I connected my J3 to a mac to recharge it and lost ALL SONGS on the internal memory.

[Pierre]

I'm flying off back to Europe for about 12 hours (two flights) on Sunday and I was happy to have my 40GB of music, though the battery even when fully charged may not last long enough.

And since the only PCs in the house are Macs, I recharged the player by connecting it to a MacBook.

And I now seem to have lost everything that was on the internal memory.

Am I doomed..?

[DSperber]

When you disconnected the J3 from the Mac, did you first "safely remove hardware"? Or did you simply pull the USB cable?

Can you connect the J3 to a Windows PC? Can you get drive letters to be assigned for both internal and external storage?

If you can see internal storage with Windows, what does Explorer show is on that internal storage drive? Nothing? Just folders and all music files under \Music erased? Anything??

[Pierre]

I'd waited for the Mac to be turned off before unplugging the player.

I may have a PC available to check something tomorrow... we'll see if I can retrieve anything.

[Pierre]

Ok I did the following:

1) connected the player to a PC and all the file are still present on the player itself.
2) re-installed the latest firmware -> made me lose even the files that were on the external memory even though the database included them before. I now have 0 songs recognized by the player
3) reset button -> no effect
4) nothing on the Cowon website

So I have all my files on the player, but it recognizes nothing.

[DSperber]

Originally Posted by Pierre

1) connected the player to a PC and all the file are still present on the player itself.

Good news, right?

2) re-installed the latest firmware -> made me lose even the files that were on the external memory even though the database included them before. I now have 0 songs recognized by the player

What do you mean "...made me lose even the files..."? Do you mean they no longer show up in your list of artist, albums, genres, years, etc., no matter that they were located on external storage, whereas before you'd only lost the tag database for files on your internal storage?

This would mean that the tag database (normally re-built at each boot of the J3) is for some reason not being built properly, from the tags in your MP3 and FLAC music files on both internal and external storage.

Are you trying to play music starting from Browser and navigating down, or are you trying to play music starting from Music and then selecting [Artists], [Albums], [Genres], [Years], etc.?

Can you see the files using Browser, coming down through J3 or J3 EXT? This should be identical to Windows Explorer looking at your J3 when it's connected to a PC. If the files are on the J3, then this should see them... and you should actually be able to play them using this general approach.

Or are you just missing your apparent music collection when trying to use Music? This is actually a browse of your TAG DATABASE. Seeing nothing here would mean the tag database is not being built at boot time.

And... what firmware version did you re-install?

Do you have imbedded album art inside of the tags in your music files? Or do you use "cover.jpg" in album folders for your album art? Or nothing?

So I have all my files on the player, but it recognizes nothing.

So you have everything under \Music, on both internal and external storage, still present on the device?

How about deleting the ALBUMINF.DB file in \System\MusicDB folder, along with all of the ab_nnn.jpg image files which might also be in this same \System\MusicDB folder? This is really for use by Matrix Browser, but it might be relevant.

Then "safely remove hardware", disconnect from PC, and re-boot. Does your music collection (as viewed through Music, if that's the failure you're describing is occurring... as opposed to through Browser)?


Worst case idea: if you CAN see your J3's internal and external storage using Windows Explorer when connected to the PC, so that you CAN get to the \Music folders on both internal and external storage, how about just using the PC you're currently at and COPY ALL OF THE MUSIC OFF OF YOUR J3 ONTO THE PC... FOR PRESERVING. For convenience and simplicity in copying back to the J3 at the end of the "surgery", I suggest copying internal and external storage music to two separate target folder locations on the PC.

Then, FORMAT the J3 completely to zero, using the recommended SD Formatter program.

Then, "safely remove hardware", disconnect the J3, re-boot the J3 and it will recreate all of the factory default folder structure it needs. But of course there will be ZERO music (or other sample/demo files) on it.

Then, reconnect the J3 back to the PC.

Now, COPY BACK YOUR COMPLETE MUSIC COLLECTION FROM WHERE YOU PRESERVED IT ON THE PC... back to the J3's internal and external \Music folders.

Then, "safely remove hardware", disconnect the J3, re-boot the J3, and I'll bet you'll be back in business.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by DSperber

Good news, right?


What do you mean "...made me lose even the files..."? Do you mean they no longer show up in your list of artist, albums, genres, years, etc., no matter that they were located on external storage?

All files still in the player AND external memory.

Are you trying to play music starting from Browser and navigating down, or are you trying toplay music starting from Music and then selecting [Artists], [Albums], [Genres], [Years], etc.?

