MP3 Players

[ntsc525]

Hi, everyone:

I've been searching the web and this forum for hints on my particular problem I'm having with a Creative Nomad Zen Xtra 60 G running firmware 2.10.03 with MTP Plays For Sure functionality.

Sorry, I can't document the trouble I had with Creative Mediasource, but because I have several MP3 players, I have tried to "standardize" on Windows Media Player to all of them.

So, here is my problem, especially when loading a freshly formatted Nomad:

I have a fairly large library, with almost 40 G worth of songs (15,066 songs in 838 folders arranged as E:\MusicLib\<album>\album-track-artist-song.mp3) , all in MP3 format (ripped from my CD collection).  When I sync a freshly formatted Nomad, WMP goes quite a long way (I believe at least but probably more than 1/2 way) with no problems, then suddenly I get a dozen or so songs where it says "Did not fit on device" (even though there's 18G free space still on the device).  Then, the remaining songs have a status of "Error".  Clicking on the "Error" icon brings me to a Microsoft Help page with error code C00D11D2, which means WMP could not access the file, which gives the standard "Make sure the file is accessible..." yada yada.  The files are still accessible.

If I reset my Nomad and start sync again, WMP will start synchronizing again, making it's way further down my song list until the same thing happens again.  Sometimes it only synchronizes a dozen or fewer songs, sometimes it synchronizes about 20 or so.

I'm running Windows XP, Service Pack 3, Windows Media Player 11, and I have the library set up to use only a single folder I have on a different partition (E:\MusicLib), and I keep nothing in "My Music" because I want to carefully control the WMP Library.  My Nomad is running 2.10.03 firmware, which is still the latest as far as I know.

I tried formatting the Nomad using WMP, but it did not help.  I have more than one Nomad running 2.10.03 and the problem is the same with all of them.  I have tried different USB cables and different ports.

It's taking me forever (several days) of resetting my Nomad and syncing a few songs, just to get the thing loaded.  I'd love to find a solution so I can sync the whole thing at once.

Thanks for any help, pointers, or clues!

Dan

[coachop94]

FIrst off format the player directly. NOT thru WMP. Boot the player into Rescue?Recovery mode & format >cleanup>reboot. have the battery charged & connected to the power supply while doing that. Then go ahead & load the player but do NOT try to sync the whole library at once do it smaller doses.(like 1/4 at a time) After each session do a Cleanup>Reboot. Then continue until your done. In WMP the My Music folder is the Default for your music files. You may be getting the error because if you ripped the files with WMP & moved them after that WMP may be confused as to the location of the files. so recheck your configuration . I would delete all my music files from WMP & rebuild it after checking that the files are located where I want them then open the program & from the Library Tab of WMP choose add files to library & let it rebuild it again. I MUST caution you to check in the setting for WMP options under library that when you DELETE files from the library that it DOES NOT DELETE them from the computer & when you add files that it will add the files previously deleted from the folder you have assigned it to look in. 

[ntsc525]

Hello:

I have formatted the player using the recovery menu as well as with WMP, because both are the recommended and "only" ways to format, depending on who you listen to.  No difference, however in the way WMP behaves.  When I get to the point where WMP can only sync a small few files, if I do a Cleanup (from rescue mode), let the Nomad rebuild the library, I can usually get more files in before it clogs up again.  Every time I do a fresh format, I lose a couple of days worth of work, so I'm not doing it again.

I don't have any way to control how much of the library to synchronize once it has gotten past my playlists, unless I spend time creating more playlists for this purpose.  With a 60 G Nomad, and a library suitable for that storage, that's a TON of music to deal with.

I'm still trying to figure out whether this is a Windows Media Player issue, a driver issue, or a Nomad firmware issue.  Since I have to reset the Nomad between each sync attempt, and occasionally do a cleanup, I'm guessing it's the Nomad, and since I've seen it on more than one unit, I'm guessing it's a firmware bug.

I'm hoping someone else has seen this issue and has a better idea.  I hate all my choices: Notmad is frustrating because I can't get my playlists to come across.  Creative Media Source is less reliable than WMP, so that leaves WMP as the least aggravating way to sync,  and it works flawlessly with my smaller sized Sansa Clip from the same library.

Dan

[coachop94]

One of the complaints from people was the inabilty to fill their player to capacity. I have 3 Xtras  30GB/ 40GB / 60GB  with the PFS firmware & have filled them to within a few mb of full. It may be that the drive has some bad sectors which could explain not being able to load beyond a certain point. As for formatting I think doing thru the player itself is best.

