Topic: iPod Plug-in (Read 21399 times)

SteveG · « **Reply #50 on:** November 12, 2002, 01:14:49 pm »

Hello all,

Let me start with the good news. Playlist synching is ready to go and seems to work well here. The bad news is that we must wait for the next release of MJ 9 so you can see it work. Maybe tomorrow(?).

JGourd,

In regards to the skipping, I can't duplicate it with the latest build (one that is not available yet) When I post it, perhaps you could test it again. Our advice on MusicMatch, is get rid of it

, Seriously, let me get this next build going and if it is stable then we will begin to make a more friendly way to get around the intrusiveness of MMJB.

The column sizing and ordering are cosmetic fixes that I will take care of soon.

In regards to synching, the playlists will appear on iPod exactly as they do in MJ at the time of the synch. If you have files on iPod that are not in any of the synched playlists I leave the files on iPod to be removed manually.

Will,

I currently do not allow for duplicate filenames on iPod. Checking the tag info introduces a lot of overhead.

From your second note, is everything working now?

Brownie,

Will's advice is on the money.

Thanks.

udeups · « **Reply #51 on:** November 12, 2002, 01:30:09 pm »

Steve,

First off, thanks for the hard work! I'm looking forward to seeing this new build tomorrow (?).

Now, I hate to pick nits, but I was wondering, could the deletion of files not in playlists on the iPod be left as an option. My goal would be to have a smartlist of length=time@work that would change each morning when I synched the playlists. I would rather not like to manually delete those songs not in the new "work" playlist and not normally kept on my iPod. I currently do this in ephpod by having a "standard" playlist which contains all the songs that I normally want to have on the iPod and another playlist (exported from a smartlist) that changes fairly often. Whenever I sync, any song not in either the standard or the dynamic playlists gets deleted.

Hope my ramblings made sense. Thanks again
Paul

jgourd · « **Reply #52 on:** November 12, 2002, 03:40:15 pm »

My two cents on the deletion thing is that it would be nice to implement but there are issues. What if the file exists in two playlists? What if a file exists in playlists and as a result of copying whole albums? You can see that simply deleting a file that has been removed from a playlist is not the behavior of first choice.

A possilbe solution is to auto delete a file only if it no longer exists on any playlist and there are no more than 1 (or 2) files on the iPod that are from the same album.

Enjoy!

udeups · « **Reply #53 on:** November 12, 2002, 03:53:25 pm »

Quote

A possilbe solution is to auto delete a file only if it no longer exists on any playlist and there are no more than 1 (or 2) files on the iPod that are from the same album.

(emphasis mine

)

I think that this was more the idea that I was going for, but didn't articulate it well enough.

buddy · « **Reply #54 on:** November 12, 2002, 06:24:04 pm »

I deleted my mp3 plug-ins and reinstalled, but I'm still unable to convert.

Steve, have you had a chance to fix the encoder yet? Should I wait a little longer?

willrmc · « **Reply #55 on:** November 12, 2002, 08:23:46 pm »

i agree with jgourd, i think the option of deleting songs not on the playlists is important, otherwise i would have to wipe the ipod clean everytime before i did a sync.

SteveG · « **Reply #56 on:** November 13, 2002, 06:57:57 am »

JGourd, Will,Udeups,

Message received. In today's release there willl be an added column for a list of what Playlists a file is a member of. To remove all files not associated with a playlist, sort on this column and remove the files not in a playlist. This provides a little broader functionality than what you requested, but I think it will take care of some future requests as well.

Thanks for the idea.

Steve

jgourd · « **Reply #57 on:** November 13, 2002, 07:19:48 am »

While it clearly makes the manual deletion of "orphaned" files much easier, please do not abandon the concept of having the sync command do it for us.

Kurt Young · « **Reply #58 on:** November 13, 2002, 07:32:41 am »

Quote

While it clearly makes the manual deletion of "orphaned" files much easier, please do not abandon the concept of having the sync command do it for us.

True dat, friends. I never even considered doing it manually, but that sounds like sweet functionality to add. That in mind, and even though I'm a little late on this trolly, I'm very much behind the "if it's not on a synched playlist, it gets deleted from the iPod" movement.

