Topic: Ipod problems (Read 3067 times)

gtorres · « **on:** December 22, 2002, 11:03:18 am »

I got the latest version of MC9 and the latest Ipod plugin (both downloaded today).

I formatted my Ipod and tried to sync my 2258 songs. It went fine except that the Ipod only shows 2241 (although all went through according to the transfer dialog box). I reformatted again, did the same thing, same results.

What an I doing wrong?

Because only 17 of 2258 songs are missing I'm not sure which they are.

Also, is there anyway of adding the Composer tags?

My SI:

Media Jukebox PLUS 9.0.88 -- C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center\

Microsoft Windows XP Workstation 5.1 Service Pack 1 (Build 2600)
AMD Athlon 1466 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 523 MB, Free - 288 MB

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2800.1106 / ComCtl32.dll: 6.00.2800.1106 / Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2800.1106
Shell32.dll: 6.00.2800.1145 / wnaspi32.dll: Internal ASPI Layer

Ripping / Drive D: Copy mode:ModeBurstBigBuffer CD Type:Auto Read speed:Max
Drive E: Copy mode:ModeBurstBigBuffer CD Type:Auto Read speed:Max
Digital playback: Yes / Use YADB: Yes / Get cover art: No / Calc replay gain: No / Copy volume: 32767
Eject after ripping: No / Play sound after ripping: No

Burning / Drive E: PLEXTOR CD-R PX-W2410A Addr: 1:1:0 Speed:24 MaxSpeed:24 Lib:2 GHS:1 Use MJ Engine:No
Test mode: No / Eject after writing: Yes / Direct decoding: Yes / Two second gap: No / Write CD-Text: No
Use playback settings: No / Normalization: None

Kurt Young · « **Reply #1 on:** December 22, 2002, 11:08:05 am »

If a song appears in more than one playlist, it will get counted multiple times for the upload dialogue. Not to worry, only one copy of each song is getting uploaded, it's just a small bug that hasn't been worked out yet.

Composer tag functionality hasn't been implemented yet, but should be easy enough to do. It'd probably require making a standard MC database field called composer to pull off best. Be patient, I'm sure that it'll be implemented soon enough.

gtorres · « **Reply #2 on:** December 22, 2002, 11:42:50 am »

Thanks.

I probably should have been clearer.

I have 2258 unique songs or files in MC, not the addition of two or more overlapping playlists.. When I transfer them to the IPOD only 2241 show up. I tried this several times and always the same result.

As for the Composer tag I want it to synch with the Ipod Composer function. Is that possible?

TimB · « **Reply #3 on:** December 22, 2002, 01:25:59 pm »

Quote

Thanks.

I probably should have been clearer.

I have 2258 unique songs or files in MC, not the addition of two or more overlapping playlists.. When I transfer them to the IPOD only 2241 show up. I tried this several times and always the same result.

I know its a pain but have you tried to find a missing song or two to see if there's a pattern. Are they all MP3s?

Also did you format your iPod with MC first before doing the transfer?

Quote

As for the Composer tag I want it to synch with the Ipod Composer function. Is that possible?

I'd hope this would be the goal.

Just some thoughts.

-=Tim=-

gtorres · « **Reply #4 on:** December 22, 2002, 02:48:38 pm »

I tried smaller lists (200 songs) and still the same problem where the transfer loses some songs. No pattern I can discern. And yes, I did format wth MC.

Has anybody else encountered this, where the transfer goes OK but some songs are missing at the end?

Fkandt · « **Reply #5 on:** December 22, 2002, 06:25:46 pm »

Yes, sounds like the same problem -- just got sent over here from Ipodlounge.....

Using (currently unregistered) MC9 (900089) with Win XP. Ipod plugin 35. I'm new to MC, but have checked most of the help.....

I have an album (Abba-20th Century Masters) in my media library which shows all songs are present. It also shows in Autosmartlist under All Music. Again, all songs are displayed as present.

When I synch with my 20G Ipod, all other 2100+ songs in my media library sycn just fine. But only two songs (out of 11) on this particular Abba album show up on my Ipod.

I can't figure out why these 9 .mp3 songs won't download to Ipod when everything else, including 2 songs on that very album transfer just fine.

These songs which don't transfer to Ipod are on my hard drive in my music library file OK, and they play in Media Center OK, so they are still there.

I did reformat my Ipod in MC and start a synch from scratch, but somehow, these songs are locked out of synching. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Of course, there may be more missing somewhere and I looked closely, but it's difficult to find what's missing in 2100+ songs.

- Frank

TimB · « **Reply #6 on:** December 22, 2002, 11:19:00 pm »

I've also pointed at this thread from the main iPod thread in the Media Jukebox 8 board at http://www.musicex.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=general;action=display;num=1039216499;start=100

-=Tim=-

SteveG · « **Reply #7 on:** December 23, 2002, 06:12:07 am »

Fkandt,

Can you list for me some of the filenames of the files that are not making it. (The full paths, i.e. C:\My Music\Abba.Asong.mp3).

Also, what happens if you try uploading these songs directly by drag and dropping them onto the iPod rather than synching?

