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[SteveG]

IDSmoker,

Adam's advice is on the money. (Thanks Adam)


bvm,

Yes, .275 should fix your issue.


gpvillamil,

It sounds as if the intialize fixes the problem. Are you seeing the problem reappearing? If so, please email me the iTunesDB file from your iPod so I can see what is wrong (steve @ jriver.com).  Did you recently reimport files into your MC library that already were on the iPod?


Tom,

What happened when you imported the .aa files, did MC say it succeeded? If you look in Media Library and sort by 'File Type' you do not see any aa files? There is no limitation that would prevent MC from importing files from the Audible directory.

[Tracey]

Can't sync
I just d/l the newest version (9.1.274). Did a full Restore and initialized my ipod for mc9. Synced all my lists/music to the IPOd no problem. Made some changes in mc9 and did another sync. I got an error message (which can't be read, it's only half visible, just the exclamation mark) And now every time I synch it crashes.

I started again from scratch... restore via ipod manager, initialized, synched all my music to IPOD.  Worked great.  Tried a 2nd synch, crahsed my computer.  So in order to synch past the initial one, the only way it works is to restore/initialize/sync all.   ?

This didn't happen with the version I first had, which was whatever I downloaded as the trial version  - 9.0...
Is this a known bug with the 274 build? Is there a newer one on the way?  On these boards I've seen this problem, but it's with the older builds...
Thanks


Windows XP
Ipod 15g (new)
MC9 9.1.274

[SteveG]

Tracey,

This is not a known bug with .274. We have to try to narrow down what is happening for you. When you are synching, what options are checked (i.e. 'Delete Files not selected','Update Tags',etc)? What happens if after the first sync you don't do anything and sync again? If this causes a crash, save a copy of your iTunesDB from your iPod before the 2nd sync and after the second sync and email me them at steve @ jriver.com so I can try to sort this out.

iTunesDB is on your iPod in the iPod_Control\iTunes folder.

[Tracey]

Steve,

I sent an email with the database.  And yes, the 2nd try I synced immediatly after the first synch, without adjusting/changing anything in the library....


Tracey

[IDSmoker]

Since you have a 2nd gen iPod that doesn't support ratings, there will not be any rating information to update MC9 with.  So, your ratings will always stay what you set them in MC9.

Ahhhh, so the 2nd Gen doesn't even store any Rating info in it's database... what about the "Date/Time Last Played" information?  Same deal?

That's what I get for assuming that the database structure is the same between the different iPod generations.... of course, my last assumption, made when I bought my iPod after the winiPods first came out, was that Apple would come out with a firmware upgrade to support on-the-fly playlists and ratings on the $500 device I had just purchased.... silly me.

BTW, you need to upgrade to a 3rd gen.  It'll let you get rid of all those pesky notes.    Want to change the rating on a song?  Just do it while it's playing.  It's a nifty feature.

Yes, I do like the added functionality of the 3rd gen pods, but I really don't like what they did to the buttons (both repositioning them and making them touch-sensitive), the battery life, or the goofy proprietary connector.

What I really want is the functionality of the 3rd gen iPod combined with the form factor of the 2nd gen iPods.

Of course, since Apple has already shown their contempt for the people who have already given them money (as opposed to the people they are still trying to get money from), I'll have to wait for someone else to make my dream device, since I will never buy another Apple product.  

Sorry, I guess that last comment really belongs in a different sort of forum...  

[SteveG]

IDSmoker,

The last played information will sync with MC if you have the 'Sync Portable info' option checked.  If the last played is more current than what is in MC, it will replace this field.

Steve

[Phil Lee]

I am successfully synching last played and play count data from my 10Gb Gen 2 iPod with MC 9.1.273. Since everything is working perfectly for me I'm going to wait a few builds before I upgrade again.

[ashawley]

Tracey:

Something to try...it's been known to cause issues in the past:

Uninstall iPod Manager.  I've seen folks have problems syncing and uninstalling this has solved those problems.

If you need to restore your iPod, you will still be able to by going to Start>Programs>iPod>Updater

Adam

[thosj]

Tom,

What happened when you imported the .aa files, did MC say it succeeded? If you look in Media Library and sort by 'File Type' you do not see any aa files? There is no limitation that would prevent MC from importing files from the Audible directory.

OK, they were there, took me some doing to find them, being new to MC9. Wow, if this software could brush my teeth, it'd do everything. I'm getting there!!

Now I might have to get HMO for my TiVo and try that!!