SteveG · « **Reply #59 on:** November 13, 2002, 09:57:39 am »

JGourd and Kurt,

Thanks for the thoughts. I think we are coming at this from different angles. You both seem to be of the school that your music collections are playlist based. On the other side is a vocal contingent that doesn't use Playlists but rather selects music by Artist and Album etc. From this perspective there are no "orphaned files" because Playlists are irrelevant. The proposed solution trys to handle both. Later, you will see that in the"Synch" I included a way to synch all the files without regard to Playlist to cover both sides. I presume you both will find this useless, and I respect that.

Anyway, can you wait until later when you can get it and then take a look and we can tweak it as we go.

Thanks again.

Kurt Young · « **Reply #60 on:** November 13, 2002, 10:34:42 am »

Yes and no, dude. My music collection isn't playlist-based, but the way that I fill my iPod is.

I'm heavy into using iPod playlists to play music on the go, and I love using MJ smartlists to create iPod playlists with dynamic content... I have some smartlists that I use to fill my iPod that provide me with a very nice rotation of music; they're different every time I synch. The main benefit of this is that I don't have to know what I'm in the mood to play... I just fire up one of my smartlist-created playlists and get suprised.

Remember, that the things that you've been saying about what is coming out today sound exactly what I've been hoping for. No way that I'd find it useless, bro!

jgourd · « **Reply #61 on:** November 13, 2002, 10:40:56 am »

My collections are not playlist based, however, I do have a few smart lists I use to make "Best Of" collections. I just need to contribute in a way that helps MJ's plugin be the "best of the best" :-)

ashawley · « **Reply #62 on:** November 13, 2002, 10:41:33 am »

Quote

On the other side is a vocal contingent that doesn't use Playlists but rather selects music by Artist and Album etc. From this perspective there are no "orphaned files" because Playlists are irrelevant.

Steve, great to see you thinking that way. Maybe it's because I'm an old fart (37), but to me Playlists are what I made on Cassette party tapes when I was in college from my LP's. Since then, I've moved into the Artist/Album world. Now, since I dig the idea of Smartlists I'm starting to get hip again, but I still think of my music by Artist/Album and then playlists as pointers to my selection.

It'd be great to be able to keep my entire library in MJ and select only certain Artists and/or Albums to be synched each time.

Hope that makes sense.

Adam

SteveG · « **Reply #63 on:** November 13, 2002, 10:46:32 am »

You guys are ever vigilant.

Let me let the synchronization cat out of the bag tonight and we can revisit this once you have some time to check it out.

Thanks.

Steve

Sei · « **Reply #64 on:** November 13, 2002, 06:35:26 pm »

Hi!
Today my Ipod for windows arrived and I'm about to install it. Having read too much about the problem with Musicmatch, I'm wondering how and where should I begin. I'm new to MJ and ipod. I have not yet purchased MJ but will very soon. I have Mj8 trial version installed a week ago. Reading through the threads, I gathered some partial information, but I'm afraid I have it right.

Can you give us, me and beginners like me, a summary of instructions what should be the recommended steps and settings to use ipod with MJ? I believe growing number of ipod for windows users will benefit and MJ will too.

For now, I would like to list of things to do as follows:

1. Install MJ9 beta version latest build 3.
2. Don't even think about installing Musicmatch 7.1 bundled with ipod. And if already installed, delete MM. ( I hear same echoes in many place)
3. Delete all the plugins if you already had, and download ipod plug-in.
4. And you are ready to go.

Is there anything else I should do? Your kind reply will be appreciated.

ashawley · « **Reply #65 on:** November 13, 2002, 07:39:30 pm »

Running version 9.0077, plug-in dated 10/13/02

Steve:

Stellar progress, really. Here's what I've go to report.

1. Was still getting crashes when trying to access my iPod as formatted by ephpod. I was eventually able to get to the format for MJ, and could not repeat the problem. Don't know how much time you're going to spend on this one, I don't think too many folks would have a problem with wiping their iPod the first time they use MJ.

