Cowon D2 Sorting Options?

[Extreme]

I am having an extremely nit-picky issue with my 16GB Cowon iaudio D2 that I have been unable to resolve after days of research and tinkering.

I discovered the forums after I had the "standard" Unknown files issue, and used the panasonic card formatting to fix the problem, and everything was dandy until I noticed that some of my albums are completely out of order. This is important to me because I listen to entire albums as a piece instead of just individual songs. Like I wanted, I am still able to go into standard library view, go to whatever artist I want, and select the album. However once I get that far the songs are completely out of order.

I was first suspicious that the ID3 tags on the songs were incorrectly tagged. This is not the case, I use a standard ID3 tagger with my foobar2000 media player and everything is correct, and even after re-tagging the incorrect files, they still appear out of order.

I then thought they sorted alphabetically, this is also simply not the case- while some are sorted alphabetical, some are not.

What is also interesting is that if I use folder view, instead of library view (Music list-> Music Library-> Folders (at the bottom of the page)-> D2-> Music and THEN find the correct folder) instead of just clicking artist, these files are correctly sorted by how they are sorted in the folders.

I think I should also mention that some files ARE automatically ordered the correct way. The problem being I cannot for the life of me figure out what is different about these files that makes them sort by song order correctly while others don't.

The question boils down to this, how does my D2 sort the files I put into it? Is there a way to change it? This is a huge concern to me because it follows no apparent pattern of assortment, and having to go through this huge folder menu scheme to get to what I want to listen to is a HUGE pain, and probably not what COWON intended in the first place.

Thanks for your help,
William

[CrowdAds]

[dfkt]

The only thing I could think of is that the file names should start with the track number, like "01 - blah.mp3". I'm only listening to full albums as well, and never have sorting issues.

[Extreme]

Interestingly enough this was the exact hunch I just had. I just tried it with no luck. I've eliminated every possible variable that could possibly be affecting it (file types, varying ID3 tags etc.) and am still getting the same result, its like i'm putting the exact same inputs into the same equation and getting different results.

How frustrating.

A quick question dfkt, when I use the panasonic formatter, do I need to remove hardware, and re-connect it again for it to work? I only ask because when I format it, I am unable to access the player right after. Is this normal? And also, to set my firmware to defaults, I go to Settings -> system -> load default (yes) right? When I do this nothing happens....

[AaronDude]

Yeah I have the same problem with my new D2, I love it otherwise though. I think if the file names are too long it sorts it funny? I don't know, I can't figure it out, all my music starts with 01, 02 and so on and it still mixes some of them up.

[AaronDude]

With some more playing around with it, it seems if the files are more than about two levels deep it does this. Try putting them in the root folder and only having folders for artist and album to keep it simple. It seems to be working for me so far but I'm not completely sure this will fix it.

[psetus]

I have the same problem. I'm going to have to try putting the folders like you say, AaronDude. I have mine as "/MUSIC/Artist/Album/Artist - Album - 01 - Title" and they are regularly out of order. Even the Artists get out of order. I have two bands that start with S that get put between B and C...but the rest of my S bands are properly put between R and T!? Confusing.

One thing that I noticed is that two of my albums had a single track that was somewhy put at the very front, before 1, but was otherwise fine. The problem wasn't the filename or track # tag, it was that both songs had the "Disk" tag set to "1/1" or "1," while the rest were blank. I blanked out the few times in my collection it had anything in the Disk tag. I don't know if it will help my D2 yet, but it may be a solution.

Otherwise, this ordering and unknown artist thing is REALLY starting to bug me. Besides that, it's a pretty great player, but if I can't even have it play an album properly, wtf?!
- chloe -

[treal512]

is there a fix for this? im listening to albums like Made in Japan by Deep Purple and some Floyd and everything is out of order. i know this is an old post, but can someone point me in the right direction? ive pretty much tweaked my D2+ to exactly what i want, but cant figure out how to get the albums to play in order. im going to resume my searches...

[ri_toast]

um....turn off shuffle?

[fellipealcateia]

Have someone found a fix for this? i´m considering a D2, but this a big trouble for me. I´m a Floyd fan and listen and study classical music, so the tracks must be in order...

[dfkt]

There isn't really an issue with track sorting on the D2. No idea what the people above do to their tracks. Maybe they use MTP? Either way, start the file name with the track number, and you also put the correct track number in the ID3 tags, and everything will be in order.

[organdude]

Hey Extreme,

I also listen mainly to albums so I can understand the frustration of when the music doesn’t play back in the proper sequence. Here’s some observations that may help you fix the problem:

Check the playback "Boundry" and "Shuffle" settings.

Check your display settings.
Are you using ID3 or file names?
Go to: Menu > Settings > Display > Title > ID3 Tag

You gotta have clean tags . .
If you are indeed browsing via "ID3 Tag", checkout the consistency and formatting of your ID3 tags in a basic, stand alone tag editor such as Mp3tag instead of FooBar 2000. I use Media Monkey myself and have found the application’s “advanced tagging options” conveys way too much information, much of which is completely irrelevant to the D2.

I never put anything on my D2 before checking out how it looks in Mp3tag. I’ve customized the fields in Mp3tag to show all of the critical tags that the D2 reads and displays which then assures consistent display and play back.

I also use Mp3tag to do such things as automatically renumber tracks on an album that are formatted with a slash or leading zero (1/11, 2/11, 3/11 and 01, 02, 03 to just 1, 2, 3 ), remove digits and strange characters from the title and other fields, and get rid of year tags that use original year and cd release year (change 1969/2009 to just 1969), and other ID3 house cleaning chores. (Mp3tag totally rocks, its free, and no I'm not affiliated in any way with the developer.)

After a synch - you’re in "Tracks" browsing.
After loading new files to the D2 and the device updates its data base, I find that when you go to the music section and resume playback from where you left off, the D2 for some reason defaults to the “Tracks” sorting mode. In this case, the next song up is probably not going to be the next one the album. (When I’m in Tracks mode, the D2 plays back all audio files in alphabetical order based on ID3 title, irrespective of artist, track number, year, etc.) Go back and select Artist or Album sorting.

Cheers and best of luck,

Organdude