New SansaFuze user - cannot play ALL songs

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1

We gave the SansaFuze+ to our dad so he could listen to music in the hospital. There are many many songs uploaded but at this point he is only able to listen to one folder of about 10 songs.

What setting is necessary so that ALL songs in ALL the music folders will be randomly played when he turns it on? He doesn’t care about being able to choose from the various albums. He just wants to be able to listen to everything at random (sort of like listening to the radio). 

From what I understand, this is as far as we’ve managed:

  1. press the Back button (top left arrow) for 3 seconds to go to the main menu
  2. press the Back button until it says MUSIC
  3. use sideways swiping to get to settings
  4. set Shuffle to ON
  5. set Repeat to ???

What is NOT clear to me is whether to have Repeat set to “All” or “Off”

To reiterate: my dad would like to have absolutely everything that is uploaded shuffle randomly without ever having to do anything but turn the machine on and put the earphones in. 

I hope this request makes sense.

Please note that we are trying to fix the problems long distance - ie: we are NOT there to make the changes - step by step dummy-like instructions are ideal.

2

@ejm wrote:

 

What is NOT clear to me is whether to have Repeat set to “All” or “Off”

 

Off.

From the User’s Manual:

Shuffle (Play) All Mode

  1. On the Music home screen, press select (tap the center of the touchpad).
  2. There are 5 sub-menus under Music, as demonstrated by the five dots to the view
    guide on the bottom of the screen. From any of these sub-menus, at the top you
    will see the option, shuffle all , followed by a number in parentheses corresponding
    to the number of options available in that sub-menu (e.g., number of artists,
    number of albums, number of songs, number of genres, number of playlists). If you
    select shuffle all in any of these sub-menus, the device will play all of your songs in
    random order.
3

Thank you for your reply.

I recall seeing the section on Shuffle (Play) All. What a shame that there is no mention of the Repeat function in that section of the manual.

Just to clarify: if Repeat is set to ON and Shuffle is set to ALL, then the player will only shuffle one folder of songs rather than all the songs uploaded onto the player?

4

The current interface has been changed a wee bit from earlier Sansas.  For your dad to shuffle all songs, as described above, simply go to Music, one center tap brings you to artists first.  At the top of the list, you’ll find shuffle all.

If you select this, note that the shuffle icon will display at the top of the screen.  You can begin this shuffle at any desired mode, album / artist / genre / song.

Oh!  One last thought.  That list of ten tracks is the “most recent” ten; this “unadvertised” function is really handy to find that track you listened to, when you were last using the Sansa.  To find your music, all it takes is that single center tap to begin navigation.

Bob  :smileyvery-happy:

5

neutron bob wrote:

>You can begin this shuffle at any desired mode, album / artist / genre / song. […snip…] That list of ten tracks is the “most recent” ten; this “unadvertised” function is really handy to find that track you listened to, when you were last using the Sansa.  To find your music, all it takes is that single center tap to begin navigation.

Thank you for your reply, Bob. The difficulty we were having is that although we had selected “shuffle: all” my dad’s player was only shuffling one album, rather than shuffling all of the songs on his player. I gather that this is because we had also set "repeat: all’. I don’t think my dad cares about what he listens to or even what he listened to last. He just wants to turn the thin on, have music start playing with the opportunity to hear any of the songs that have been uploaded, rather than listening to the same album over and over.

And of course, this has been addressed to a certain extent already. In reply to my question “What is NOT clear to me is whether to have Repeat set to “All” or “Off”” Tapeworm wrote:

> Off

Where, in the manual (or elsewhere), do I find the information about the “repeat” function?

6

@ejm wrote:

 

Where, in the manual (or elsewhere), do I find the information about the “repeat” function?

 

As it pertains to music . . . pages 35 & 49 in the User’s Manual.

Although it is not very clearly described or explained.

