Charge and play music!
 

The sansa view I have will not let me play music while it is hooked up to a computer for charging. This is because of the data pins in the USB port. If you place a small piece of paper in the usb connector, covering the two middle contacts, you can charge the view and listen to music at the same time!

That's a creative fix

I was able to get my Sandisk Sansa to play and charge at the same time by plugging it into a powered usb hub. I just didn't hook the usb hub to the computer, but to the ac power only. I was actually trying to tape up one of my ports on the the hub when I discovered this.

Hope this helps someone! This was the first hit on google when I searched for a fix for this.

dz0004455 can you post pictures?

You can also just not push the USB plug all the way in on the computer side.

Since the power pins are longer (by design) on the plug, they make contact before the data pins, so if you just shove it in ~2/3 of the way, the power pins will make contact, allowing you to charge the device, but the data pins won't, so the device won't be recognized and connect.

And if you're willing to spend a few bucks, a wallcharger is a great thing to have as well. :)

This great video, thank you for sharing them. I will return to post the video on this forum and you'll find them great.