2. The synching works really great, but as you pointed out, it's totally playlist-centric. I don't think you need to change the interface, just add checkboxes for Artist>Album, I don't recommend going down to individual tracks, that would take too much. It was interesting that you have the Auto-smartlist checkboxes defaulted. From a UI perspective, that didn't make too much sense. You can't uncheck them, but you aren't required to check any of their children, so why force it to be checked? Minor UI issue.

3. While synching I noticed some, well, idiosyncrasies (sorry

). First off, at different times during synch, the MJ would lose focus and the status dialog would stop updating. It would eventually complete, but that's a little bug that should be addressed. I also found a couple of instances where I selected multiple playlists to synch and it didn't copy all of them over, I wasn't able to replicate that consistently though. The synching doesn't seem too stable. I'm doing it now, and I pulled up a browser to type this, if I go back to MJ (which is apparently synching, I have a white screen in the middle of MJ where my browser was. The synching dialog is there, but it's just white.

4. I did notice a bug (you've probably got this on your list) when you delete songs. If you delete them from your iPod and then go expand the Album/Artist or Genre items, you will still see the Artists or Albums or Genres present, even though you deleted them. To replicate, select all the songs on your iPod (from the root of the drive), then delete them, then expand the Artist item. You should still see Artists there even though you've just deleted everything. A quick "Rebuild Database from iPod" fixes this, but I still see it as a bug.

4. I noticed that "Year" shows up in the grid when viewing ipod songs, but it's always "0". Does the ipod db even store that? If it doesn't why even show it. If it does, it's not getting populated correctly, or MJ isn't displaying it correctly.

6. With repect to the synch UI, when you get to adding Artists/Albums, I would envision it to work such that If you select an Artist, it automatically selects all the albums; however, if you expand the Artist and select one or more of their Albums then Artist checkbox becomes defaulted to checked.

7. Another issue with Synching, seems to me that when I do a synch there should be an option to check (either in Plugin Options or better yet, right in the Synch Dialog) that allows me to specify whether songs on the iPod but NOT present in the items I've chosen to synch should be deleted from the iPod or left on it.

OK, this last one is a biggy to me:

8. One thing that is going to HUGELY important w/respect to synching is that selections I make when I synch should be remembered so the next time I synch I don't have to re-click all the Playlists/Artists/Albums I want on my iPod. I only have to check new items to synch or uncheck items I don't want synched. optionThis gets to be really important when you synch w/Artists or Albums.

That's probably a bit much...but I've been hanging back for a while. Great progress.

Adam

udeups · « **Reply #66 on:** November 13, 2002, 08:11:10 pm »

I'd like to echo Adam here: great, great progress. The synching was nice and intuitive (with the exception of the minor UI issue he pointed out about checkmarks on the auto-smartlist checkboxes defaulted). I'm very impressed, and I like the direction this is headed.

Quote

Running version 9.0077, plug-in dated 10/13/02

OK, this last one is a biggy to me:

8. One thing that is going to HUGELY important w/respect to synching is that selections I make when I synch should be remembered so the next time I synch I don't have to re-click all the Playlists/Artists/Albums I want on my iPod. I only have to check new items to synch or uncheck items I don't want synched. optionThis gets to be really important when you synch w/Artists or Albums.

While my testing wasn't as extensive as Adam's this last issue he pointed out was the one problem (maybe problem is too harsh a word, but I thought "issue" would sound repetitive) I had. My ideal is that there would be a way I could set the playlists that I would like to synch and never have to do that again if I don't want to. Of course, I could always go in and modify those choices. But, as long as I didn't, there would be a one or two click way to synch my ipod up to those playlists. If I'm not mistaken, iTunes does something along these lines; I'm not sure what MusicMatch does, though.

that's all for now...

goodnight
paul

udeups · « **Reply #67 on:** November 13, 2002, 08:19:28 pm »

I was right about how iTunes does playlist syncing... From the right side of the page at: http://www.apple.com/itunes/sync.html:

Playlist Sync: Similar to autosyncing, Playlist Sync lets you select one or more playlists that will remain in sync with your iPod instead of synchronizing your entire music library. This feature comes in handy if you want the benefits of synchronization, but have amassed a collection of MP3s that exceeds the capacity of your iPod. To activate this option simply connect the iPod to your Mac with the FireWire cable, click the iPod Options button at the lower left of the screen and select "Automatically Update Selected Playlists" only. Pick the playlists you want to sync with iPod, click OK and you're done.