7

every list has a shuffle all option. so depending on what list you are looking at shuffle all may behave a little differently. here are a few examples.

if you are in the artist list and select shuffle all it will shuffle all artists

if you are in the songs list and select shuffle all it will shuffle all songs

if you are in the album list and looking at a specific album and select shuffle all it will shuffle only the songs in that album.

i hope that makes a little scene. basically it will shuffle what is displayed in the list below shuffle all. 

8

Tapeworm wrote:

> Although it is not very clearly described or explained.

Indeed… I believe it was reading page 35 that got us into trouble in the first place.

from p. 35 of the manual:
When listening to a song, the sans Fuze+ offers four options of changing your listening experience:

[…]
2. Shuffle - for toggling the listening mode.
3. Repeat for enabling continuous play of music songs
[…]

And as for page 49. How does that even remotely explain what the Repeat function does?

from p49 of the manual:
_ 8.2 Basic Settings

  1. Select Music Settings, Video Settings, Photo Settings or Podcast & Book Settings
  2. Selecting any of these options will allow you to personalize the Shuffle, Repeat, Orientation_

[…]

9

drlucky wrote:

> if you are in the songs list and select shuffle all it will shuffle all songs

Augh!!! (excuse me…) Well, how annoying is that?

Armed with this latest knowledge, how do I tell my dad how to get to the songs list rather than the album list?

10

  1. press the center touchpoint on the “Music” selection in the main menu. 

  2. this will bring you to the Music submenu on browse by artist.

  3. scroll to the right 2 selections and you will be in the Music submenu browsing by song. 

11

If your father likes to simply play all songs, this is easy.

First time, center tap under Music, then sweep over to artist / album / song, then select Shuffle All.

From this point, it’s all set up.  He can pause, the turn off the Fuze+.  Next time he turns it on, it’s just a matter pf tapping “play”.

I have found that the “shuffle all” function is handy.

Bob  :wink:

12

I’m very happy to report that my dad has got the player to randomly choose between all the tracks. What a relief!!

neutron_bob wrote:

> First time, center tap under Music, then sweep over to artist / album / song, then select Shuffle All.

This is just half of the solution. The other half is to ensure that  Repeat: OFF is selected. (Thank you for this, Tapeworm.)

Many thanks again to all for the help.

13

you can use repeat and shuffle at the same time. under settings > music settings > repeat. This setting has 2 options. Repeat All and Repeat Song. If you set this to repeat all then it can be used with shuffle all and you will shuffle all songs and when it plays the last song it will start the list over.  

14

@drlucky wrote:

you can use repeat and shuffle at the same time. under settings > music settings > repeat. This setting has 2 options. Repeat All and Repeat Song. If you set this to repeat all then it can be used with shuffle all and you will shuffle all songs and when it plays the last song it will start the list over.  

This may well be true. But when my dad had chosen Shuffle: All; Repeat: All , he was only hearing the same album over and over. Granted, this could be because he had inadvertantly chosen that setting when in the album rather than in the music setting of all songs. But this is clearly a failing with how to operate the settings on the player. (Note that I am not saying this is an operator’s failure. The SansaFuze+ is one of the least intuitive machines I’ve seen in a long time.)

I still have no idea what the repeat function does. There is zero explanation of it in the almost laughable instructions in the SansaFuze+ manual.

After about 6 weeks of fighting with the settings just to get the machine back to playing ALL the songs randomly, my dad has announced that he is not going to touch the settings again. (Note to self: if someone asks for a recommendation on what mp3 player to buy, remember to say to steer completely clear of the SansaFuze+ in spite of the fact that the sound quality is excellent.)

Once again, thanks to all for your help in getting my dad’s SansaFuze to function the way that he wants.

15

@ejm wrote:

 

This may well be true. But when my dad had chosen Shuffle: All; Repeat: All , he was only hearing the same album over and over. Granted, this could be because he had inadvertantly chosen that setting when in the album rather than in the music setting of all songs. But this is clearly a failing with how to operate the settings on the player. (Note that I am not saying this is an operator’s failure. The SansaFuze+ is one of the least intuitive machines I’ve seen in a long time.)