[mcphzgig]

I have just seen a recurrence of a problem I first saw several months ago.  I reported it at the time, but no-one else was able to corroborate.

I am using a 20Gb Series 2 iPod, with the 1.3 Updater installed (last time I saw this I was using 1.2).

I do a full upload of 2000-odd tracks from Media Center on my desktop computer (probably about 9.1.263? - it's in Australia and I'm not).  Beautiful - All Composer tags present and accounted for on the iPod.

Later I rip a new CD on my laptop (Build 9.1.274) and then synchronize those tracks (and just those tracks) to the iPod by means of a couple of new Playlists.  Zippo - all the previous (good) Composer info in the iPod has gone, and only the Composer for the new tracks is visible.  The old tracks are still accessible by Album or Artist - just not by Composer.

Any ideas, because it's a pain in the a**.    

[BlueGlow]

Hi Steve,
Good news for me. I just did a nice clean sync using .277 with data flowing both ways and everything looks good. I think this is my first sync where all the data features were turned on and there were no glitches. Ratings flowed both ways, last played was just right, and all my playlists made it to the iPod.

Thanks!
  BG

[maxl311]

I'm using build 277 with a 15gb 3g iPod, and everything is working well except for one tiny glitch: after I start synchronization, and the Sync Progress opens ("syncing file xx of xx") the total number of files reported in this box is about 900 or so more than the actual number of music files on my iPod. Any idea what is happening here?

BTW, the iPod support of MC 9.1 is frickin' AWESOME! No one else even comes close.

Media Center Registered 9.1.277 -- C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center\

Microsoft Windows XP  Workstation 5.1 Service Pack 1 (Build 2600)
AMD Athlon 2001 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 1048 MB, Free - 492 MB

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2800.1106 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82 (xpsp1.020828-1920) / Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2800.1226 / Shell32.dll: 6.00.2800.1233 (xpsp2.030604-1804) / wnaspi32.dll: 4.60 (1021) , ASPI for Win32 (95/NT) DLL, Copyright © 1989-1999 Adaptec, Inc. / Aspi32.sys: 4.60 (1021)

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

Burning /  Drive E: ATAPI    CD-RW 52X24        Addr: 1:0:0  Speed:24  MaxSpeed:52  BurnProof:Yes
  Test mode: No /  Eject after writing: Yes /  Direct decoding: Yes /  Write CD-Text: Yes
  Use playback settings: No /  Normalization: None

[Macavity]

I'm using build 277 with a 15gb 3g iPod, and everything is working well except for one tiny glitch: after I start synchronization, and the Sync Progress opens ("syncing file xx of xx") the total number of files reported in this box is about 900 or so more than the actual number of music files on my iPod. Any idea what is happening here?

Any songs that are in multiple playlists will appear in the count multiple times. Only one copy of the song actually syncs.

[Jonny5]

Hi there, I just thought I'd share my feelings about the "Delete Files" check box on the sync dialog.

I have a 15Gb iPod wich is easily big enough to keep all my music on at the moment.  To ensure I get all my songs onto the iPod I have a "My Music" smartlist which has every song in the library on it.  I never ever listen to this playlist, the only reason I have it is to ensure all my music is on the pod.  I only have a few playlists and most of the time I just play music by browsing the artist/album options on the iPod.  At the moment I sync with the delete files option selected and include my "My Music" playlist.  I also have a smartlist for new tracks (imported in the last two weeks).  If I sync the iPod with "delete files" selected and I only choose the "New Stuff" to sync I'd expect to only have the files in the "New Stuff" playlist on the pod, which is how it currently works.  If I had all my music on the pod though and synced just the "New Stuff" playlist with the "Delete Files" option turned off I'd expect the playlist to sync again and mirror the playlist in media center but I'd also expect all my other music to remain on the iPod.  If I understand correctly with the current functionality the "New Stuff" playlist would get added to rather than replaced if I do not select the "Delete Files" option.

I'm not sure I explained that very well but to sum up:
1.  Playlists should always match between the pod and MC after a sync.
2.  If the "Delete FIles" option is selected then files not in one of the playlists should be removed.
3.  If the "Delete Files" option is not selected then all files should be left on the iPod but removed from the playlists.

Top product though.  

[SteveG]

Copied post by TJobbins....

Hi,

Bug: When syncing a playlist, MC crashes when it is skipping files that have already been synced to the ipod.

I started with MC 9.1.275. I named my iPod as IPOD (as per a user guide I found on this forum - don't know if that's still necessary), then Initialised it in MC.

