Topic: POST IPOD SUPPORT QUESTIONS HERE (Read 15775 times)

SteveG · « **on:** March 19, 2004, 05:10:21 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=19621;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

gbdesai · « **Reply #1 on:** March 19, 2004, 10:35:53 pm »

10.0.95 doesn't cut off my files. I tried by deleting several files that were cutoff and re-synced, worked great! Thanks for whatever you did.

juggler · « **Reply #2 on:** March 21, 2004, 04:09:50 pm »

I am having trouble synching since a recent MC update (am now on 9.1.317). I've done a Restore (using the iPod tools) and re-initialised in MC and sync'd all my music. However, when I add to the library and resync, I lose all my playlists, and many tracks appear with duplicate entries and won't play.

Any ideas? Thanks, Alfie.

SteveG · « **Reply #3 on:** March 21, 2004, 04:47:56 pm »

juggler,

Would you consider going to MC 10?

Steve

RobOK · « **Reply #4 on:** March 21, 2004, 06:54:18 pm »

I've skipped a number of dot versions when iPod support was changing a lot. I am on the latest version of 10 now, but the synch seems much, much slower than before. Was there some fundamental change that made it slower?

In fact, it is slower than even MC was expecting as now I have -12 minutes left to go!!!!

margolbe · « **Reply #5 on:** March 21, 2004, 08:58:51 pm »

I just got a new computer.

I installed MC 10 and have been having problems with my Ipods.

Because of this, I went back to MusicMatch.

However, I want to use MC 10.

I went to Ipod restore to clear out my ipod after using musicmatch.

However, when I tried to format my ipod in MC 10, the formatting failed.

I am using a second generation Ipod. Haven't tried my third generation yet.

Still have Musicmatch jukebox and the Ipod plug in on my desktop.

How can I get MC10 to work with my ipod.

When plug in should I use?

sirshambling · « **Reply #6 on:** March 22, 2004, 02:04:02 am »

Quote from: RobOK on March 21, 2004, 06:54:18 pm

I've skipped a number of dot versions when iPod support was changing a lot. I am on the latest version of 10 now, but the synch seems much, much slower than before. Was there some fundamental change that made it slower?

Yes I'm seeing this as well. Used to synch at high 5's or low 6's per sec - now down to low 2's or high 1's sadly.

gbdesai · « **Reply #7 on:** March 22, 2004, 09:55:47 am »

I spoke too soon. I re-initialized and resynced 1622 songs with my iPod using 10.0.95 and I have some songs that cut off with 1:30 seconds left in the song. Do you think on the fly conversion from APE to VBR MP3 is the culprit? It use to work fine. Do you still want a song that displays this characteristic?

SteveG · « **Reply #8 on:** March 22, 2004, 11:34:40 am »

gbdesai,
Please do send me one of the songs so I can debug. (steve @ jriver.com)
I cannot currently duplicate this.

sirshambling and RobOK,

There were changes regarding the transfer rate recently. I made additional changes to optimize this today. Please try with tonight's build. The negative time was a bug and is also fixed for synching today.

margolbe,

You should use tonight's build of MC 10 which will be 10.0.96 or at a minimum 10.0.95. After you install, right click on your iPod drive letter in MC and select 'Initialize'. Then you should be good to go. No plugin is necessary. If you are still having problems, make sure MusicMatch is not trying to grab control of your iPod upon connection.

bobrock · « **Reply #9 on:** March 22, 2004, 01:13:43 pm »

This is continuation of thread started at main MC forum
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=20032

Thanks Steve for your answer.