Not that you have to implement this exactly as Apple does it, but I think that this succinctly states what a lot of us have been talking about with regard to sync issues...

paul

willrmc · « **Reply #68 on:** November 13, 2002, 08:20:55 pm »

ok i tested the plugin and let me first say, very nice. this is definately going in a good direction here. ok with that said first off,

i'm having the same problem as ashawley in most of the time when i click on the ipod drive letter, especially when there are a lot of songs on the ipod, it crashes mj. sometimes i have to go in and out of mj like 3 or 4 times before it doesn't crash.

next, the playlist sync seemed to work great on smaller playlists, although i didn't go through and see if every song made it on it seemed to work great. i had the problem with the updating bar disappearing and it looked like it was frozen but i left it for a bit and it completed fine. i suggest putting in a kb/sec indicator as well as an estimated time remaining with the progress bar.

whenever i tried to sync the entire library, or a very big playlist it froze up on me. although now i think it might have just stopped displaying the transfer progress, but i'm not sure.

each build seems to just get better and better, you guys are doing a great service to all win ipod users with this plugin, thanks.

SteveG · « **Reply #69 on:** November 14, 2002, 05:13:11 am »

Sei,

Welcome. The steps you outlined are exactly what you should do. If you have any problems, please post them here.

Everyone,

Thanks for the feedback. Let me work on this today and see what I can do.

Thanks.

Steve

ashawley · « **Reply #70 on:** November 14, 2002, 09:22:01 am »

Steve:

I'd just like to add (after my novel of a post last night) that I was sucessfully able to add my entire collection onto the iPod via synching. It really didn't take that long either. But there was the problem of MJ losing focus and appearing to be frozen when it wasn't.

Just a couple of nits:

1. I like the idea of tranfer speed and time remaining being displayed

2. It might be better, when showing what file is being transferred to not include the full path, but only the song name (from the id3 tag). This is how Xplay handles it, and it "looks" a little better. Displaying the entire path for some users won't let them see what song is being copied (due to long paths).

3. When formatting the iPod for MJ, it would be nice to display a progress bar. Right now, there is no indication as to whether it's working or not.

4. When rebuilding the iPod database from the iPod it would also be nice to display a progress bar.

5. You might want to pass this along to the ver 9 team, but I noticed last night that when creating smart playlists based on Dates, the dates where showing up incorrectly (they just looked like random numbers, althoug I'm sure there was some pattern to them).

That's it for now. Looking forward to the next build!! (and those Album/Artist synch options

)

Adam

SteveG · « **Reply #71 on:** November 14, 2002, 01:08:40 pm »

Everyone,

Thanks again for all the detailed comments. There is a new build of the Plug-in available. To test it, please download the build of version 9 which is coming tonight (I am leaving now).

The new features include..

1) Selections of Playlists for synchronization will be remembered.

2) Improved status reporting for synch, format, and rebuild.

3) Refreshing of the left tree after delete is fixed.

4) Bug fix for synching large amounts of data.

For those of you who want to synch things such as Artist/Album, try creating a smartlist that encompasses the files that you want and then synch the smartlist.

Thanks for all your help.

Seviien · « **Reply #72 on:** November 14, 2002, 02:30:10 pm »

I think I'm missing something... and I was wondering if anyone would be able to help me.

I can't seem to figure out how to bring up the dialog to sync playlists, nor can I find the option to preclude adding duplicates.