I then created a Smartlist containing 3100 tracks, right clicked on my pod, and selected Sync.  Under options I chose 'Force conversion', telling it to convert my .APE files to 'Normal/High' quality VBR MP3.  I told it to skip any file already of type MP3.

I then clicked go, and off it went, no problems.  Eventually, 14 hours later, I needed to use MC to rip a CD.  So I waited until just after it had synced a batch of files to the pod, and clicked Cancel.  By this point 1,700 of my 3,100 files had been uploaded.

A little later I then tried to restart the resync-  I went through exactly the same procedure as above. When starting to sync I noticed it was saying something like 'Skipping XXX.APE', which I assumed was because that file was already on the pod.  It did a few of these, then MC disappeared completely - no crash or debug message, it just went.

I repeated this many times, every time with the same result.  I then upgraded to MC 9.1.279, but the problem exists there too.

Eventually I have been forced to create a new smartlist which doesn't have any of the music that's already on the pod, and that now seems to be syncing ok again.

Any help much appreciated!


Tom

PS. The method I used to create the smartlist of stuff not on the pod, was pretty crap - I simply noticed that the files on the pod had been uploaded and that the last artist was 'L', and therefore manually created the new smartlist for all artists with a name starting with M onwards.  What I Really wanted to do was create a smartlist that said 'exclude any file copied to ipod' -  is there a way to do that?

[ashawley]

I'm not sure I explained that very well but to sum up:
1.  Playlists should always match between the pod and MC after a sync.
2.  If the "Delete FIles" option is selected then files not in one of the playlists should be removed.
3.  If the "Delete Files" option is not selected then all files should be left on the iPod but removed from the playlists.

Jonny5:  YES!!!!  

That's my belief too.  Essentially, the way it works now is if Delete files is left unchecked, the existing playlists that are on the iPod are left as is and any new songs are added to them.  So, the playlists become a sum of previous playlists plus the new playlists you sync.

This doesn't make sense to me, personally, but Steve said it was by design. IMO, regardless of delete files being checked, playlists in MC9 should always match Playlists on the iPod.  The songs on the iPod (that were part of previously sync playlists) should stay on the iPod, just not as part of a playlist.

'Course if Kurt and I got our way, all three options (delete files, update tags and sync MC to PC) would be gone and we wouldn't have to have this conversation.  

So, c'mon people, what's your vote?

Adam

[maxl311]

Any songs that are in multiple playlists will appear in the count multiple times. Only one copy of the song actually syncs.

That makes sense now that you explain it. However, imho it is confusing and looks like an error when on one screen it says that there are 2982 files on the iPod and then the Sync Progress box says that it is syncing 3861 songs. I know that this is a very minor cosmetic thing compared to the really cool stuff that works well like ratings and playcount syncing, but my vote would be to change the Sync Progress window so that it reports the actual number of files it is syncing.

[Macavity]

I'm not sure I explained that very well but to sum up:
1.  Playlists should always match between the pod and MC after a sync.
2.  If the "Delete FIles" option is selected then files not in one of the playlists should be removed.
3.  If the "Delete Files" option is not selected then all files should be left on the iPod but removed from the playlists.

I'm with Jonny5 and Adam. This is how I wish it worked...

Mac

[ddaro]

This isn't a question more of a comment....

I just love my MC9  

At first I had a few problems but that was only because of my dumb mistakes. I've been using it a couple of months now with my iPod and couldn't live without it. Smarlists are the best thing since sliced bread.

So thank you Steve and everyone else involved for doing such a great job and helping us out at the forum.

[ph_bradley]

the ashawley help guide really needs updating, if he has the time - there have been a lot of changes since he wrote it.

The 'add to playlist feature' really needs updating. Admittedly I haven't reinitialised with a recent build, which may be whats causing it to not work properly, but here's what went wrong just in case:

I uploaded several files using the drop target (Action window).
After uploading, take a look which files are on my iPod. Usually I upload files by synchronising with my 'all music' smartlist, so most files have 'all music' in the playlist field - all apart from the ones I just uploaded. Having all the music on my iPod is an advantage to me because I just play that playlist on shuffle.
Right clicking one of these empty files, I see 'add to playlist'. I try to add it to my 'all music' playlist - no success. I type some other name see if that works, 'iPod'. A playlist called iPod is created in the playlist group in the iPod directory. (note, none of the files in the general view register as being on the iPod playlist - even though i supposedly added them).

