For people who don't like refreshing database

[mamamia88]

I have a suggestion for you guys. Get the smallest internal memory and don't use it. Get a large micro sd card and rockbox the player. Add songs via a memory card reader and insert it once rockbox is already booted. That way you never have to see a refresh database screen.

[CrowdAds]

[WalkGood]

If you rockbox it, it shouldn't matter if you have a 4 or 8gb, not using the onboard memory wouldn't make a difference IMO, as the scan happens in the background. So you can return to the main menu and listen to music while it's scanning the new files.

[mamamia88]

Originally Posted by WalkGood

If you rockbox it, it shouldn't matter if you have a 4 or 8gb, not using the onboard memory wouldn't make a difference IMO, as the scan happens in the background. So you can return to the main menu and listen to music while it's scanning the new files.

true but if you are using a clip+ like me and usb isn't supported yet and you accidently plugged in your player with the sd card in it would refresh before you could do anything with it. personally i use the internal memory only for podcasts and keep my music on an sd card. that way it refreshes much quicker after adding a podcast. i just make sure i pop out the card before i plug it in or booting into the OF.

[Marvin the Martian]

I don't think the refresh is a big deal. With my 16GB card, the Clip+ full and the card full my refresh is less than 3.5 minutes.

[nathan]

If you're lazy and impatient (like me), you could also just turn off the player when it's refreshing in the sansa firmware by holding the power button down for 10 seconds then just turn the player on normally to the rockbox firmware.

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by nathan

If you're lazy and impatient (like me), you could also just turn off the player when it's refreshing in the sansa firmware by holding the power button down for 10 seconds then just turn the player on normally to the rockbox firmware.

That works, until the next time you plug into the computer......then it refreshes the database before it will actually connect. There's no escape.....lol

[skip252]

The best work around I've found is to fill the memory so that the database refresh can't happen. Directions on how to do that on a Rockboxed DAP are here. The amount to leave free varies if it's a Fuze or a Clip+ but once you pass that, no more database refresh. I found it to be around 20-30 MB on my Clip+ IIRC.

Not using any memory I've paid for makes no sense to me. I put my locked down favorites on the internal memory and rotate the cards and never see a refresh.

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by skip252

The best work around I've found is to fill the memory so that the database refresh can't happen. Directions on how to do that on a Rockboxed DAP are here. The amount to leave free varies if it's a Fuze or a Clip+ but once you pass that, no more database refresh. I found it to be around 20-30 MB on my Clip+ IIRC.

Not using any memory I've paid for makes no sense to me. I put my locked down favorites on the internal memory and rotate the cards and never see a refresh.

I can't establish how to actually

Delete the two folders beginning with ##

I can see them when the player is in RB, but I don't know how to delete them. That I think is the missing step, because I only have 7MB free on my Clip+ and it still refreshes.

[skip252]

Those # folders have to go for this to work. They report using zero space but IIRC last time I did the fill up I needed over 120 MB to fill the space left when I deleted them.

Use the Rockbox Context Menu. long Select=>Delete. If I have the card in it triggers a database refresh on the next connection after I use Rockbox to delete the # folders. If the database refreshes the # folders get rebuilt. So I take the card out, hook up again and it connects again in the OF with no refresh.

That's when I fill it. The message from the Sandisk firmware asks to free up 90 MB but I usually fill it to within 10 MB. I read somewhere the Rockbase database needs a few MB to work with. Since I haven't had an issue leaving that much I figure that's enough.

[Marvin the Martian]

OK, now it works. With no card, I left 1.12MB free, and the Rockbox database initialized successfully for the 1,008 tracks on the player.

I had done this before when I had two Clip+, and I had remembered the bit about leaving very little free space, but it was the bit about the ## folders I had forgotten. Since I don't swap files on the player all that often, and my refreshes are pretty quick, it hadn't been worth bothering to hunt for the solution. That said, it's good to know the answer now.

[Nausicaa]

Its 30mb for me as well. I learned that accidentally, now you all can stop suffering refreshes as well!

[baccilus]

Is the refresh problem only when there is lots of music on device? I just out put about 3.42GB on my microSD card (Sandisk class 4 SDHC, 8GB) and about 200MB on the internal memory and my clip zip refreshed in about 10 seconds. This is the first time I had turned it on.

[Enigmatic]

Originally Posted by baccilus

Is the refresh problem only when there is lots of music on device?

Yes.

[Mikerman]

Originally Posted by baccilus

Is the refresh problem only when there is lots of music on device? I just out put about 3.42GB on my microSD card (Sandisk class 4 SDHC, 8GB) and about 200MB on the internal memory and my clip zip refreshed in about 10 seconds. This is the first time I had turned it on.

Just for comparison's sake, the refresh on my 8GB Clip+, with a 32GB Class 4 card almost full, took around 27 minutes the other day. I don't have a complex folder structure and my ID3 tags are the basics, although I may have both ID3v2 and ID3v1 tags.

On my 8GB Clip Zip with an almost-full 16GB Class 4 card, the refresh is somewhere under 5 minutes, if I recall correctly.

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by Mikerman

Just for comparison's sake, the refresh on my 8GB Clip+, with a 32GB Class 4 card almost full, took around 27 minutes the other day. I don't have a complex folder structure and my ID3 tags are the basics, although I may have both ID3v2 and ID3v1 tags.

On my 8GB Clip Zip with an almost-full 16GB Class 4 card, the refresh is somewhere under 5 minutes, if I recall correctly.

You don't even know if you have both v2 and v1 tags? Shame on you.

[musichound]

Wow, I didn't realize how long database refreshing takes when SD cards get into the mix. IMO even 5 minutes is far too long. lol

[baccilus]

Well, I only keep the ID3V2 tags. Just open your collection in Easytag. Go to preference and set it for removal of all the tags except the V2 ones. I am sure there are other programs too for this.

[mamamia88]

can't wait for usb to be stable in rockbox on the clip. if i transferred all my music off my card I could probably almost max it out. if you use database view for music instead of fileview it combines the sd and internal into one list right? I don't want to have to remember what songs are on what memory.

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by mamamia88

can't wait for usb to be stable in rockbox on the clip. if i transferred all my music off my card I could probably almost max it out. if you use database view for music instead of fileview it combines the sd and internal into one list right? I don't want to have to remember what songs are on what memory.

Yes.

[Carson Dyle]

There's no reason not to use the internal memory. If you have Rockbox installed, all you have to do is turn the player off before disconnecting it from the USB cable. If you've just written something to either the memory or the card give it 20 seconds or so to finish writing to memory. After disconnecting it from the cable turn it back on and it will boot directly into Rockbox without the dreaded SanDisk database refresh.