Is there a settings menu or something?

willrmc · « **Reply #73 on:** November 14, 2002, 03:29:19 pm »

to sync just right click on the ipod drive and select syncronize files. the overwrite option comes up if/when a duplicate is found.

willrmc · « **Reply #74 on:** November 14, 2002, 05:29:32 pm »

ok, i've been testing the new build and its working well. i transfered my whole library over and it worked fine. however when i was transferring it lost the progress bar again and looked like it had froze, but it hadn't. that and i'm still missing a time remaining and transfer speed indicator.

then i came to a tough spot. after i had synced the ipod and it worked fine, i went back and i was deleting a bunch of tracks from the library and adding a bunch of others. i went to sync again and since it does not delete what is not in the library (or playlist) it filled up and stopped. i couldn't remember exactly what i had deleted, so i had to wipe the ipod and re-sync. if the auto delete was in it could find which songs i no longer had in my library and make the room for the new ones. although i know we have already discussed this, that was my finding using it.
and also, i would like to be able to select certain playlists to transfer AND select transfer all songs so i can put my whole library on as well as certain playlists i want to appear on the ipod. right now i can do a complete sync and then go back and transfer the playlists i want and it works, this would just eliminate 1 step for me.
but again, its working great and keeps getting better every day great work!!

oh and i forgot to mention, i am still having mj crash most of the time when i click on the ipod drive letter. last time it took me about 6 or 7 attempts to show the contents and not crash the app.

Kurt Young · « **Reply #75 on:** November 14, 2002, 05:54:45 pm »

Tested with MJ 9.0.78 and iPod plugin dated November 14, 2002, 4:58:54 PM

Wooooo-hoooo!!! Brilliant work! The synch features are just what I'd hoped for! It's got a few bugs still, but it's coming along so very very nicely. Excellent work, mate, it gets better and better every build!

Process:

Made and populated two MJ playlists, Alpha and Bravo. Right-clicked, selected synchronize files. Put a checkmark on Alpha and hit OK. Sweet sweet success. iPod playlist was created and populated perfectly.

Plugged back in, right-clicked, selected synchronize files. Unchecked Alpha, checked Bravo, and hit OK. Bravo was created on the iPod and the songs were uploaded, but Alpha and its songs were still there -- I had expected them to be deleted.

Formatted iPod for MJ. Right-clicked, selected synchronize. Unchecked Bravo, checked Alpha, hit OK. Got an error message: "Cannot find plug-in 'Playlists'." After hitting OK, I noticed that the Playlists tree was selected under the iPod now.

At this point, no matter what I checked in the synch dialogue would produce the same error. I collapsed the CD, DVD, & Handhelds tree and re-expanded it. Selected Alpha, and it synched successfully. Without collapsing/expanding, I brought up synch again, unchecked Alpha and checked Bravo. Up it went, no problem.

I collapsed, unplugged, and plugged back in (all was well on the iPod when unplugged, btw). Then, I modified the contents of Bravo, removing all the songs on it and adding 11 entirely new songs. Synched Bravo only. All the new songs were uploaded, and the Bravo playlist was populated correctly with the new songs, but the old bravo songs were still on the iPod -- just not on a playlist now. Again, I had expected all the old songs to be deleted from the iPod.

So now it was time to stress test this thang! I formatted, collapsed, and expanded. Brought up the synch dialouge and selected ALL my playlists and smartlists (none of the "auto" smartlists, though); about 12GB of music total. Crossed my fingers and hit OK. Things started going up no problemo, but then I started moving stuff around (like notepad and an explorer window) and MJ got hit with a big ole GUI lock (screenshot). The computer kept clicking, so I figured it was going on in the background, and let it go. Synch started 7:42 PM, and ended at about 8:23 PM. Everything got uploaded perfectly. Sweeeeeet.

By the way, all of this was done with never checking the "Transfer all files" box in the synch dialogue... I'm not really sure what this does.

Kurt Young · « **Reply #76 on:** November 14, 2002, 06:30:35 pm »

One more thing, I like the way that when you click on a playlist, and a song that's on it appears on more than one playlist, every playlist that it's on is listed in the row. Very nice touch! (Did that make any sense at all? My good friend Captain Morgan assures me that it did. Cheers!)

ashawley · « **Reply #77 on:** November 14, 2002, 07:15:31 pm »

Man, more great progress.

Here are my thoughts for the night:

1. I really like that the progress bar includes just the song name when synching. Looks much cleaner, thanks for implementing that.