Fkandt · « **Reply #8 on:** December 23, 2002, 11:17:00 am »

Yeah, Steve. All songs were ripped at once and are in the same folder. As I look at the path, it's really long somewhat due to long album title, but, some synched and some didn't.

One which didn't synch (track 5 on the album):
C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\My Music\ABBA\20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection The Best of ABBA\ABBA - Fernando.mp3

Another non-synch (track 2 on the album):
C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\My Music\ABBA\20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection The Best of ABBA\ABBA - S.O.S..mp3

One which DID synch (it was track 10 on the album):
C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\My Music\ABBA\20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection The Best of ABBA\ABBA - Chiquitita.mp3

If you need more, holler.

I tried to drag these into Ipod. There would be a flash of some screen prompt -- 'way too fast to even make it out, but the songs wouldn't copy over. Just no result from doing that.

- Frank

Fkandt · « **Reply #9 on:** December 23, 2002, 11:35:34 am »

Steve - Not sure if it makes a difference, but I forgot to mention that my entire library was ripped with Music Match Jukebox 7.5 (at 160k constant) which has not been uninstalled. And, which, of course, is at least originally used by every windows Ipod owner because it's bundled with the Ipod.........

- Frank

SteveG · « **Reply #10 on:** December 24, 2002, 09:01:21 am »

Fkandt,

To upload the files to iPod manually, take drag the files onto the iPod drive letter, and then click on the drive letter. You will see the files "In queue" at which point you can click "Upload" in the lower right corner and send the files. If you could try this and let me know if it works, that would be great. Also, could you email me one or two of the files that are not transferring so I can test them? steve @ jriver.com.

Thanks,

Steve

Fkandt · « **Reply #11 on:** December 24, 2002, 11:47:13 am »

Steve - Before your request to try the manual upload, I had temporarily given up, restored the ipod, and synched with Music Match Jukebox. All songs and playlist perfect.

At your request to try drag and drop, I restored Ipod again, formatted in MC, and re-synched (hoping after the download, to try to drag and drop the files which didn't transfer). Go figure -- this time, all songs loaded! I had restored and reformatted several times before, however, this time on the synch, I checked the select all button instead of manually checking all songs and a playlist.

However, even though now all songs were there, I couldn't get the playlist (smartlist) to work now. I tried everything to no avail - checked different combinations of synch boxes, dragged and dropped the playlist files, etc. Somehow, I just can't make it work......

At this point, it's Christmas, family stuff, and all that, and I just want to play some tunes for a couple of days. So, I'm going to re-synch with MMJB which is clunky and slow, but which is reliable regarding downloading all songs and (my Christmas music) playlists, and just enjoy some music for a few days. This restoring, re-synching, disconnecting, etc., is wearing thin right now.

I'll come back later and get back to it. Thanks for your help and interest to this point and Happy Holidays.

- Frank

RandyP · « **Reply #12 on:** December 26, 2002, 11:49:43 pm »

Steve - I'm new to Interact, but I've been using JRiver products since MJ7 was released. I now am using MC9 with iPod .36

and I'm very pleased. I have two bugs to report.

The first is relatively minor. Unlike other sections of MC9, if I'm looking at the song list on the iPod, the File Count in the Status Bar always shows the total number of files. Regardless of how many files I select, it stays at 2535 (the total number of files). I believe the file count field should show the number of selected files as it does elsewhere in MC9.

The second is significant, and I may have found the reason that people are reporting missing files on their iPods. I have 2535 files in my Smartlist to be transferred. After a Synchronization that goes well in all other respects, only 2534 files appear on the iPod. I spent some time finding the one that was missing. I think you'll find the results interesting.

Looking back through the Interact forum, I noticed the "F19 problem" that you corrected. Based on what I read, I suspect you have some sort of hashing algorithm to distribute the files among the F00-F19 folders. Each file is then copied to the appropriate folder during sync, using its original file name.

It appears that the hashing algorithm has placed two files in the same folder (F11) - and those two files happen to have the same file name. 02 - Dreams.mp3

Here are the two complete path names:

D:\Shared Music MP3\Fleetwood Mac\The Dance\02 - Dreams.mp3

D:\Music MP3\The Cranberries\Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We_\02 - Dreams.mp3

The Fleetwood Mac "Dreams" file was not present on the iPod. I assumed it was being overwritten by The Cranberries "Dreams" file. I tested this by changing The Cranberries file name to 02a - Dreams.mp3 and re-sync'd. Now there are 2535 files on the iPod as there should be. FYI, the 02a - Dreams.mp3 file is now in F05, so I guess the hash algo includes the file name as well as the path.

I hope this helps you. I'd also like to thank you for the work you're doing. MC9 is very cool and the iPod transfer shows 9-10 Mbps on my 2.5 GHz Dell. Great job!

--- WinXP 5.1 SP1, MC9.0.88, iPod 3.0.36

(It sure would be nice if we could use Quick Search in the iPod file list...)

SteveG · « **Reply #13 on:** December 27, 2002, 05:34:36 am »

Ipod Devotee,

Thanks for your research into this.

