Crashing Clip Zip

[Gerbilkit]

I've been having problems just now downloading a particular folder of music onto the memory card on my clip zip. After I add it it comes up on the refreshing music screen, but when the progress bar is about 90% complete the screen goes black and I have to hard reset it before I can turn it back on. I can't even access file transfer when it gets like this. By using my phone to read the card I was able to delete the folder and then it works fine. I'm definitely glad it wasn't on the internal memory I'd hate to think it was fried for good. My question is has has anyone encountered a similar situation? Do you know what kind of things can cause the player to crash? Too long folder names? File names? etc. It's a big music folder, 2.36 GB of movie soundtracks. As far as I know they should all be standard mp3 format. I'll try to narrow it down but it's an awful lot of files. So if I had something to go off of that would definitely help.

[CrowdAds]

[WalkGood]

Originally Posted by Gerbilkit

… My question is has has anyone encountered a similar situation? Do you know what kind of things can cause the player to crash? Too long folder names? File names? etc. It's a big music folder, 2.36 GB of movie soundtracks. As far as I know they should all be standard mp3 format. I'll try to narrow it down but it's an awful lot of files. So if I had something to go off of that would definitely help.

I have not had any issue so serious but what normally causes what you describe is corrupted files, improperly tagged files, ID3v1 tags or corrupted firmware. While I don’t know for sure about the ID3v1 because it came from an issue with their e200 series, I’ve always removed them from my files and never had issues. Run you favorite CHKDSK software on the files and your firmware to see if anythings off, you can also format or re-firmware but you would have to re-load the tunes after as format will erase everything and rebuild the firmware.

Edit: BTW you should also check the files w/foobar file integrity verifier

[Gerbilkit]

Originally Posted by WalkGood

I have not had any issue so serious but what normally causes what you describe is corrupted files, improperly tagged files, ID3v1 tags or corrupted firmware. While I don’t know for sure about the ID3v1 because it came from an issue with their e200 series, I’ve always removed them from my files and never had issues. Run you favorite CHKDSK software on the files and your firmware to see if anythings off, you can also format or re-firmware but you would have to re-load the tunes after as format will erase everything and rebuild the firmware.

Edit: BTW you should also check the files w/foobar file integrity verifier

Thanks for the tips. Although I did reformat and refirmware right before I started adding music so I don't think that will help any more. I will dig through the files. Most of them have been used before without issue so it is probably a newer addition. I was hoping for some kind of automated test, I will try the foobar and CHKDSK and see where that takes me.

[skip252]

Clips can be incredibly picky about tags. My brother has a Clip+ he prefers to use in the OF that would seize up during the database refresh. When we examined his files it turned out one album had a inaccurate "length" tags. Once I used Mp3tag to remove it the database refresh would complete.

Personally, if I put a file on a player that uses the sandisk firmware I strip all tags the player doesn't display. I figure the database refresh tags too long anyway. No need to extend it by making the player read info it won't use.

I also use the file integrity verifier utility in foobar2000to check my mp3 files whenever I create them. I cross check with Mp3Val also. Then I check and rewrite the tags to the ID3v2.3-ISO 8859-1 settings sandisk recommends using Mp3tag. There may be some overkill in doing all that but since I started that procedure I haven't had any issues with a player being able to read or play any of my files.

[Gerbilkit]

Some of my files actually turned out to be .m4a. (The downside of sharing music with your family ) These are causing the player to crash. I ran the foobar verifier and it didn't find any problems except minor disrepancies in track length. Is the clip zip not capable of playing this format? I can't seem to find a clear answer from google. I hate converting non lossless but I'll probably just turn them all into mp3s.

[FreeZ5]

It seems that the Clip Zip running the original firmware can play m4a files that are under 10 minutes long. I tried a couple of m4a files and they worked fine for me, but I don't have many m4a files (maybe just the ones I tried). Because m4a support is new to Sansa (the zip is their first player to support m4a files), the decoder may be 'picky'.

The m4a files would probably be fine if the zip was running Rockbox.

Steve

[WalkGood]

Originally Posted by FreeZ5

...The m4a files would probably be fine if the zip was running Rockbox.

Yes they do work fine running rockbox, but I don't normally use them. Yet another reason rockbox is better, it actually does what they say it does VS the OF

[Gerbilkit]

I've been meaning to try rockbox but the rockbox site said it wasn't stable for the clip zip. Would it be pretty safe then to put it on? I'll be honest I've been less than impressed so far with my clip, it's been pretty buggy since I got it and anything that made it more robust would be welcome.

[skip252]

If you check the definition of stable for a Rockbox port you'll find that stable in Rockbox has more to do with available features than usability. The Glossary link in my sig will lead you to those definitions.

The last I read there's a plugin that hasn't been ported and the graphics for the manual hadn't been added. Neither of those will affect daily use. Once those are done the port will probably be promoted to stable.

[FreeZ5]

Originally Posted by WalkGood

Yes they do work fine running rockbox, but I don't normally use them. Yet another reason rockbox is better, it actually does what they say it does VS the OF

WG...if the m4a files are crap they might not work with Rockbox either. That was the reason for my 'probably'.

Steve