2. Also like the progress bar when formatting the iPod for MJ.

3. ALSO, like that fact that the tree refreshes after deleteing songs from the iPod.

4. And finally, I REALLY, REALLY like the saved selections on the Synch window. Nice getting that added so quickly.

Now, here are my issues:

1. I think there must be an overall problem with the core of MJ that is causing the progress dialogs to freeze. It happens on Synch and on the Reformating status bars. Interestingly enough, it happens at about the same point (a little less than 1/3 of the progress bar). The reformat one is a little better, it at least progresses, but it's "jerky", meaning it stops at 1/3, then sticks, goes to about 1/2, sticks again, then got to 2/3 sticks, then completes (obviously those are estimates. The progress bar on synch sticks at about 1/3, then we get a GUI screenlock until it's complete (windows task manager show "not responding" btw. Seems like the whole app has a problem w/losing focus and freezing.

2. Still getting crashes when accessing the iPod drive. Usually works after 2-3 crashes.

3. When deleting all songs off of the iPod (by selecting the songs, then hitting delete), the tree refreshes nicely, but the Playlist section still shows the playlists that were on there. That shouldn't be since I've deleted all the songs.

4. Something else I noticed that probably isn't needed: if I select the "All Songs" playlist and synch, it adds a playlist to the ipod called "All Songs". Since the iPod has this capability through the Browse function, I think this is redundant and should not be included as a playlist on the iPod. Also, you have an "all Songs" playlist, but you also have a "Transfer All Songs" checkbox on the Synch dialog box. That seems redundant to me. I, myself, would recommend getting rid of the All Songs playlist from the list of playlists in the synch window and just include the "Transfer All Songs" checkbox. Others may disagree though.'

This is great Steve, awesome work. Soon we'll have the fully functioning all-in-one tool that we've been drooling over. I can't tell you how cool it was today having a full iPod that was loaded last night by MJ!!

Adam

willrmc · « **Reply #78 on:** November 14, 2002, 07:29:46 pm »

one more thing. i think that if you modify tag info on the songs once they sync up again it should reupload those songs. it could just look at the date modified or something and if it is newer on the computer it should reupload the song. thats getting picky though, just an idea for the future.

Seviien · « **Reply #79 on:** November 14, 2002, 09:10:31 pm »

Really nice work ...
My roomate is starting to get jealous. You see, we both have ipods; he syncs with his iBook and he sees where this plugin and MJ in general are going and he's envious. Glad i didn't buy that mac over the summer...

Anyhow, MJ seems to hang when i try to sync over 100 or so songs. Eventually, it pulls itself out, and I get an error message saying something to the effect that there was an error uploading the files. The songs show up on the ipod, but just get skipped over when they would come up in the playlist.

Not sure if it's a hardware or software issue though. I'm using the Firewire port on an SB Audigy ... and i heard those might have some problems. Anyone else using one or run into an error like this?

jgourd · « **Reply #80 on:** November 15, 2002, 04:00:46 am »

The File progress bar is back and transfers appear to be slow again. Am I running the correct build? The plugin has a creation date of 11/9 (176,128 bytes).

I deleted it and downloaded a new one dated 11/15 (274,432 bytes) with a version resource that says: 1.0.0.0. Which is the latest build?

jgourd · « **Reply #81 on:** November 15, 2002, 04:18:26 am »

If you queue up files to be uploaded to the iPod and then use the rename file from properties tool before uploading them, they disappear from the iPod's queue.

jgourd · « **Reply #82 on:** November 15, 2002, 04:23:49 am »

MJ still crashes all the time when clicking on the root icon of the iPod. I believe I have a way to make it stop. If I launch MJ and go right for the iPod it will crash every time. If I launch MJ and view something from the Media Library and then go to the iPod, MJ doesn't crash.

jgourd · « **Reply #83 on:** November 15, 2002, 04:32:01 am »

I sync'ed two playlists. I then brought up the sync dialog again and unchecked one of the playlists and checked another one. Instead of syncing, I got an error dialog that says "Cannot Find Plugin: Four Blind Mice". Four Blind Mice was the playlist I had unchecked.

SteveG · « **Reply #84 on:** November 15, 2002, 06:01:07 am »

Thanks everyone for the feedback.