In regards to item 1, this could be fixed, but is not trivial. It stems from the way MJ/MC interact with the Plug-in which are two separate entities, even though they appear integrated which was by design. When we start making new builds of MC 9, please feel free to reiterate this request and we can try to find a way to do it without too much rewriting.

Item 2 is also by design. We committed pretty early on with the iPod Plug-in to not allow duplicate file names on the iPod which solved many problems. The downside is what you point out, a situation where you have two identical filenames that are actually different files. Previously we allowed for duplicates to optionally exist, but many users saw this as unnecessarily confusing so we did away with it. It is not too hard to reintroduce it. For now, lets sit tight and see if there is a lot of momentum to have it back.

Thanks for the thoughtful comments.

Steve

canaro99 · « **Reply #14 on:** December 27, 2002, 12:10:58 pm »

Steve - I'm new to MC9 (I'm still having problems formating my iPod -- but that's another issue). With respect to the duplicate file name question, I download a lot of Argentine Tango music which includes many of the same songs by different artists -- sometimes different versions by the same artist.

With the later example, 02 - El Choclo - Canaro.mp3 and 02 - El Choclo - Canaro.mp3 (on different subdirectories) are in fact, 2 versions of the same song. So allowing duplicate names would be a benefit (and a curse). I'm glad you're the one trying to figure this all out.

Thanks for your efforts.

John

RandyP · « **Reply #15 on:** December 27, 2002, 02:12:36 pm »

Quote

Because only 17 of 2258 songs are missing I'm not sure which they are.

Quote

With the later example, 02 - El Choclo - Canaro.mp3 and 02 - El Choclo - Canaro.mp3 (on different subdirectories) are in fact, 2 versions of the same song. So allowing duplicate names would be a benefit (and a curse). I'm glad you're the one trying to figure this all out.

I suspect that "gtorres" and others may have run into this problem without realizing it. "gtorres" had 17 missing files, so it would have been even harder to find the duplicates.

I wanted a quick way to find duplicates so I didn't have to search by hand again, so I wrote a C++ program to do it for me. You're free to use the program, and I've posted it on my FTP site so you can access it:

ftp://ftp.calweb.com/business/eldoradosoft/temp/M3Uscan.exe (148 Kb)

Make a Playlist or Smartlist that contains all the files you are transferring to your iPod. Export that list as an M3U file. Then run M3Uscan. Select your M3U file and press "Find Duplicates". You'll be presented with a list of duplicate file names, or a confirmation that none exist. The program detects duplicate filenames even if they exist in completely different directory paths or on different drives.

This program should run fine on most current systems. If you get a "Library not found" message, let me know and I'll make a complete release kit with all the dependent DLL's included.

gtorres · « **Reply #16 on:** December 27, 2002, 04:53:05 pm »

Yes, I think that's it. I ran your progran and found the duplicate files.

I'll rename them but it would be better if this was handled automatically.

fex · « **Reply #17 on:** December 28, 2002, 05:14:56 pm »

Tested over a few days. Downloaded, updated tags, synced changing playlists and so on... Had no problems at all. Only realized, that the syncing prozess was slowed down when there were files with foreign characters.

This is the moment for me to pay for MC. It's just great.
With Steve's plugin.

Fex

Media Jukebox 9.0.89 -- C:\Programme\Media Center\

Microsoft Windows XP Workstation 5.1 Service Pack 1 (Build 2600)
Intel Pentium 4 1998 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 261 MB, Free - 88 MB

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2800.1106 / ComCtl32.dll: 6.00.2800.1106 / Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2800.1106
Shell32.dll: 6.00.2800.1145 / wnaspi32.dll: Internal ASPI Layer

Ripping / Drive F: Copy mode:ModeBurstBigBuffer CD Type:Auto Read speed:Max
Drive G: Copy mode:ModeBurstBigBuffer CD Type:Auto Read speed:Max
Digital playback: Yes / Use YADB: Yes / Get cover art: No / Calc replay gain: No / Copy volume: 32767
Eject after ripping: Yes / Play sound after ripping: Yes Soundfile: chord.wav

Burning / Drive G: RW-241040 Addr: 1:0:0 Speed:24 MaxSpeed:24 Use MJ Engine:Yes
Test mode: No / Eject after writing: Yes / Direct decoding: Yes / Write CD-Text: No
Use playback settings: No / Normalization: None

gtorres · « **Reply #18 on:** December 29, 2002, 05:05:05 am »

One other thing. It seems playlists are not updated automatically, that is if I make a change to an existing playlists (or if it is done automatically if it is a smartlist) it won't make the changes in the next Ipod sync. The only way around it is to manually delete the playlists in the Ipod itself.

Am I doing something wrong?

SteveG · « **Reply #19 on:** December 30, 2002, 07:22:57 am »

gtorres,

If you select "Delete Files Not in List" this will take care of it. Keep in mind this will remove any files that are not included in your synch. I will improve this soon.

Steve

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Author Topic: Ipod problems (Read 3067 times)

fex