Sansa Fuze+ Firmware 02.38.06

Hi

On the french page for sansa fuze+ it is written: " Méthode 2 - La mise à jour manuelle en téléchargeant le Firmware depuis le forum SanDisk

  1. Allez sur Sansa Fuze+ firmware update board sur le Forum SanDisk.  "

and I see that I must downlod Firmware 01.29.03 

but on this forum there is a firmware 02.38.06

Is it a firmware for me ? Is it the last firmware ?

download the firmware in this thread.

Thank you, so it is in french … :smiley:

Reassure me, there are technicians who work on the update of the French internet pages? There are technicians who work on the resolution of the bugs of the fuze +? I think that each would like to know about the next evolutions, sometimes I post message but nobody answers I have never seen that at the price of the fuze +, it is really surprising.

“Very nice post fusionnow!”

Thanks Sandro, just trying to warn customers and help the development team and the product managers be all that they can be.  I’d rather be writing raving reviews like the old days…

"About the scrolling thing, I can’t use it, I don’t understand how it can be defined “usable”. I can’t scroll through songs because it’s too slow it takes minute to chose a song, i can’t call this “usable” if the point of a media player is this basically.

Other comments are to demonstrate how amateur this software is, that can’t even do simple tasks.

I think that for my main problem (the scrolling) adding a way to scroll though alphabet letters would resolve it."

Yes, I was a little overly dismissive on that one.  I don’t use song scrolling at all.  My whole view of song list was that it was so bad… so unbelievably horribly implemented, that it prevented me from getting through from “albums” to “genres”.  Artist response was awful, Album response was awful… my only hope for playing a large collecton was to combine a lot of like artists into genres and random play within them.  Problem was that I needed to get through the “songs” screen to make it “genres” and in hundreds of tries the device inactivity timeout always kicked in before the song list would respect another swipe to genres.  So, with this latest firmware… the mere ability to make it through the song list to the genres was a HUGE SUCCESS from my perspective. How sad is that?

But now that I’ve played with it a bit in environments (beach, sun, hot tub) where I’d never take a real mp3 player or an iPhone I have to agree with you.  The song list really needs a lot of work.  And I will say that although the device is now finally minimally usuable, I share the prevalent view of the “hyperactive” user interface and the tactile software response (event handling) have a long way to go.   I have kept my mega-tagging strategy and I combine like artists and genres to the full extent possible.  Getting any usefulness out of this device whatsoever is all about combatting the design flaws and tagging like mad to make any list shorter, cause processing any long list of data (artists, songs, genres, albums) sems to be the bane of this software design.

Heavy,

“FWIW, you’re misquoting me and I totally agree with you.”

Cool, glad to see that we are in total agreement but my quoting actually was verbatim… 

If you want to be in complete synchronicity, you could edit your posts to remove reference to “media sorts”, etc and just agree that folder sort is by name, simple and just fine for that purpose.  Remember, with a tool like MP3Tag you can instantly (well, almost) make 9,000 mp3’s sort just as you like with file rename recursive through folders.  If you have tagging, it is super fast.  If you don’t, you’re stuck with existing filename… which is after all exactly what folder sort uses.   No media tagging needed… that’s for tagged play, kapisch?

So… by definition we are in violent agreement!

Honestly the only way out I see is dump this product and start developing a new one, an intelligent one this time.

They keep fixing the unfixable. I mean how long are they gonna release firmware upgrades for this product? It’s going to stop eventually and apparently before any major change.

and do what to those of us who bought and have it under warrenty still?

I was just saying

Looked 10 pages in and i didnt see any of the Time bug topics… were they deleted ?

I hope they don’t think this issue is solved on this firmware version and if this is the case

please enlighten me Sansa on how to get my clock to work after a reboot please

I came to the conclusion they don’t even know what they’re doing because it’s impossible at this point to still have this awful firmware

I understand your frustration.

I do want to be fair to Sansa (and the community around here)

There IS problems with the device but considering what I would do in there position makes me

think trying to design and build a player with the large amount of features the Fuze+ has, MUST be hard.

I just really wish we had some *more (or any) feedback from the firmware developer(s)

Like what bugs they are aware off AND working on for a future firmware update.

I really think if they were upfront about the development status it would ease

a lot of aggressive frustration around here.

Im tempted to do some down grading of my firmware to see if I can fix the power usage / time bug issues

those two problems are the most irritating to me… Having to use a separate device just to check the time ■■■■■…

Sometimes I don’t carry my cell phone and the Power usage when the device is off bug worries me because

lithium ion batteries have a finite life span and I don’t like the idea that my device is degrading while OFF !

I wonder if the two problems are some how related ?

XPmule they are. Do this: Restore to fact settings>do settings set time and data then leave OFF for a while>come back see if either issue is fixed. IF NOT then reformat reload firmware set up settings/time>DO NOT RELOAD IT YET>turn off leave it for a while then come back and see if either issue is resolved. If not do all three in this order>format>reset fact settings (don’t cust anything yet)>reload firmware>set time/date>charge until full>leave for a while and see if either issue is fixed when you come back. I imagine the time one will be fixed by one of these.

It’s been 3 months since th last firmware update. Is there a new update in the near future ?