The one file in the iPod playlist has no name, artist or album. It is rated 1 star, every time ( i tried add to several new playlists). Track #1, length 1h 48 min 23 secs, bitrate 13769928, no file type.

What's going on, unless I just need to reinitialise?

[SteveG]

mcphzgig,

Build .275 or later should fix this. Sorry.

BlueGlow,

Thanks for the good news.

maxl311,

Thanks for the compliments. I will look to modify the count to be less confusing.

tjobbins,

I fixed something today that may take care of this for you. It is not in tonight's build, but if you want to check it out, download version 9.0.66 of the Portable Drives plugin or get tomorrow's MC.


ddaro,

Thanks.

ph_bradley,

I cannot duplicate this. Perhaps it sounds like your iTunesDB is messed up. If you are running a version from more than a few days ago, try getting the latest and do a Rebuild Database from iPod or Initialize. If you had files on your iPod and then deleted them from your MC database and then reimported them and tried to sync, this could be your problem.


Everyone,

I will look to remove the sync checkboxes soon.

Steve

[bvm]

bvm,

Yes, .275 should fix your issue.

Thanks, Steve.  Since I installed it (.276, actually), I haven't had any trouble with my composers menu.

HOWEVER, I have had a repeat of some earlier woes.  I took notes this time, so here's how it went....

I've been synching to some smartlists of my own.  Last night I added some more of them, plus an ordinary playlist.  After synching, there were no playlists on my iPod (or more precisely, I had one playlist whose name was blank and whose contents were empty).

So I plugged in my iPod again and clicked the synch button.  MC gave me a warning "Some portable files are not in MC database and could not be updated."  It then proceeded with the synch, after which the content pane for my iPod drive reported fewer files than in the master smartlist I was synching from.  I wish I could tell you exactly which files were allegedly missing from the iPod, but "Export Playlist" doesn't work for the iPod drive (is that a bug I should report?)  In a cursory examination of the iPod, I found one album missing (it wasn't in the Albums menu, it wasn't in the Composers menu).  Coincidentally or not, a subset of that album made up my one ordinary playlist.

So I plugged the iPod in again and clicked on the iPod drive in MC.  MC responded with an error dialog titled "h." with no error message inside, just as it had in one of my earlier bouts.  Clicking the Synch button gave the same error dialog.

So I did a "Rebuild Database from iPod", after which the content pane reported the right number of files.  Finally, another Synch restored my playlists, and I seem to be okay at the moment.

[Sam]

It's nice to see the iPod picture instead of that purple thing...  
But can we get a picture of the newer version?
Thanks.

[Phil Lee]

I have stuck with the 273 build for the last week or so and have synched my iPod with it 4 or 5 times. Tonight after my synch I had lost all playlists just like bvm described. I have backed up my database, upgraded to 280 and initialised my iPod. I have resynched my music and am currently performing a second synch. Hopefully the smartlists and one playlist will still be there. I'll keep an eye on things to see how they go.

Edit: still no playlists. I wonder what's happening?

Edit 2: playlists are back. I restored my iPod using the updater and can now synch with playlists. At least I have been able to synch 1 smartlist and 1 playlist to my iPod. I am currently synching all my iPod play/smartlists now so will report back in 20 minutes.

Edit 3: wow, after restoring my iPod I am getting a file upload speed of 13.9Mb/s, a new record . Hope all the smartlists will be there.

I have a Gen 2 10Gb iPod with firmware 1.3 on it.

PS installed iTunes, had a quick look, got an error message to say that it didn't have the software for my iPod installed properly and decided to stick with MC

[tjobbins]

Update on my crash: seeing the similar problems posted by others on this thread, I downgraded to .264 - and that has fixed the problem, I am now syncing fine, files already on the pod are skipped ok.

So I guess I was having the exact same problem as others - except I never got a 'media core' exception, MC just stopped running

I might try .280 soon, see if that still shows the problem.

[Phil Lee]

Last played data seems to be broken in 9.1.280. I worked from a freshly restored and initialised iPod. I then uploaded a full synch. I then played 1 track and synched again. The last played time for half my library was set to a stupid number. The clock on my iPod was set 2m 54s slower than my PC clock. I'll try again with the clocks set closer together and report back.

PS I've just discovered all my playlists have disappeared again too to be replaced by a single blank playlist. This is getting frustrating.

Edit: OK, I'm trying the database rebuild function to see what happens. BTW, the GUI screen locks and MC is reported as not responding during the rebuild.