You are 50% right.
If one check MC Smart Lists for synchronization they are transfered to iPod as "Plain/Stupid" Playlists. In other words they are loosing their "Smart" attribute ;-)

The other 50% I'll try to explain below.
When you have brand new iPod, or if you restore it you have 3 iPod DEFAULT Smart Lists
One of them is "Top 25 Most Played" It works exactly as "Top Hits" Smartlist in MC

After each synchronization those iPod Smart Lists are lost !!!
In order to have them back one got to start iTunes and recreate them back manualy

((((((
This is very, very inconvenient (or read it as a BUG)

What I am asking is to remove this BUG in upcoming releases of MC10

1. It willl be nice (if possible) to be able to synchronize MC Smart Lists to iPod WITHOUT loosing their "Smart" attribute

2. It's unacceptable that iPod Smart Lists are erased EACH TIME one synchronize it with MC

I hope that this explain the problem.
If not I'll be more than happy to help you.

Regards

Bob

juggler · « **Reply #10 on:** March 22, 2004, 02:20:15 pm »

Quote from: SteveG on March 21, 2004, 04:47:56 pm

juggler,

Would you consider going to MC 10?

Steve

Yes, and in fact I installed it last night. Haven't had time to do a full sync yet so I'll let you know if it fixes my problems.

One thing I notice straight away is the option to "Import iPod data to MC" is gone. I used to do this before synching to get the ratings into MC, and that affects my playlists (I move files around after importing the ratings -- basically I have a staging directory which is reflected in a playlist). I'd like that option back if possible...

Thanks, Alfie.

Madcow · « **Reply #11 on:** March 22, 2004, 05:09:58 pm »

A couple of problems I've noticed with build 95:

- Sync seems slower, around half the speed of recent builds. Admittedly this could be due to other changes on my system but someone above mentions this so I thought I'd point out I'm also seeing this.

- Syncing of ratings to the PC from the iPod seems broken, again. I rated a load of songs, synced to MC with the appropriate option ticked, and the first thing MC did was overwrite the songs on my iPod with the unrated versions. Not happy.

sirshambling · « **Reply #12 on:** March 23, 2004, 02:01:44 am »

Steve,

Synch speed is much better with this build. Started at low 1's then gradually ramped up to low 5's during a 2 min synch.

Not as fast as it was - still not above 5.1 - used to be 5.9/6.0 sort of rate - but definitely better.

Thanks. John.

SteveG · « **Reply #13 on:** March 23, 2004, 09:02:15 am »

John,

I will try to optimize this more.

Madcow,

Please get 96, I optimized this some yesterday and as John points out, the speed has improved considerably.

In regards to Ratings, I do not think it is broken. Here is how the logic works...

1) If 'sync data to MC' is checked, when you select 'Synchronize' , if the date the file was last modified in MC is less than the last sync time and the rating is not 0 on iPod, MC is updated with iPod's rating.

2) During the MC to iPod sync, if the rating is different, MC deletes the song from iPod and resends the file.

One possibility is that you modified the files in MC after your last sync. That could explain the result you saw. Other than that, I cannot duplicate what you report.

Alfie,

That option is removed because its funcionality is now more integrated into the overall sync. If you select the 'Sync Data to MC' box, you will have the functionality you are looking for. Please read my response to Madcow above for more details.

Bob,

Lets be clear about the terminolgy here. MC has smartlists and so does iTunes. iTunes 'smartilists' have the ability to dynamically decide what files are to be included or excluded on iPod. This is possible because of a detailed set of undocumented rules that are written into the iPod database and which are not designed to be compatible with the rules for MC's smartlists. Is this a solvable problem? yes. Is it time consuming? yes. Have we had time to do it? no. Will we? hopefully.

I do understand the problem and also understand how to craft a solution. No need to explain further.

Steve

Sir Alan · « **Reply #14 on:** March 23, 2004, 10:49:23 am »

Quote from: gbdesai on March 22, 2004, 09:55:47 am

I spoke too soon. I re-initialized and resynced 1622 songs with my iPod using 10.0.95 and I have some songs that cut off with 1:30 seconds left in the song. Do you think on the fly conversion from APE to VBR MP3 is the culprit? It use to work fine.

I also get this with files converted in 10.0.95. The problem actually started recently after I upgraded my iPod firmware to 2.1. Coincidence? Maybe.