@njones wrote:

It’s been 3 months since th last firmware update. Is there a new update in the near future ?

You’ll know when we know. Sandisk generally doesn’t announce updates before they’re released.

Well it would seem downgrading firmware is not possible.

Just tried to go back to v2.37.01 and after reboot it still says v2.38.06 in the info option.

edit: in case anyone is curious i tried the manual method …never used autoupdater for an update yet

I wouldn’t worry too much.  We’re going to keep getting these incremental updates and it is possible to use it now at full capacities of content (16 gig internal + 32 gig SD card).  So it’s well worth keeping it around and remember: keep your eye on the prize!  This is a great combination of hardware and potential  and soon it is going to switch from a problematic device to the best platform out there when the Rockbox port is ready in the next couple months or so.   Certainly we guinea pigs who shelled out roughly $250 for  a 16 GB Fuze+ with an 32 GB SD card as soon as it came out have a right to be ticked off.  After all, these first devices went out of warranty back in early September; out of warranty before they ever became usable!!!  Worse yet, we have wasted over a year and paid $100 over what we would pay now for the same device and 32 GB SD card.  That’s a hundred bucks to pay for the privlege of hauling an unusable device out of the desk drawer every few months to be an unpaid beta tester of a new firmware update. 

The sad thing is that we wouldn’t buy it now, becasue now there are 64 GB iPhones out there with the iOS embedded iPod app which is infinitely better than the Sansa Fuze+ interface.  I have to believe that any servicable mp3 player on an Android phone beats the Fuze+ as well, but the iPod app in a solid state phone with large capacity is significant because it is the iPod that clearly served as the UI design goal for the failed Sansa Fuze+ project.   But now, with most everybody carrying a smart phone, it’s really not clear that devices such as the Fuze+ are even needed.  This is why Apple is now phasing out the entire iPod line.

But Rockbox either equals or exceeds the iPod design depending upon your perspective and in the near future we will have Rockboxed Sansa Fuze+ devices.  The Rockboxed Fuze+ will almost certainly be the best and most full featured solid state dedicated media player available.  This is mostly because it is unlikely that any competitor is going to release new devices to compete in that disappearing niche market. 

These Rockboxed Fuze+ devices will only be of value to very limited classes of users:

  1. Folks who do not carry smart phones because of the cost of a data plan

  2. Folks like me who do carry a smart phone with a lot of music and/or media but do not want to expose it to harsh conditions.

  3. Systems Folks who put in long hours & all nighters maintaining servers and choose to carry a Fuze+ as their USB drive of choice because of the addition of the music and radio.

When the Rockbox port is ready there will be a surge in Sansa Fuze+ sales.  I wonder if the Product Managers at Sansa will understand the reason.  Probably not, but Sansa will have at least earned it to some degree for putting out a decent selection of components.  Too bad the software never really arrived.

@fuzionnow wrote:

 the Rockbox port is ready in the next couple months or so.

 

I would say in the next couples of weeks

 

@fuzionnow wrote:
Certainly we guinea pigs who shelled out roughly $250 for  a 16 GB Fuze+ with an 32 GB SD card as soon as it came out have a right to be ticked off.  After all, these first devices went out of warranty back in early September; out of warranty before they ever became usable!!!  Worse yet, we have wasted over a year and paid $100 over what we would pay now for the same device and 32 GB SD card.  That’s a hundred bucks to pay for the privlege of hauling an unusable device out of the desk drawer every few months to be an unpaid beta tester of a new firmware update.

This is clearly unacceptable. And a lot of other custumers already said so. I hope Sansa is going to give a better approach on their next device.

On the other hand: I’m the one who started the rockbox port’s process by opening the device and giving the picture of the pcb on the port’s page. I did without any kind of knowledge or pratical hability. Just a few video in youtube about how to open such devices.  Right after that came people around, especially Pamaury, starting to work on it. I mean: if people like you had just opened their device from the early beginning, we could be having a rockbox’s port at least since one year already!

@fuzionnow wrote:
When the Rockbox port is ready there will be a surge in Sansa Fuze+ sales.  I wonder if the Product Managers at Sansa will understand the reason.  Probably not, but Sansa will have at least earned it to some degree for putting out a decent selection of components.  Too bad the software never really arrived.

Sansa seems to have helped the port, even offering to send a free fuze+. Also answering a few question. I guess it is not totally a hazard if so many sansa devices are supported in Rockbox.

And clearly I just can’t wait for the port to be usable for the hardware of the fuze+ is really nice!

"1) Folks who do not carry smart phones because of the cost of a data plan

  1. Folks like me who do carry a smart phone with a lot of music and/or media but do not want to expose it to harsh conditions.

  2. Systems Folks who put in long hours & all nighters maintaining servers and choose to carry a Fuze+ as their USB drive of choice because of the addition of the music and radio."

  3. Folks like me who take the privacy of the media I read/watch/listen too, seriously, meaning that no one, not even the phone company, gets to see the list of media I own. And dont fool yourself, they can. Oh and by the way, the only media I actually purchase is purchased in actual stores with paper money.

Ok here is another reason to have a seperate MP3 player.  I work with confidential information and my employer will not allow a cell phone to be on while on the floor.