Edit: After the rebuild and a synch I got the playlists back on the iPod. I was then able to do another synch which successfully updated the last played time for one track. Everything seems to be working but I'll be keeping a close eye on things.

Edit: I spoke too soon. After disconnecting my Ipod there are no playlists on it. This is really frustrating.

Edit: Playlists are back after a rebuild and synch.

[gpvillamil]

Me too, same as Phil. After initializing things are back to normal.

[willrmc]

I just thought i'd let everyone know that MC9 works with ipod2.1 as long as you don't install itunes. i successfully did a 2.1 restore then full sync with my 3g 30gb.   its nice to have the on-the-go playlists functioning properly.   now we need to figure out how to sync the on-the-go back to mc9 like you can in the new itunes. cool stuff. i would also sure love to get aac support eventually though. even if i have to pay extra.

thanks for the continued hard work everyone at jriver, it really shows when a 3rd party developer with no help at all from apple can by far outdo them at their own game.  

[bdjohns1]

Hmm...well, here's how things seem to stand on AAC "support" right now:

* Playback works in MC9 using WinAmp in_mp4 plugin, regardless of extension (MP4, M4A, AAC)
* Tags can be entered, although it gives an error when I click out of the file and it tries to save the tags
* File will not sync unless the extension is .AAC (which is incorrect - all songs that iTunes creates have the MPEG-4 wrapper, and should have the M4A extension - conceivably, M4P and MP4 should be allowed by the plugin)
* File will not play back on iPod, regardless of what created it (I tested fastenc and iTunes-Windows) - when I load, it appears that the song is 0:00 in length

[Kurt Young]

Willmrc:

What exactly was fixed with On The Go?  I don't notice any difference...

Steve, and anyone who's interested in m'opinion:

I despise iTunes, and will not be using it again.  

Pros:  The radio is well-populated with a great variety of stations.  Also, I LOVE the Explorer iCons it comes with for MP3 files.  iPod sync is nice and streamlined, going on almost in the background, and going very fast.  I love the two buttons on the bottom:  One for your iPod options dialogue (and it's a GREAT options dialogue) and one to eject.  They should have a button to start sync like we do, though, hehe!

Cons:  Well, I'll be nice and say that I just prefer MC9.  I like having a couple choices here and there.  I like flexibility, I like smartlists that refresh themselves, I like having a "Playing Now" and being able to browse my library and listen to music at the same time.  There is no way in hell that I will consider for another moment replacing MC9 with iTunes for my at-the-desk music needs.  Thus, I will never use it for my iPod needs.

Which means, Steve my friend, that I'm still here for ya, and still counting on you to keep up the good work.  Your iPod software outshines the manufacturer's iPod software any day of the week, and you have my thanks and my hopes for the future of my pod.

So, here's to the future:

I'm looking forward to AAC.  Someone said that "As of today, AAC is a mainstream format on Windows" and I hope that it'll be here soon.  Cutting my file sizes in half is very desirable.

I'm hoping that the more intricate features of iTunes-prepared iPods will be able to be worked into MC9 now that you have non HFS+ examples to use.  Things like "dynamic" smartlists which update themselves while on the go (eg the default iTunes "Recently Played" and "Top Rated" smartlists).  Also, while volume leveling works to an extent (I didn't like it much) in MC9, it's not tied to the "Sound Check" option in the iPod; I hope that it can be one day, since this will allow it to be toggled.

In the near future, I think the "All Music" smartlist problem and the eventual removal of those checkboxes me and Adam are on ya about are both important.  And get that iPod back in the Action Window!

One last thing... While in iTunes, I renamed my iPod to "Lil' Geisha" -- it's been "IPOD" since I started with MC9.  Well, I launched MC9 and it works with my Lil' Geisha just fine!  Neat!  No manual editing of the plugin, hehe!

[tjobbins]

Looks like I spoke too soon.. actually my problem wasn't fixed by downgrading

Steve, thanks for the fix, haven't had a chance to try it yet.   However I have managed to diagnose exactly what the problem is, so I'll post it here in case this is different to what you fixed:

My sync was always crashing at the same place, at the point where it was trying to skip two songs called 'Friday I'm In Love'.
Basically when I did the sync it was skipping a whole bunch of files already on the pod, eventually it would get to a point in my Smartlist where there were two copies of Friday I'm In Love next to each other.  Their configuration was:
First in list
Name=Friday I'm In Love
Artist=Cure, The
Album=Misc
Track No=<empty>
Format=APE
Bitrate=930
Second in list
Name=Friday I'm In Love
Artist=Cure, The
Album=Wish
Track No=7
Format=APE
Bitrate=930

As soon as it reached these two files (I'm not sure if it happened when it hit the first, or the second), MC would stop running.