For those of you seeing the "Cannot find Plug-in" message, be sure to select the root iPod letter with a left click before doing the right click. It is a long story, but when you see that message the Plug-in is still remembering the last item you selected in the tree.

For those of you with crashing problems, first, be sure that the hh_Portable.dll in your Plug-ins directory is dated 11/14 at 4:58PM. If not, delete it and redownload. Also, be sure you are running version 9 from yesterday. If you are still having crashes, please send me your iTunesDB file and I can try to debug from here. (steve @ jriver.com).

jgourd · « **Reply #85 on:** November 15, 2002, 06:37:31 am »

I am not certain why, but mt iPod has MP3s stored at the root of its file system. I have the iTunesDB here:

http://beepcom.tzo.com/itunes.zip

With the current plugin from 4:58PM MJ still crashes.

SteveG · « **Reply #86 on:** November 15, 2002, 01:05:13 pm »

JGourd,

I can open that db fine on Windows 2000 but it fails on XP. I will need to set up a machine to test this and will do so soon and let you know.

Everyone,

I implemented a change to handle deletes when synching, but it is not available because there is no new build of version 9. It will have to wait until Monday.

Have a good weekend all.

Steve

Kurt Young · « **Reply #87 on:** November 15, 2002, 05:53:36 pm »

I got the crash too, most current stuff. If I restore, I can use MJ to load it up again (Which is what I'd do anyways, since I gotta wait till monday, now

Seeya monday, bro... Enjoy your weekend. Go Chiefs!

Kurt

www.pimpin-seattle.d2g.com/images/mjipod/bugreport.zip

willrmc · « **Reply #88 on:** November 15, 2002, 06:32:45 pm »

steve, it seems to crsh everytime i try to access the ipod now, unless it is completely empty. i will send you my itunesdb file for you to look at. here is my system info as well thanks again.

no cheifs, go broncos!

Media Jukebox PLUS 9.0.78
Install Path: C:\Program Files\J River\Media Jukebox\

CPU: Intel Pentium 4 1792 MHz MMX
Memory: Total - 260 MB, Free - 83 MB
OS: Microsoft Windows XP Workstation 5.1 (Build 2600)

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2600.0000
ComCtl32.dll: 6.00.2600.0000
Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2600.0000
Shell32.dll: 6.00.2600.0000
wnaspi32.dll: Internal ASPI Layer

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

Burning / Drive E: MITSUMI CR-48XATE Addr: 1:0:0 Speed:32 MaxSpeed:32 Lib:2 GHS:1 Use MJ Engine:No
Drive F: TOSHIBA DVD-ROM SD-M1612 Addr: 1:1:0 Speed:0 MaxSpeed:0 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

bmp · « **Reply #89 on:** November 17, 2002, 02:11:06 pm »

finally made the switch from ephpod, to just make my life a little easier.

looks good, haven't used it much, but have two suggestions from things i noticed right away.

1.) don't think i've read about this. ephpod had a nice ability to arrange to order of playlists through a simple drag up/drag down interface, i'd love to have that ability back.

2.) is a dynamic "all songs" playlist from all the files on the ipod possible?

3.) this one is huge. the ability to sync by album/artist is something that is of utmost importance to me, as i don't want to make a playlist for each album i have.

4.) in the synchronization menu, a way to collapse each tree would be great, as well as a way to select all of a parent's children automatically.

bmp · « **Reply #90 on:** November 17, 2002, 02:59:11 pm »

ditto on the crashing. just as just as i made a couple smartlists to try out...

Kurt Young · « **Reply #91 on:** November 17, 2002, 03:28:11 pm »

Hang in there with us, bmp... the plugin's a few builds from being done. It's already a hell of a tool, and I'm using it exclusively to fill my iPod

Rick11 · « **Reply #92 on:** November 18, 2002, 10:41:45 am »

I'm new to Media Jukebox (have been using XPlay with my Window 20GB iPod).

I also used Music Match.

I get MJ to see my iPod on drive J:...but with no name after it. If I look in Windows Explorer it's labeled as Rick's iPod.

