Not booting correctly, keeps crashing.

[minp227]

I got my cowon j3 a couple weeks ago. I was using it when i was traveling around europe. it was working perfectly fine until like 4 days ago.

When i press the power button, it loads and says 'checking album art' then suddenly the screen just goes into static, with 2 pink and 2 blue thick lines going horizontally across the screen. then turns off. I can connect it to my MAC using the usb. I deleted all my music. but it still doesn't work.

I have pressed the reset button on the back, but it still didnt work.

Do i have to send the machine in to get it replaced or fixed?

Is there a way for me to fix it by myself?

Thanks.

[CrowdAds]

[deadohiosky]

sounds like another... "apple has hidden some shit on my J3 and now it won't start again"

mac os creates hidden files in order to communicate with the usb device (i think). if you forget to remove it safely or just coincidental, those files might stay on the J3 and the next time you want to boot up the J3 scans for new data finds it but can't figure out what to do.


what you can do however is formatting the J3. if it boots up correctly afterwards you can be sure that it was mac os.

[minp227]

How would i format my j3?

[deadohiosky]

i'm no mac user can't really help you on this one.

windows has a "format" dialog (sub menu) when you right click a memory device. don't know whether it's similar on a mac.

you might want to wait for people in the know, there are some people out there that use macs (but no ipods obviously ).

[Confispect]

Originally Posted by deadohiosky

sounds like another... "apple has hidden some shit on my J3 and now it won't start again"

mac os creates hidden files in order to communicate with the usb device (i think). if you forget to remove it safely or just coincidental, those files might stay on the J3 and the next time you want to boot up the J3 scans for new data finds it but can't figure out what to do.


what you can do however is formatting the J3. if it boots up correctly afterwards you can be sure that it was mac os.

mac os creates hidden files in order to communicate with the usb device

Correct..….…iPods as well....maybe why they only are friendly with iTunes and macs.....

[kkcahdcakcyt]

I know this is an old thread, but I had the same issue with my J3 on my mac. It actually started after taking other advice and using software to remove the hidden files and then ejecting. I just reformatted using the disk utility and the J3 starting working like a dream.

[Emc209i]

Apple file structures are extremely annoying. I have Snow Leopard running on another drive, and I find .Trash and .(index) folders scattered throughout the other 3 hard drives. What's worse is that I delete them, and they come right back the next time I boot into Mac. I'll be sure to never sync my fine tuned J3 to a Mac now, thanks for the heads up.

[sassafras]

For the record, the hidden files are not there so the Mac can communicate with the iPod or USB or anything. That's entirely false. Basically, OSX stores information in files using forks--think of it as a file within a file. The information it stores is stuff about what type of file, what icon it should have, etc. When you move said file to a USB drive, the Mac can't move that stuff with it in the way it normally would (because FAT and NTFS don't understand resource forks) so it creates a hidden file that contains ONLY the information from the fork and moves it along with the original file.

Normally this is a good thing because it means all that meta information about the file is saved on the USB drive, so when you pull it up later or on a different computer, it understands that and it's all still there. On your mp3 player, it's totally unnecessary and really only serves to waste space and confuse the firmware of some players.

The solution is simple: Crumb Free Eject. I wrote this program to deal with this very problem. Download this app and install it as you would any other application onto your Mac. When you run it, it will pop up a dialog asking you which drive you want to eject. Just select your mp3 player and it will run through and wipe clean all that unnecessary crap and then eject your drive. It works for any USB mass storage device like mp3 players and thumb drives, etc.

Here is the link:
http://anythingbutipod.com/forum/sho...umb+free+eject

If you have problems, reply in the other thread though please.

sassafras

[Future Tomorrow]

Originally Posted by minp227

I got my cowon j3 a couple weeks ago. I was using it when i was traveling around europe. it was working perfectly fine until like 4 days ago.

When i press the power button, it loads and says 'checking album art' then suddenly the screen just goes into static, with 2 pink and 2 blue thick lines going horizontally across the screen. then turns off. I can connect it to my MAC using the usb. I deleted all my music. but it still doesn't work.

I have pressed the reset button on the back, but it still didnt work.

Do i have to send the machine in to get it replaced or fixed?

Is there a way for me to fix it by myself?

Thanks.

Update the firmware. FW 2.22 solves that problem. You can find it here on COWON's Global site.

[Future Tomorrow]

Should have asked what FW you're using but I saw your described device behavior across 3 devices using FW 2.21 and upgrading to 2.22 fixed them all.

[DSperber]

Err... firmware v2.23 is the latest firmware, not 2.21 or 2.22.

You should install 2.23 if you're going to upgrade your J3.

[Emc209i]

Quick offhand topic, but should I backup my music directory before updating the firmware to 2.23?

[DSperber]

Originally Posted by Emc209i

Quick offhand topic, but should I backup my music directory before updating the firmware to 2.23?

Shouldn't be at risk with a firmware upgrade, but you never can tell.

Presumably you have your primary music collection on your PC's hard drive anyway. If you were going to FORMAT the J3 to "virgin" you'd re-copy everything from PC to J3 afterwards anyway.

So presumably you have your PC's version as your real backup, or starting source. Doesn't take but a few hours maybe to copy even 32GB to either internal or external storage, so in worst case that seems to be your most convenient and sensible "disaster recovery" plan.

Don't waste your time "backing up" your J3. Just be sure you have a true original-source/backup for your J3 on your PC and that's all you need. That way you can reconstruct the J3 from scratch if you ever have to.

[Future Tomorrow]

Originally Posted by DSperber

Err... firmware v2.23 is the latest firmware, not 2.21 or 2.22.

You should install 2.23 if you're going to upgrade your J3.

Correct...but when I fixed the exact problem on my devices 2.23 was not released as yet and 2.22 was the solution I used. There is no reason though why 2.23 should not work.

My device came with 2.10, updating to 2.21 for me creates the problem on my devices, both 16GB and 32GB and 2.22 fixes it. Since JetAudio has my 32GB with 2.23(they updated it) I have no experience with that build as yet and whether it could have solved the issue the OP mentioned.

Originally Posted by Emc209i

Quick offhand topic, but should I backup my music directory before updating the firmware to 2.23?

From the link provided with 2.23 -

Warning/Caution
The battery must be fully charged before upgrading firmware.
Do not press the reset button during upgrading.
Backup any important files to your computer before upgrade.
You must upgrade the supplied firmware from COWON SYSTEMS.

Actually you may just want to do that anytime you're updating FW on any device. It's saved me some work a few times when all did not go as planned.

[Emc209i]

I backed up my Cowon's music directory and then updated from 2.22. While it's true my computers hard drive is the source of everything on my DAP, I hand selected 24 gigs of music from 160 gigs on the drive, and I have maybe 50 hours of time into categorizing the music specifically for how I wanted it to appear on my Cowon verse the PC. Anyway, the firmware upgrade went smoothly, and the music is fine. But I'm glad I made a copy, just in case something happens in the future. Thank you all for tips.

[CostoLulu]

I know this is an old thread, but I still had the issue after connecting to a Mac.

Issue was solved after a format, but reappeared a few hours later. Reformated, copied all the files again, now crossing fingers that I don't forget to eject the J3 from the Mac/PC.

All that was on firmware 2.23, so the issue definitely hasn't been solved in 2.22.

Just now I upgraded to the last on this date, 2.29.

[DragonBottles]

There's a chance that Mac OS is putting invisible files on the J3 that it refuses to load, thus making it crash. Have hidden folders open and see if you can spot them and promptly remove them.