I worked around the problem by deleting these two files from my iPod - therefore next time I synced, it uploaded them both again rather than skipping them, and the sync worked fine.

This problem has occurred on all versions of MC from .274 up to .280

I've looked through my playlist, and I have many other occasions where there are two files next to each other with the same name.  So I'm not sure what's different about 'Friday I'm In Love'

Let me know if you'd like any more debug.

Thanks


Tom

[kiwi]

I have a quick question.   When sync'ing my iPod, I have the options to "Delete unselcted files from portable"    I would really like to be able to have it "manage it's playlists"  so that I could have a random 1 hour long playlist that would be updated with random music every time I sync.

This seems to work alright if I don't but any files on elsewhere, however, I want to use iTunes to manage my Audible files because it seems to be a bit more integrated.  I'd really like to have the option to have MC only delect files that were in selected playlists, but have been replaced in those playlists.

Sorry, that was a bit confusing.

Basically, I'd like to have MC handle syncing of iPod playlists.  Any file that was in a playlist that I'm syncing that is no longer in that playlist (and I'm still syncing that playlist), should be removed.  Any files that aren't in playlists should be left alone.  Is that possible?

thanks,
kiwi

[tjobbins]

Hey,

Just discovered two new bugs:

1.
When syncing with 'Force Convert' on, some files have large amounts of silence added to the end.    Bug present on .279 and .280 (not tried any other versions)

Most of my library is in Monkey's Audio APE format.  So when I sync I choose 'Force Convert', selecting 'MP3 VBR' with quality set to 'Normal/High'.  After syncing most of my library, I found that around 50 tracks (of 2000) were much longer than they should be.  A 5 minute track was 17 minutes; a 12 minute track was 1 hour.  I listened to these on my iPod and found that the song was there, followed by a huge
period of silence.

I deleted those 50 tracks and ran the sync again, to re-upload those plus upload the rest of my library.
I then ended up with about 20 tracks showing the problem - a few were the same as the original 50, the rest were different.  So it does not
always happen on certain tracks.

I thought this might be a problem with the MP3 encoder rather than the iPod plugin - I tested this by choosing 450 tracks of my collection,
including 5 or so that had ripped with silence to the iPod.  I chose Library Tools->Convert Format, and selected the same settings I used
when syncing.  They all encoded with no problem.  I took one album and repeated the test twice more with that album, and each time it was fine.
I therefore assume the problems lie with the ipod module rather than the encode module.

Note that my original sync was done on .279, the update on .280, so the problem exists for me in both versions.

2.
Also I found that after sync I had at least one track that had been syncd twice - I confirmed that it was only present once in my library.
Both copies of the file were identical on the ipod.




Tom

[bdjohns1]

Which means, Steve my friend, that I'm still here for ya, and still counting on you to keep up the good work.  Your iPod software outshines the manufacturer's iPod software any day of the week, and you have my thanks and my hopes for the future of my pod.

So, here's to the future:

I'm looking forward to AAC.  Someone said that "As of today, AAC is a mainstream format on Windows" and I hope that it'll be here soon.  Cutting my file sizes in half is very desirable.

I'm hoping that the more intricate features of iTunes-prepared iPods will be able to be worked into MC9 now that you have non HFS+ examples to use.  Things like "dynamic" smartlists which update themselves while on the go (eg the default iTunes "Recently Played" and "Top Rated" smartlists).  Also, while volume leveling works to an extent (I didn't like it much) in MC9, it's not tied to the "Sound Check" option in the iPod; I hope that it can be one day, since this will allow it to be toggled.

That "AAC is now mainstream" comment was me.

There was a comment over in another thread that I saw to be rather interesting - if I was reading it right, other applications can play back protected AAC files through the QuickTime 6.4 install that's provided with iTunes.  Presumably, the resident geniuses at JRiver could use QT's API to do all the magic with AAC files (and maybe even give us access to the protected stuff!)

That said, I agree - MC9 still kicks iTunes butt.  This just gives us an opportunity to get more enhancements into MC and make it even better.  

[SteveG]

bvm,

My best guess is that you removed files from MC that were on the iPod. Reimported them into MC and then synched them without cleaning the iPod.  This may cause problems possibly corrupting the database. It sounds like you are all set. If you see the problem again, email me your iTunesDB file and I can try to prevent the crash. (steve @ jriver.com).