[ntsc525]

Hello:

I don't think it's a bad disk, because it's happened with a 100G (OK, that one was hacked), plus a 30G upgraded to 60G and a 60G full factory player.

Further, if a song does not fit during one sync session, and there is a disk problem, I would expect it not to fit the next session.  However, in my case, once it starts to say songs "don't fit on device", if I reset the Nomad, suddenly the do fit!  WMP will sync a few more songs until it starts again with the "Did not fit" and generic "Error" status.

I'm toying with the idea of doing manual sync's and trying small groups (A's, then B's, etc.) to see if the size of my "All Music" playlist is possibly the problem.

It's still a pretty manual process, but I'd hate to have to go buy an iPod when my Nomad should give me years of service.

Dan

[coachop94]

Auto sync in my opinion is never a good idea. I have always had the settings for manual so I control what goes on a device. I have never run into the "not enough space on device" unless it truly did not have enough room.

[ntsc525]

OK, I reformatted my Nomad once again, from the rescue menu, not from WMP.

I started manually syncing, starting with my custom play lists, and then taking groups of artists and syncing all their songs at once.  I've made it up to the T's, and the problem has started again.  Certain tracks will get "Did not fit on device", but later down, other tracks still synchronize.  Once a track gets "Did not fit", it will have that status until I disconnect the Nomad and reconnect it (sometimes), power cycle the unit (sometimes), and sometimes I have to do a full reset before the problem tracks will get synchronized.  Then the problem crops up later down the line.

It seems when the Nomad is mostly empty I don't have the problem, but once it gets past the 1/2 way point, I start to have problems.

All of my music is in MP3's, and it does not appear that any conversion is taking place.

So, now I would like to hear from anyone who has possibly seen this problem, or anyone at Creative who has a good understanding of what goes on inside the unit who can shed some light on this problem.

I work in IT on large servers and storage, so I have some idea of how things "should" work, but I'm sure there is a lot of mystery between the Plays For Sure interface and how the music actually gets stored on the Nomad's hard drive.

Dan

[ntsc525]

Oh:

And if you watch WMP synchronize each song, you see a progress bar that says "Synchronizing - xx%" which progresses often rather quickly, sometimes a little slower, but once per track, and then the bar is replaced with "Synchronized to device".  On the first "Did not fit", the progress bar does it's cycle several times from 0 to 100%, and then changes to "Did not fit".  Subsequent songs only progress once, and immediately switch to "Did not fit".

So, something appears to be happening with that first song that goes bad, and after that, most of the other songs also get "Did not fit", but occasionally down the line, songs begin to sync again (sometimes bigger than the ones that supposedly would not fit), and if I have a large enough list, eventually the status just changes to "error", and that's all she wrote until the Nomad is reset.

[ntsc525]

Further updates, which eliminate WMP as a variable.

Creative Sync Manager just crashes whenever it feels like it, particularly when I plug in a < 2.10.03 Nomad, but when I try to sync my MTP Nomad, it, as well as Creative Mediasource give me non-descriptive errors.  ("An error has occurred".)

So, I decided to play around with just Windows, and open a window to explore the Nomad, and manually copy files from my music library directly to the Nomad.  It copies a few files and then Windows says my device stopped responding or is disconnected.  However, I can still explore the Nomad, and in fact, I can play tracks off the Nomad (which Windows copies to a temporary directory and then plays).  So, it appears that the Nomad is simply refusing to write any more data at a certain point, even though I still have more than 20 Gigs free.  But, if I reset it, it will write a handful more files before it stops again.

I wish Creative would come out with just one more version of the MTP firmware to fix the bugs we're discovering from the first attempt to convert the Nomad Xtra's.

The driver I'm using for my MTP Nomad is dated 2/22/2006, and is version 5.2.5326.4762.  And, using Windows Explorer Properties for My Jukebox, I get Firmware 2.10.03_0.00.01.  Is it possible there's a newer version of 2.10.03, now that I know there is this "sub-version" after it?  (0.00.01)

Hints?  Tricks?  Registry hacks?  Jukebox settings?

Anyone?

[coachop94]

I was surprised they even wrote a PFS firmware for the Xtra & Zen Touch. There really can't be any money in it for them to do anything else with the firmware. So I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for one. Far as I know no one has been able to hack the firmware.