I tried both. No files either way. I also went into Settings to reinitialize the database, to no avail.

Can you see the files using Browser, coming down through J3 or J3 EXT? This should be identical to Windows Explorer looking at your J3 when it's connected to a PC.

Nope. In fact all the 'Folder' available is called '[]' and only has 3 '[]' per subfolders, with nothing anywhere.

Or are you just missing your apparent music collection when trying to use Music? This is actually a browse of your TAG DATABASE.

Both ways give me nothing.

So you have everything under \Music, on both internal and external storage, still present on the device?

Correct, and neither music browser nor Browser see any of it.

How about deleting the ALBUMINF.DB file in \System\MusicDB folder, along with all of the ab_nnn.jpg image files which might also be in this same \System\MusicDB folder? This is really for use by Matrix Browser, but it might be relevant.

Then "safely remove hardware", disconnect from PC, and re-boot. Does your music collection (as viewed through Music, if that's the failure you're describing is occurring... as opposed to through Browser)?

Did nothing

[DSperber]

I added a late edit to my post to which you'd already seen and were replying to, so you missed seeing my suggestion about "FORMAT".

Please re-read my earlier post now.

Can you perform that COPY-PRESERVE/FORMAT/COPY-BACK process using your PC?


Just for reference, here it is again:

===============================================

Worst case idea: if you CAN see your J3's internal and external storage using Windows Explorer when connected to the PC, so that you CAN get to the \Music folders on both internal and external storage, how about just using the PC you're currently at and COPY ALL OF THE MUSIC OFF OF YOUR J3 ONTO THE PC... FOR PRESERVING. For convenience and simplicity in copying back to the J3 at the end of the "surgery", I suggest copying internal and external storage music to two separate target folder locations on the PC. Of course if you have other videos, documents, etc., you'd need to copy-preserve them as well, so that you can copy them back "after surgery" on the J3 completes.

Then, FORMAT the J3 completely to zero, using the recommended SD Formatter program. Do this for both internal and external storage, clearing them both to zero.

Then, "safely remove hardware", disconnect the J3, re-boot the J3 and it will recreate all of the factory default folder structure it needs. But of course there will be ZERO music (or other sample/demo files) on it.

Then, reconnect the J3 back to the PC.

Now, COPY BACK YOUR COMPLETE MUSIC COLLECTION FROM WHERE YOU PRESERVED IT ON THE PC... back to the J3's internal and external \Music folders. Repeat for other video, etc., you might also have preserved.

Then, "safely remove hardware", disconnect the J3, re-boot the J3, and I'll bet you'll be back in business.


Curious: what firmware version do you now have installed on your J3?

[Pierre]

I would if I could but:

1) not on my PC
2) flying tomorrow and it'd take ages to copy out/back all 40GB... this PC runs Windows XP with 2GB of RAM...

It was my first thought and what I would do if I were home; the fact that the Browser sees folders which don't exist point to the firmware being fried, but then updating the firmware should have worked, so I figured a hard reset of the entire thing was the only leftover step...

[Pierre]

Ok the player seems shot: I took the SD card off, hoping to maybe regain it, and the player doesn't even restart without it (starts updating the internal memory and then crashes). Even a firmware update without the SD card doesn't solve it.

Thanks DSperber for your comments You're right, it seems a full format is the only way out of this... I may just have to fly 12 hours without my music :'(

Firmware is 2.25 by the way.

[Pierre]

Just wanted to say that this method, of course, did work. Ah well.

Very disappointed with the J3 so far... UI is frustrating (thanks a lot for Kizune's Aero theme for making it so much better!) and the battery life sub-par... but well.

[glumetu]

I don't understand your battery life problem - it is really brilliant in my case, I can't remember when I last charged it... and I use it every day, battery is at 50%, I only play FLACs.

Yes, the interface is not really great, but all I care for is the sound quality, which is really stellar.

[oldbittercraig]

thanks for this. had virtually the same issue... only with the faulty USB cord being the cause of the premature separation. if my cat's tail so much as brushes against it, my J3 disconnects. that's annoying enough, but nerdrage inducing when i made the mistake of plugging in to a mac.

[spectre]

I just recently had this problem. I was recharging my J3 on a mac at work and the mac crashed. It completely rebooted while my J3 was charging. Now, the only media that shows up on the J3 is the external storage. However, when I plug the J3 back into a computer, all the data is still on the J3's internal memory. It's just that the J3 can't read it for whatever reason.

J3's and Mac's don't play nice.

guess I'll have to backup all the data and reformat the J3 tonight. grrr.

Well, good excuse to put some different music on it now.