Interestingly, the files cut off consistently when played by the iPod through speakers, but are perfectly ok when played by MC using iPod as the source. Hmm...

I will send a sample.

sirshambling · « **Reply #15 on:** March 24, 2004, 02:26:53 am »

Steve,

Synched 50 songs to my old 20GB Ipod last night, speed in the low 5's per sec. Just got a new 40GB model (wonderful!) and synched my library of 5,000 songs. Went without a hitch at the low 7's or high 6's but the time counter started at -0.0 secs and finished in the -45 min range. The 50 songs had the right time indicator so there may be a scale issue here.

But going very well - love the way I can get MC10 to recognise those songs that have been played on the new Ipod so my smartlists that depend on "last played" are accurate.

Thanks. John.

bobrock · « **Reply #16 on:** March 24, 2004, 04:35:48 am »

Thanks Steeve for replay.

I guess it's not trivial, and understand that in order to enable Smart List synchronization between MC and iPod, a sort of translator got to be writen to translate "MC's Smart List" format to "iPod Smart Lists" and alter iPod database accordingly.

This will be IDEAL and complete solution.

At the time being and as a MINIMUM aproach I would be happy if you can modyfy MC to PRESERVE "iPod Smart Lists" created with iTune application (on Ipod) during synchronization process.

At the moment one need to re-create "IPod Smart Lists" on their iPod upon each synchronization.

I hope that this problem will be addressed soon.
I use those Smart Lists heavily and they realy improve listening experience ;-)

Kindest regards

Bob

Ken Brookings · « **Reply #17 on:** March 24, 2004, 09:18:20 am »

Looking for some advice. I'm a bit new with using Handhelds w/MC but am a long time MC fan. I've now got about 3000 songs on my iPOD and all is working fine.
However, it takes about 50 hours to load that many files, not due to transfer time but due to decoding, normalizing and encoding time.
Now that I've got all of this done can I build a playlist in MC from the iPOD files so that when I have to reload all the decoding and encoding is already done and only uploading is required.
Thanks in advance for the help,
Ken

sirshambling · « **Reply #18 on:** March 24, 2004, 09:31:39 am »

Steve,

A strange one. Just noticed that the only 2 files played on the Ipod and synched back to MC10 under Build 96 are showing as "last played" 34.3 years ago. Those synched back to MC10 today under build 97 today are showing correctly.

Is there anything I can do about this? Will it happen again?

Thanks. John.

SteveG · « **Reply #19 on:** March 24, 2004, 10:37:21 am »

John,

Please update with tonight's build and let me know if the sync time is still off. If it is, let me know if you are doing conversions on the fly.

In regards to the last played time, this should not happen again. Assuming you have not adjusted the data/time on iPod, it should not have happened to begin with. In answer to what you can do about it, if you modify the time in MC by playing the file and resync, the time should correct. iPod last played time should only write into MC if it is greater than the last played time in MC and sync data to MC is checked.

Ken,

Once you have synced and converted all of your files, when you do any kind of synchronization (or transfer) MC will know that the files are on the iPod and will not try to resend/reconvert them. Go ahead and build playlists with files you have transfered and when you sync, the playlists will be created and populated, but the files will not be resent.

Bob,

The preservation of iTunes smartlists requires the full implementation of the translation of iTunes smartlists. We will do it as soon as possible.

Steve

Ken Brookings · « **Reply #20 on:** March 24, 2004, 10:46:33 am »

Steve, thanks much for getting back; but my poorly worded question was a bit different. Twice now I've lost the data base on the iPOD having to reload from scratch. I've got a playlist in MC that is the iPOD database, but in primarily APE format. My question is can I convert this playlist, or make a new a play list or alternate library in MC, or build a library by scanning iPOD, or whatever that is all encoded and ready for fast transfer in the event of database loss on the iPOD.
Ken

bobrock · « **Reply #21 on:** March 24, 2004, 11:08:56 am »

Sounds GREAT !!!

I am going to buy upgrade and wait patiently.

MC is rare example of how commercial software can be developed with great feedback of comunity.