 

I still have no idea what the repeat function does. There is zero explanation of it in the almost laughable instructions in the SansaFuze+ manual.

 

After about 6 weeks of fighting with the settings just to get the machine back to playing ALL the songs randomly, my dad has announced that he is not going to touch the settings again. (Note to self: if someone asks for a recommendation on what mp3 player to buy, remember to say to steer completely clear of the SansaFuze+ in spite of the fact that the sound quality is excellent.)

 

Once again, thanks to all for your help in getting my dad’s SansaFuze to function the way that he wants.

I dont think your recommendation that everyone should steer clear of the Fuze+ is a fair statement. There are some of us that are happy with the Fuze+. sure there is room for improvement but it is in no way as hard to use as some make it out to be. 

Just to address a few of your comments from my point of view. 

The shuffle and repeat features are explained starting on page 34 of the user manual. you can see the specific areas in red below.

regarding shuffle the only thing i see that could be a little confusing is that is says “play all of your songs” where it is actually referring to “play all of your songs in the corresponding list” other than that the shuffle feature is explained pretty well below i think. very similarly to the way i described it earlier in a post and I posted that prior to reading the manual. 

I do see that all it says regarding repeat is that “enables continuous playback of songs”. this could be a little more descriptive but every mp3 player I have had in the past 6 or 7 years has had the exact same explanation of this feature and that is exactly what it does. There are 2 options “repeat All” and “Repeat song” they do exactly what they say. “repeat all” will start repeating the list of songs after it finishes and “repeat song” will start to replay the selected song after it finishes.

  

5.1.2. Shuffle (Play) All Mode

  1. On the Music home screen, press select (tap the center of the touchpad).

2. There are 5 sub-menus under Music, as demonstrated by the five dots to the view

guide on the bottom of the screen. From any of these sub-menus, at the top you

will see the option, shuffle all, followed by a number in parentheses corresponding

to the number of options available in that sub-menu (e.g., number of artists,

number of albums, number of songs, number of genres, number of playlists). If you

select shuffle all in any of these sub-menus, the device will play all of your songs in

random order.

  1. Tap/swipe to the right to skip to the next song, or press-and-hold to fast forward

within the current track.

35

  1. Tap/swipe to the left to skip to the previous played song or press-and-hold to fast

rewind to current track.

  1. Use the volume control buttons on the left side of the player to adjust the volume

level during playback.

  1. To turn off the shuffle all mode, on any song which is playing, tap back in order

to get to the “now playing” song (you’ll know because the album art for that song

will be enlarged to occupy most of the screen), then hit select (tap the center of the

touchpad), and you’ll see an Options menu. Select “Shuffle” and toggle it from “on”

to “off” by tapping the center of the touchpad. Alternatively, if the device is

displaying the shuffle all icon but nothing is currently playing, go to the Settings

menu, then select “Music Settings”, go to “Shuffle”, and toggle it from “on” to “off”.

Quick Tips:

This icon will appear on the upper right hand corner of the screen next to the

battery indicator when the device is in shuffle mode (play all songs in random order).

In addition, the shuffle all option at the top of the five sub-menus within music will

display an asterisk reminding you that this has been selected: * shuffle all

5.1.3. Options Menu – Music

When listening to a song, the Sansa Fuze+ offers four options for changing your listening

experience:

  1. Rate Song – A five star rating system can be used if you subscribe

to the Rhapsody® music service for generating playlists of your

highest rated songs.

  1. Shuffle – for toggling the listening mode.

3. Repeat – for enabling continuous play of music songs.

  1. Add Song to Playlist – adds the currently playing song to the

Music Go List found under “Playlists” (the fifth sub-option) under

the Music menu.