Sam,

Maybe.


Phil and gpvillamil,

Sounds like you are OK for now. If you see the problem again, please try to isolate what is going on so I can replicate what you are seeing.


willrmc,

Thanks.

bdjohns1,

Thanks for the update. I added the ability to sync M4P and MP4 even though playback will not work for now.


Kurt,

Thanks for the feedback and for all your suggestions along the way.

Tom,

Not sure about those particular two files. I would be curious if you reinitialized your iPod and then focused on those files to see if the problem goes away.

I could not quickly reproduce the silence on conversion problem. I will try again. When you say a file was synched twice, my best guess is that you either deleted and reimported the song, or you have two copies of the song with the same tag info.


Kiwi,

Basically, I'd like to have MC handle syncing of iPod playlists.  Any file that was in a playlist that I'm syncing that is no longer in that playlist (and I'm still syncing that playlist), should be removed.  Any files that aren't in playlists should be left alone.  Is that possible?

Currently if you check the 'Delete unselected files' you will get your desired behavior during sync for playlists. Is your further request that files that are unassigned to any playlist remain on iPod?

Steve

[kiwi]

Basically, I'd like to have MC handle syncing of iPod playlists.  Any file that was in a playlist that I'm syncing that is no longer in that playlist (and I'm still syncing that playlist), should be removed.  Any files that aren't in playlists should be left alone.  Is that possible?

Currently if you check the 'Delete unselected files' you will get your desired behavior during sync for playlists. Is your further request that files that are unassigned to any playlist remain on iPod?

Very succinctly put.  Exactly what I was trying to explain.

I'd like to have a way for MC to manage the Playlists that it has put on the device, but not touch data that other programs have put on the device.  Sure, the device could get out of sync, or the playlists could get deleted in a rebuilding of the DB, but if it worked most of the time, it would be great.

Further, I'd like to be able to add songs to the iPod with MC, without adding them to a playlist and have it not remove those songs.

I don't know how much work something like this would take... especially since managing it manually is inconvenient, but certainly not hard to do.

I was thinking about it, and what I really want is to have MC only manage files that are in the playlists that are to be synced.  It's easy to delete a whole playlist if I don't want it on the iPod any longer, it much more of a pain to have to put back multiple files that weren't in playlists that got deleted.

Just throwing out ideas.

kiwi

[Phil Lee]

Steve, I'm not OK. I can reproduce the problem I'm experiencing every time. The sequence is as follows:

1. Initialise iPod in MC
2. Synch iPod. All music is transferred and playlists are shown on the iPod.
3. Play a track on the iPod.
4. Synch the iPod again. MC play count and last played info is updated.
5. Music is still on the iPod but no playlists are present.

I am currently at stage 3 with my iPod. I have both music and playlists on it. When I next synch the iPod I expect all my playlists to disappear from it. I have gone through this process 3 times and it has behaved in exactly the same way all 3 times. Rebuilding the database and resynching does not recreate the playlists. The only way to get them back is to initialise the iPod.

I am using MC 9.1.280 with the handheld plugin that came with that version. I have a Gen 2 10Gb iPod using version 1.3 of the firmware.

[gpvillamil]

Yep, I'm showing exactly the same behavior as Phil.

The sync dialogue said it was transferring 3092 songs to the iPod - however, MC reports 2865 files on the iPod, and the iPod itself reports 577 songs. Playlists are gone, replaced by a single blank playlist.

Playcount and last played info is OK and accurate.

I've saved the iTunesDB file and will e-mail it shortly.

Cheers, and keep up the good work!

Media Center Registered 9.1.280 -- C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center\

Microsoft Windows XP  Workstation 5.1 Service Pack 1 (Build 2600)
Intel Unknown 196 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 654 MB, Free - 412 MB

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2800.1106 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82 (xpsp1.020828-1920) / Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2800.1226 / Shell32.dll: 6.00.2800.1233 (xpsp2.030604-1804) / wnaspi32.dll: N/A
Ripping /   Drive D:   Copy mode:ModeSecure   CD Type:Auto   Read speed:Max
  Digital playback: Yes /  Use YADB: Yes /  Get cover art: No /  Calc replay gain: Yes /  Copy volume: 32767
  Eject after ripping: No /  Play sound after ripping: No  

Burning /  No burners found.
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  Use playback settings: No /  Normalization: None

[gpvillamil]

Oh, I'm using a 2G iPod with firmware 1.3.