Keep on good work

Rgds

SteveG · « **Reply #22 on:** March 24, 2004, 01:29:43 pm »

Ken,

Quote

Twice now I've lost the data base on the iPOD having to reload from scratch.

Do you mean the files are on iPod but the database file on iPod is corrupted? In this case, right click on the iPod drive letter in MC and select 'Rebuild database from iPod'. This will prevent having to retransfer files.

Quote

I've got a playlist in MC that is the iPOD database..

You have a playlist which is all the files you want on iPod in ape format? If so, once the files are on iPod, you can resynch this playlist and the files will not reconvert.

I do not think I get what you are after. Sorry. Perhaps you can describe an example of the problem you are trying to solve and I can give better advice.

Bob,

Thanks.

Steve

Ken Brookings · « **Reply #23 on:** March 24, 2004, 01:46:27 pm »

Hi Steve, thanks again. I'll try again.
I have an MC data base of about 20,000 files, most of which are APE, some WMA and some MP3 at differing encoding rates. I made a playlist of about 3000 files that represent my desired iPOD database. I loaded that playlist onto iPOD. It took more than a couple days, primarily it seems because of decoding, normalizing and encoding steps. The actual transfer step goes pretty quickly.

But twice I've lost the whole iPOD database thru problems reseting the iPOD and getting it to synch (and probably user error). Happily, I still had a copy of the desired iPOD database as a playlist, so I didn't have to reinvent it, but the reload took two days plus each time.

So I was looking for a way to shorten the total loading time in the event I lose the whole iPOD database again.

I noticed the "Rebuild database from iPOD" selection when I right click on the IPOD in Devices in MC and thought maybe that was a path to create a playlist or alternate library in MC that was all converted and normalized for the iPOD that would yield a quick transfer from MC to iPOD. But I'm afraid to play with this stuff because I've blitzed the iPOD database twice alread and don't want to spend 2-3 days while it reloads and ties up my computer.

I did buy some audio books from iTUNES. They downloaded without the conversion time and went really fast. But when they were done my 3000 files were gone and only the 11 iTUNES purchases were on the iPOD.

Sorry that I'm not familiar enough with all this to ask my question better.

Ken

gundan · « **Reply #24 on:** March 24, 2004, 03:07:02 pm »

Hello,

I am running build 95 and I am noticing a couple of issues. I am not sure whether there have been any fixes in build 97 which fixed these issues.

The transfer to the ipod is incredibly slow. I initilized the unit and now I am getting throughputs of only 2-3 mb/s, I very vividly remember seeing transfer of over 5-6 mb/s in the previous build. Further right now I am seeing the time to transfer as a negative #. I am not sure what to make of it.

Cheers,
G

SteveG · « **Reply #25 on:** March 24, 2004, 03:21:10 pm »

Ken,

Once you have transferred your files to iPod and done the time consuming task of conversion, the files are on the iPod and the database should be built to find the files. If for some reason the database gets corrupted, the files are still on the iPod, which is the time consuming part of the transfer, building the database is trivial by comparison.

The rebuild option, recreates the database and does not necessitate a retransfer of the files. If your database corrupts, this is the way to go. Using this option will cause you to lose your playlists, but again, the files are there and when you resync, the process will be very quick and your playlists will be recreated.

In regards to audio books. Are you transferring them with iTunes? If they are playing OK, don't do this. Import them into MC and then transfer them from MC.

Another option is to convert the files one time and store them. on your PC. This is the safest solution but also a huge space hog so I do not recommend it unless you have a lot of extra space.

gundan,

The negative value is resolved in tonight's MC and the speed for synching is resolved in yesterday's build and also in tonight's. Are you synching or drag and dropping the files?

Steve

gundan · « **Reply #26 on:** March 24, 2004, 03:26:08 pm »

I am synchronizing my files. I will update to the newer builds tomorrow and try it out.