16

drlucky wrote:

> I dont think your recommendation that everyone should steer clear of the Fuze+ is a fair statement. […] sure there is room for improvement but it is in no way as hard to use as some make it out to be.

I’m sure you’re right that once one knows how to operate it, the Fuze+ is wonderful. However, there is indeed a lot of room for improvement.

drlucky wrote:

> 5.1.3. Options Menu – Music

> When listening to a song, the Sansa Fuze+ offers four options for changing your listening experience:

[…snip…]

> 2. Shuffle – for toggling the listening mode.

> 3. Repeat – for enabling continuous play of music songs.

This is exactly where our problems began. And this shows just how easy it is for a new user of the Fuze+ to get completely confused and disheartened.

We set my dad’s Fuze+ to Repeat: All because he wants to have continuous play. The result was that he was hearing one song over and over. (I’m guessing now that we must have managed to hit this setting when the player was on just the song). After reading the manual, and having a devil of a time finding the music settings at all (in the flurry of clicking and swiping, trying to find various things, the music setting was turned off entirely) we switched it to Shuffle: All Repeat: All. This resulted in one album being played over and over. Again, it’s possible that we managed to hit this setting when the player was in just the album rather than the top of the music settings. We have now switched it to Shuffle: All Repeat: Off. And are going to leave the Fuze+ on those settings.


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

Suggestion for an improvement: rather than hiding applications that have been turned off, leave them on the menu with easy to read markings showing that they have been turned off.

17

@neutron_bob wrote:

If your father likes to simply play all songs, this is easy.

 

First time, center tap under Music, then sweep over to artist / album / song, then select Shuffle All.

 

From this point, it’s all set up.  He can pause, the turn off the Fuze+.  Next time he turns it on, it’s just a matter pf tapping “play”.

Sigh… I’m ba-a-a-ck…

Unfortunately, I just got a message from my dad. After a blissful week of random playing of all songs, his fuze+ suddenly and inexplicably changed to playing 10 songs only. He says he had made no changes.

Since the fuze+ decided he only wanted to listen to 10 songs rather than all songs, he has been unsuccessful at finding anything but “currently playing” and “lock/unlock”. He says he has held the back button down for as much as 10 seconds. While we were on the phone he managed to get to “settings” and “video”. Then the fuze+ returned him back to “currently playing”.

Just to reiterate, my dad and I are not in the same city. He is an elderly man is not at all familiar with the sensitivity of the sweeping/swiping required for the fuze+.

Please confirm that the following is correct:

  1. Ensure that the fuze+ is unlocked. (If in locked possition, sweep up to unlock)
  2. Hold down the back button for 2 seconds to get to the main menu
  3. Select Music settings (how to do that?? back button??? center button???)
  4. While in Music settings, select shuffle:all repeat:off (how to ensure that the “all” is all songs rather than simply all songs in one folder??)
18

Please confirm that the following is correct:

  1. Ensure that the fuze+ is unlocked. (If in locked possition, sweep up to unlock)
  2. Hold down the back button for 2 seconds to get to the main menu This will work from any menu level. depending on where you are at in the menu a tap on the back button will take you back one level per tap
  3. Select Music settings (how to do that?? back button??? center button???) Press the center touch point 
  4. While in Music settings,  select shuffle:all repeat:off  (how to ensure that the “all” is all songs rather than simply all songs in one folder??). Once in the music sub menu you will be on Artist. Swiping from right to left will take you to album and one more swipe from right to left will take you to songs. from here you can select shuffle all no need to turn off repeat unless it is set to repeat song. repeat can be turned on or off under settings > music settings.


19

Thank you, once again.

My dad’s fuze+ is once again playing all songs.

20

Let’s face this machine is a piece of ■■■■.  I feel shame that i shelled out the money for something you need to be Kreskin to know how to operate. Best advice is throw it away and buy something hat wont make you crazy.