However every time I try to see what's on J: it gives me the message Cannot find plug-in 'Portable Drives'. When I click OK it immediately crashes MJ.

I'm running Windows XP. I removed XPlay from the computer...but not Music Match (it's not running anyway).

What am I doing wrong and how can I get MJ to allow me to access the iPod it sees on drive J:?

Thanks.

Rick

SteveG · « **Reply #93 on:** November 18, 2002, 10:59:37 am »

Everyone,

Thanks for reporting the crashes, also thanks Will and JGourd for the iTuensDB files. I have found and squashed a bug that I think will help a lot. The fix is now posted.

Rick,

Try changing the volume label to "IPOD".

Rick11 · « **Reply #94 on:** November 18, 2002, 11:46:54 am »

Thanks for the advice.

I changed the label to iPod and it shows up that way in Windows Explorer...but not in MJ. Just shows the drive letter and nothing after it.

Same thing happens when I try to select it with the same error message... Cannot find plug-in 'Portable Drives'... and then it crashes MJ when I click OK.

Funny that it doesn't recognize it, as I can see the MP3 files in the directory on the iPod and copy to it if I wish using Window Explorer.

Do I need to download MJ Ver. 9 beta for this to work?

I've tried re-installing the plug-in several times and it always installs successfully.

H-E-L-P...

Rick

SteveG · « **Reply #95 on:** November 18, 2002, 11:53:58 am »

Rick,

You do not need v 9 for this to work, although there is a lot of functionality that you will want that is unavailable with 8. Whichever version you use, in Explorer, go to the Media Jukebox Plugins directory and delete the file hh_portable.dll. Redownload the iPod Plugin and try again.

If you are still stuck, let me know.

Steve

SteveG · « **Reply #96 on:** November 18, 2002, 01:24:49 pm »

Everyone,

There is a new Plug-in posted that includes a checkbox in the Synchronization Dialogue that allows for files not in the synch to be deleted. This option requires the latest build of version 9 from today. This is not extensively tested, so proceed with caution.

More tomorrow.

Steve

Rick11 · « **Reply #97 on:** November 18, 2002, 02:43:11 pm »

Well Steve,

I did everything I can think of including what you suggested by removing the DLL completely and reinstalling it from MJ after I rebooted my computer. And, although my drive letter still shows up in MJ under CD, DVD & Handhelds with the correct icon as J:, there's no label after it and I can't access it.

I've totally removed XPlay. Windows XP automatically finds the iPod as Drive J: but, after that I'm stumped. It's terrible to be very computer literate (I beta tested XPlay and many other programs) and be at a total loss as to why MJ doesn't want to handle the iPod.

I'm not running Music Match, although it is installed on my system. When checking the J: (iPod) drive I see that there are remnants on the iPod from XPlay...but XPlay says they won't interefere with anything.

I'll try removing them next although that shouldn't affect anything.

H-E-L-P again. Anything that looked like this before for anybody.

Thanks,

Rick

jgourd · « **Reply #98 on:** November 18, 2002, 02:50:56 pm »

Rick11: If you do not object to erasing your iPod, read on.

In MJ, if you right-click on the iPod's icon in MJ and choose "Format for MJ" or "Rebuild DB from Files", I am sure that the iPod will show up properly in MJ.

The iPod's icon is never named anything other than its drive letter.

Rick11 · « **Reply #99 on:** November 18, 2002, 04:01:04 pm »

I reinstalled MJ and the iPod...and now it is showing up under the drive letter, and you are correct, there is no label for the drive except the letter.

However, I'm lost at how to get rid of the XPlay files which obviously aren't formatted the same way as MJ would format. And for that matter...just how do copy files over and where do you put them.

Xplay made it easy with a folder for Playlists, Artists and Albums and loaded everything into the correct folders when you just dragged the albums onto the Xplay folder icon.

I tried to reformat the iPod as suggested, but when I right click on the drive letter for the iPod I don't get the option to "Format for MJ" or "Rebuild DB from Files", just "Add SubFolder", "Show Queued files only", "Play", "Add to playing" and "Explore".

Any ideas or suggestions?

Thanks,

Rick

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Author Topic: iPod Plug-in (Read 21399 times)