Thank you,
G

Ken Brookings · « **Reply #27 on:** March 24, 2004, 07:55:26 pm »

Hi Steve,
Yep, downloaded straight from iTUNES to iPOD; learned my lesson there and now download then into MC then to iPOD.
I understand what you said, I think, but the problem is that the actual files were not still on the iPOD - I don't think. At least when going into to Windows Properties for the iPOD the Pie Chart showed no files, all available.
So I can go to my iPOD playlist, convert those 3000 files to MP3 128 and then if I do have to retransfer it will go quickly?

sirshambling · « **Reply #28 on:** March 25, 2004, 01:16:51 am »

Steve,

Initialized again this morning and tried various numbers of files to synch - 50, 250, 1000 and 3,000 all went without a hitch at mid 6's speed and the timings were all counting down towards zero - very good news! BTW all synchs were done "vanilla" - no conversion, or anything like that.

Also many thanks for the advice on those 2 strange "last played" entries in MC 10. No repetititon during any of these recent synchs.

John.

juggler · « **Reply #29 on:** March 25, 2004, 02:35:03 am »

My synch problem (losing smartlists and issue playing many tracks) appeared to have gone away after upgrade to 10.0.95. I did a re-init and full sync. However, I haven't had the chance to do an incremental resync because...

Now when I try to sync again, MC is telling me that I'll have -999.4Mb available after sync, and won't let me start the sync (available space exceeded message).

I upgraded to 10.0.98 and it still has the same figure. I'll try doing a re-init and resync with 10.0.98 tonight to see if that fixes it...

Alfie.

SteveG · « **Reply #30 on:** March 25, 2004, 07:53:19 am »

Ken,

It will go quickly if the files are there. In Explorer, go to your iPod drive letter and then look for a Music folder where there are 20 folders numbered F00 to F19. Look in these folders for files. If they are there, you should be in good shape. If not, the files never got transferred to iPod which is hard to explain if it took a while.

If there are no files on iPod, you should be able to transfer and then after the first conversion, you should not need to reconvert the files again.

Steve

bigfoot42 · « **Reply #31 on:** March 25, 2004, 08:57:21 am »

I have been having repeated problems using MC10 with a new iPod. I have not had problems after initially downloading my library, about 5100 files, into the iPod and synchronizing a few playlists. However when I subsequently download more files and resynchronize the iPod database looses track of most of the files which are on it.

I am a registered MC9 user and have been trying MC10, including versions 10.0.90, .95, and .98. With 10.0.95 after downloading some new files and resynchronizing with only Send Playlist Data checked most of the iPod database entries were lost. The About entry on the iPod showed only 590 files available and browsing showed some missing artists and possibly albums. Many albums were left with only one or two song entries. The Media Center view shows the files are still on the iPod. I always use the Eject Ipod selection to unmount the iPod.

Using Rebuild Database From Ipod in 10.0.98 didn't help. The iPod went to about 300 songs available. I would like to see these problem debugged. MC10 looks like a definite improvement over M9, but it is no fun having to reload my iPod every few days.

Sir Alan · « **Reply #32 on:** March 25, 2004, 12:37:05 pm »

Quote from: SteveG on March 25, 2004, 07:53:19 am

In Explorer, go to your iPod drive letter and then look for a Music folder where there are 20 folders numbered F00 to F19. Look in these folders for files. If they are there, you should be in good shape. If not, the files never got transferred to iPod which is hard to explain if it took a while.

Bear in mind that they are hidden files and will not be visible even if they are present unless you allow them to be viewed. In W2K that's Tools>Folder Options>View>select Show hidden files and folders

juggler · « **Reply #33 on:** March 25, 2004, 02:53:22 pm »

I did a re-init and sync with 10.0.98. In the sync window it said I'd have about 6.5Gb left (15Gb iPod) which is about right.

After sync I added about 10 tracks to the library and attempted to do another sync. It tells me I'll have -1Gb after sync and won't let me start the sync.

Alfie.

