the 'Artist' field be blank if there is anything in either the 'Artist' field or 'Album Artist' field.


_K_C,

Thanks for the bug reports. They are fixed in tonight's build.

Steve

[ashawley]

Steve:

Not sure how you're testing but I know of 3 instances where the artist field was blank (myself and 2 users on the 'lounge that I helped out).

Perhaps a fresh install of MC9 and a fresh library?  I don't know, but I definitely know that if I chose anything other than Artists I get blanks.

I concur, it should be the default unless the "bug" is fixed.

Adam

[Kurt Young]

Steve,

I dunno what to say, man.  I know my library is populated with Artist data.  The "multiple artists" feature works great within MC (and on the iPod when it's selected).

This weekend, like I said, I installed MC via express install, loaded up my backed-up library, and ran a sync.  The results look like this when viewed through MC 9.1.208 on my work computer:

Screenshot

No artists are browsable on my iPod, except one song, "Hunger Strike" by Temple of the Dog.  If I were to set the "Select Artist Field" dropdown to "Artist" and then sync, everything works great.

I think I'm starting to see comments pop up at the lounge, folks wondering what's up with their artists.  So, even if there's a bug at work here, I want to suggest again that it be rigged to show the true artist by default on the iPod.  

[Wobbley]

Steve,

Just wanted to let you know that I chose the "Album Artist (auto)" optoin before synching, then I synched about 3500 songs to clean, newly reformatted (with new firmware too) iPod and everything went OK.  When I browsed iPod after sync, all artist info was there, there were no blank artists, and it even filed artists starting with "The..." (i.e. The Beatles) in the "B"s and not the "T"s.  That's sweet!  Now if I could just get this song skip issue resolved I'll be golden...

Wobbley

[SteveG]

Kurt and Adam,

Thanks for the sticking to your guns, I found and fixed a bug that will resolve this. For anyone who lost their artists, the solution is to resynch with 'Update Tags' selected and "Artist Album (auto)' selected.

Sorry.

Wobbley,

Any results on uploads with other software? This will help me know if this is a problem that I have any control over. Thanks for posting your results regarding 'Artist Album', this helped in solving the problem.

[_K_C_]

Artist / AlbumArtist

[edit - Ignore the following.  Steve's already fixed it.  See above!]

Steve

When I first synced the iPod after you introduced the Artist options I had no artist info on the iPod.  When I remembered the discussion about the option, I went and checked the menu and I think though am not certain that AlbumArtist was checked, not AlbumArtist(auto).  I set it to Artist and the Artist info transferred no problem.

Is there any chance that on one build the default was wrong?  Failing that I may have changed the option without realising it.

KC

[ashawley]

Steve:

While my guns are still a bit warm, perhaps I can nudge you about some other features?

I know you mentioned you'd look into this when you get time, but I think that it's something you should really consider as a differentiator.

If you could get soundcheck it, you'd be da BOMB.  No other program out there supports this as you know, and none is in a position to.  Think about it, ephpod, Xplay, MMJB, none of them have support of analyzing files and keeping track of the db level like MC9 does.

So, sir, I urge you to dig further into this one

(:reloads pistol:).

Next: I know that you said you still can't get playcounts to work due to Apple's implementation.  I don't remember about auto-updating of ratings though.  Have you thoroughly investigated this?  

(:spins pistol cylinder:)

Just think if Ratings could be updated from the iPod, one more thing you'd have above everyone else and something that no one (with the possible acception of Xplay, which I doubt would do it) is in a position to take advantage of.

You still gotta get playcounts on there though.  

(:cocks pistol:)  


Oh, and did I mention....THANKS!  

Adam (the polite gunslinger)

[_K_C_]

_K_C,

Thanks for the bug reports. They are fixed in tonight's build.

Steve

Steve,
Afraid not.  I can still replicate both the bugs posted earlier (file type not supported and crash).

I've also spotted another (though it may be related):
Create a playlist in MC, whose contents have already been transferred to the iPod
Sync
Plugin skips all of the files, and brings up the end dialog box with a list of all the files, with "file type not supported" after each.
Playlist has not been created on iPod.

KC