Also, I'm now using a playlist management scheme identical to Phil's, with the same Smartlist groups.

About half the time, I get a dialog coming up at the beginning of the sync that says that some files no longer exist on MC and will not be updated. This is understandable, as I usually move & rename files between syncs. I will try to verify if this comes up everytime I have a failed sync.

So far, re-initializing and doing a full sync repairs everything - it's just inconvenient and time consuming.

[eddiea]

OK, after going through this fiasco with iTunes (I've uninstalled it) I had to clear and re-import my entire library.  But I lost all of my playlists.  They're still on the iPod (haven't sync'ed yet), but so far I've found no way to move them back to my PC...  Is there any way to move the playlists back to the PC?

Thanks!

Eddie

[bdjohns1]

bdjohns1,

Thanks for the update. I added the ability to sync M4P and MP4 even though playback will not work for now.

Great...don't forget M4A either.  That seems to be the extension most people are using for self-made AAC/MPEG-4 files.

I think what playback needs to work on the iPod is having the track length computed.  Since it's a read-only tag in MC, I'd need to dive into the iTunesDB by hand to see if it would work.

--Ben

[SteveG]

Ben,

M4A is in as well.

Eddie, gpvillamil, and Phil,

The lost playlists are due to the reimport of files as best as I can tell.  In synchronization, your playlists are populated based on an ID assigned to files in MC. After a sync, when you delete and reimport files into MC this ID changes. Until you reinitialize, the files are not recognized by MC in regard  to the sync.  After an initialize try not importing files that are already on the iPod back into MC and hopefully you will be all set.  New files are no problem. The problem only occurs when you delete a file from MC and then reimport while the file is still resident on the iPod.

kiwi,

I will try to modify this soon.

Everyone,

I think I may have found what the All Music problem may be. In MC it is possible to have multiple playlists with the same name (i.e. All Music) but in different places in the tree. When these sync only one gets populated on iPod because the iPod does not support nested playlists. I will fix this, but for now make sure all your playlist names are unique.

Steve

[eddiea]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the response on the lost playlists.  And please forgive my ignorance, but I'm not sure I understand what you're saying...  I want to retrieve the playlists that are on my iPod into my Library.  If I initialize the iPod, I'll lose all data on it, right?   Just FYI, I CAN see all of tracks and playlists on the iPod from within MC9.  

So what are the steps I need to take to get the playlists from the iPod to the MC Library?  Or, if it can't be done, then let me know that...  Also, if there is some other tool that will retrieve playlists from the iPod and save them on a PC, that would be helpful!

Thanks!

Eddie

[ashawley]

eddiea:

There sadly isn't a way to get iPod playlists off of the iPod.  They are stored in the database and not anywhere as files. You'll have to manually recreate them.

No other windows/mac app exists to do this either.

Adam

[eddiea]

That's really unbelievable.  It took me DAYS to get all of these playlists set up.  Now I've got to go back to sqaure one??  This was the first time I bought an Apple product, but I guarantee it'll be the last.  And these guys are supposed to be good at user-friendly solutions??

-e

[SteveG]

Eddie,

Do you have comparable playlists and smartlists set up in MC or did you do them all in iTunes?

Steve

[eddiea]

I did, until I had to clear the library and update it after the iTunes problem...  I didn't realize clearing the library would remove the playlists...  I thought it would only remove the tracks from the library, not the playlists...

eddie

[Kurt Young]

Steve,

All my playlists are uniquely named.  I had some trouble with an "All Music" playlist yesterday.  I made a smartlist called "All my mp3s", just file type = mp3.  Got a "Following file failed" message.  So, I put a not album = <blank> in it, and it worked.

[SteveG]

Kurt,

Thanks. The issue I referred to above would only occur with identically named and not generically with smartlists that include all music as a rule.

The "Following file failed" would indicate that particular files failed for some reason and probably those files were excluded with your additional rule which would account for the subsequent success.

Steve

[gpvillamil]

Thanks for the info on the playlist problem, I will test under the conditions you described. In effect, you are saying that I should not sync the iPod when I have removed and reimported files that are on the sync playlists? This suggests that when doing this, I should:

1) sync the iPod
2) delete files from MC (usually through Update Library)
3) sync again
4) reimport the files
5) sync as usual

This should keep the IDs consistent, I will try testing this.

Another note: the confirmation box when doing "Initialize iPod" says that all data will be cleared - it should really say that all *music* will be cleared, right? Contacts, Calendar and files copied via Explorer are retained.

Thanks for all the hard work