SteveG · « **Reply #34 on:** March 26, 2004, 01:24:30 pm »

Alfie,

When the sync dialogue reports -1 gb, if you click on the iPod drive letter in MC, at the bottom of MC what value do you have for 'Free'? If you right click on the iPod drive in Windows exploer and select 'Properties' how much space is available?

BigFoot42,

Please try with tonight's build and try right clicking and 'Initializing' your iPod. This will wipe your iPod clean. If you continue to have problems, we can troubleshoot from there.

juggler · « **Reply #35 on:** March 26, 2004, 02:21:16 pm »

Quote from: SteveG on March 26, 2004, 01:24:30 pm

When the sync dialogue reports -1 gb, if you click on the iPod drive letter in MC, at the bottom of MC what value do you have for 'Free'? If you right click on the iPod drive in Windows exploer and select 'Properties' how much space is available?

Steve, first of all I upgraded to 10.0.99 but the same problem remains. I've done a partial sync. Windows Explorer reports 13.8Gb total, 10.3Gb free. MC reports 13.9Gb total, 10.4Gb free.

The trouble is that I've not changed anything and the Synchronize window says I'll have 6.8Gb after sync (it should be the same value as now -- I'm syncing the same tracks!). I tried syncing just 10 tracks earlier and every time I sync'd it copied the files again... so it appears that MC is not "remembering" what tracks have been transferred.

Any clues? This is a bit frustrating to be honest (I upgraded to MC10 to attempt to resolve losing my playlists when syncing).

Many thanks, Alfie.

SteveG · « **Reply #36 on:** March 26, 2004, 02:33:35 pm »

Alfie,

Are you synching playlists or smartlists? If smartlists, do any of your smartlists have rules that are executed dynamically (i.e. random, limitations by size, time or duration)? If so, the contents of these smartlists will be changing and unless all of your files in MC are on iPod, this could explain your results.

Do you have 'Delete unselected from HH' checked?

If there is a file that keeps being resent, please email it to me. There may be a reason why MC is not catching it as a 'match' by its name, artist, album, genre, track number key which also could explain what you are seeing.

Steve (steve @ jriver.com)

PS also, what do you mean by having done a 'Partial sync' and then the statement that nothing is changed? Did you stop a sync in the middle? If so, if you try to sync all the files again, it may be accurately reporting to you that at the end of the sync, you will be out of space.

juggler · « **Reply #37 on:** March 26, 2004, 03:48:32 pm »

Quote from: SteveG on March 26, 2004, 02:33:35 pm

Are you synching playlists or smartlists? If smartlists, do any of your smartlists have rules that are executed dynamically (i.e. random, limitations by size, time or duration)? If so, the contents of these smartlists will be changing and unless all of your files in MC are on iPod, this could explain your results.

I'm synching playlists and smartlists. What you describe is possible but unlikely. I do have the kind of smart list you describe but am pretty sure they always contain the same songs (if viewed without playing any tracks). Anyway, it doesn't explain what's happening (see below).

Quote from: SteveG on March 26, 2004, 02:33:35 pm

Do you have 'Delete unselected from HH' checked?

Yes.

Quote from: SteveG on March 26, 2004, 02:33:35 pm

If there is a file that keeps being resent, please email it to me. There may be a reason why MC is not catching it as a 'match' by its name, artist, album, genre, track number key which also could explain what you are seeing.

They're all resent! I'm pretty sure that's what's causing the problem. It sees the space on the iPod correctly but doesn't match the files with anything in the MC database, so thinks it (and is) going to transfer all the files, which would cause a space issue if it were true.

Ah, I just did a test with a 6-track fixed playlist. I did an init and then synched 4 times. I now have 20 mp3s on the iPod. Some tracks have 4 copies, some have 3 and some have just two copies. When there are multiple copies they sometimes have the same filename, sometimes not, but are always in different directories. Here's the details for one of the tracks:

F:\iPod_Control\Music\F02\2004.mp3
F:\iPod_Control\Music\F03\2007.mp3
F:\iPod_Control\Music\F08\2004.mp3
F:\iPod_Control\Music\F11\2004.mp3

These are all the same track. I'd be very surprised if this is an issue with the files themselves - I just picked these 6 at random and they're all duplicated.

Quote from: SteveG on March 26, 2004, 02:33:35 pm

PS also, what do you mean by having done a 'Partial sync' and then the statement that nothing is changed? Did you stop a sync in the middle? If so, if you try to sync all the files again, it may be accurately reporting to you that at the end of the sync, you will be out of space.

I just mean not synching my entire library. Normally I have "All Music" checked so everything is copied over regardless of the other playlists/smartlists. When I say nothing is changed I mean nothing has been added/removed to what's being synched... I should *never* run out of space as my iPod's bigger than my library.

Cheers, Alfie.

juggler · « **Reply #38 on:** March 26, 2004, 04:06:17 pm »

Another bit of info... my single fixed playlist of 6 tracks appears under "Playlists" under the drive in MC but doesn't contain the right info. Sometimes it has just one of the tracks, sometimes all 6, sometimes one track duplicated 4 or 5 times. The playlist doesn't appear on the iPod at all, and neither do the tracks (artist list empty). This is after doing a sync 4 or 5 times.

Hope this helps you find the problem, and hope it is a coding problem and not my iPod!

Alfie.

SteveG · « **Reply #39 on:** March 26, 2004, 04:48:58 pm »

Alfie,

You should never see repeated track numbers (i.e. 2004.mp3). Something has gotten fouled up along the way. Can you Intialize your iPod and start over?

Steve

juggler · « **Reply #40 on:** March 27, 2004, 04:09:27 am »

Quote from: SteveG on March 26, 2004, 04:48:58 pm

You should never see repeated track numbers (i.e. 2004.mp3). Something has gotten fouled up along the way. Can you Intialize your iPod and start over?

That's what I thought (I assume the track number is some kind of MC internal id). Anyway, I've done an init about 5 times and run the iPod Updater "Restore" operation a couple of times. It doesn't seem to make any difference... I'm on firmware 2.1 if that makes any difference.

Alfie.

bigfoot42 · « **Reply #41 on:** March 27, 2004, 08:07:05 am »

It looks like synching ratings from the iPod is pretty badly broken for me in 10.0.100. I think this is the problem from my previous post. As an experiment I initialized, synched a 16 song static playlist containing mp3 and m4p files to an 3G iPod with the 2.1 software, disconnected, rated one of the MP3 songs, and resynched. Each time I did this the rated song is lost from the iPod song list, possibly along with other songs. The About entry shows the reduced number of songs and the playlists on the iPod are just "On The Go" and a blank, empty playlist. The iPod rating does not get reflected back to the original file on my computer either. Browsing on the iPod shows other songs in album containing the rated song may be missing, but they might be available in the songs list. Just resynching without rating anything doesn't seem to cause a problem.

I don't think I am doing anything weird. Are other people simply not rating songs on their iPod or is something else going on? I saw in a previous thread people having similar problems with 10.0.85, but I thought they were supposed to be resolved.

bigfoot42 · « **Reply #42 on:** March 27, 2004, 09:30:10 am »

I have another issue. I found (so far) two MP3 songs where the sound cuts off 30 or 14 seconds before play actually ends. They play normally when played from the iPod file through MC and they play normally on the iPod if downloaded by iTunes.

gundan · « **Reply #43 on:** March 27, 2004, 11:31:59 am »

Hello Steve,

I just noticed that with build 100 the tags from Audible programs are all screwed up. It doesn't seem to recognise those tags anymore. All the names are the names of the files rather than the program in question. Am I doing something wrong here?

Cheers,
G

Sir Alan · « **Reply #44 on:** March 27, 2004, 05:18:30 pm »

Quote from: bigfoot42 on March 27, 2004, 09:30:10 am

I have another issue. I found (so far) two MP3 songs where the sound cuts off 30 or 14 seconds before play actually ends. They play normally when played from the iPod file through MC and they play normally on the iPod if downloaded by iTunes.

Someone else reported this recently, and I have been trying to pin it down off-list. The problem I see occurs when APE is converted to MP3 VBR during the sync. If the file is converted before synchronising, it appears to be ok. In both cases the resulting MP3 file on the iPod is identical, so the problem does not seem to be in the conversion itself.

I tried converting and synching 90 tracks; when converted on-the-fly almost all would not play properly on the iPod. When I converted them first, then synched, all played perfectly.

The problem first appeared after I upgraded my iPod's firmware to 2.1, but this could just be a coincidence.

SteveG · « **Reply #45 on:** March 28, 2004, 09:20:50 am »

Gundan,

Could you email me one of these files? (steve @ jriver.com)

bigfoot42,

How are the cutoff files encoded? VBR?

For the static playlist rating issue, can you duplicate this issue using non m4p files? I will check more on Monday.

Madcow · « **Reply #46 on:** March 28, 2004, 09:52:04 am »

Quote from: bigfoot42 on March 27, 2004, 08:07:05 am

It looks like synching ratings from the iPod is pretty badly broken for me in 10.0.100.

I'm having problems too. For instance with the following:

1. Initialise iPod.
2. Fully load iPod.
3. Rate two albums in MC.
4. Perform sync.

In this case the two rated albums do not transfer across as they should. I've not modified or otherwise touched these files. I've also seen in these situations the next time I do a sync in the other direction (from MC to iPod) the rated songs will get overwritten by the blank ratings from the iPod.

This has been going on for a couple of builds at least.

juggler · « **Reply #47 on:** March 28, 2004, 12:52:15 pm »

Steve, any ideas / suggestions for my issues? I've got a feeling that playlist synching started giving me problems when I updated to firmware 2.1. Is it possible to downgrade the iPod again? If so, I might consider doing that and going back to a previous version of MC just until everything gets smoothed out in the beta 10 builds...

Many thanks, Alfie.

bvm · « **Reply #48 on:** March 28, 2004, 04:44:44 pm »

On Mar 18 I posted a complaint that sounds remarkably like Alfie's (you can read it near the end of the old thread at
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=19621;start=50). Sync would show a space available computed as though it didn't see any of the files already on the iPod, and indeed it would (re)transfer every single track. The other notable symptom was that it showed no files at the iPod root (the view you get when clicking on the iPod drive letter), nor any other subview except for playlists, something I don't think Alfie mentioned.

Given that situation, I downgraded to 10.0.38, which uses an earlier synch strategy, since I was leaving on a trip and didn't want to lose all the changes to ratings/playtimes I'd make over the week. Indeed, I had a successful old-style sync on my return yesterday.

After reading Alfie's posts, I feared that nothing had changed with my problem, but I decided to upgrade to 10.0.100 anyway and try. I did a restore on my iPod, initialize in MC, and then sync. It took about 45 minutes to sync, a little longer than the 40 minutes it took in 10.0.38, but quite a bit less than the over an hour it took in 10.0.93. Most importantly, it looks like it actually worked. The sync dialog shows a reasonable estimate for space available, and files are visible at root and everywhere else in the tree. I modified some tags in MC, and a fresh synch sent over only the changed files.

One of my gripes is still there, though -- it takes over 7 seconds (to load info from the iPod) if I touch the iPod root after being in any other view, even if all I want to do is right-click to get the menu item that ejects iPod!

I realize that none of this helps Alfie, but I thought I should report the progress anyway.

bigfoot42 · « **Reply #49 on:** March 28, 2004, 07:35:35 pm »

Quote from: SteveG on March 28, 2004, 09:20:50 am

How are the cutoff files encoded? VBR?

For the static playlist rating issue, can you duplicate this issue using non m4p files? I will check more on Monday.

Steve,
The cutoff files are 160kbps constant bit rate MP3, encoded with MC9/LAME. I still see the rating problem with an 11 song static playlist, all MP3s.

Thanks,
Jack

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