Sansa® Clip Zip™

[bkdotcom]

The problem is with the firmware

I am able to create playlists with firmware 01.01.12

http://mp3support.sandisk.com/firmware/clipzip/clipzip01.01.12.zip

No luck with 01.01.17 or 01.01.18

[Tapeworm]

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bkdotcom wrote:

The problem is with the firmware

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Edit: I've done some further research and can confirm there seems to be issues with playlists with any firmware other than 01.01.12. Even though with the latest 01.01.18 f/w version my playlists did show up and play, it seems those were created back when the player was new and with the original firmware.

Any that I try to create (using my same procedure) with any newer firmware version do not appear until I revert back to the .12 update. Then they are all there. Very strange indeed.

Will pass this along to the dev. team and hopefully they can fix whatever is broken.

Kudos to bkdotcom for catching this.

[Marvin_Martian]

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Tapeworm wrote:

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Poppycock! How is it my Zip with the latest firmware has no trouble readiing & playing .m3u playlists yet yours does?

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I've heard this on the other forum as well, from several people, that they cannot get the m3u playlists to work.....what exactly is your method that works, so I can link them to a solution? (asides from my solution of not using playlists...lol)

[runandwrite]

Marvin,

I downloaded the Rockbox installer, but it doesn't recognize my Clip Zip. Do you happen to know where to find instructions on installing Rockbox for Clip Zip 4GB manually?

[Tapeworm]

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runandwrite wrote:

Marvin,

I downloaded the Rockbox installer, but it doesn't recognize my Clip Zip. Do you happen to know where to find instructions on installing Rockbox for Clip Zip 4GB manually?

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http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/SansaAMS

[RBIs]

I use playlists almost exclusively for my various activities. When my fuze battery died I ordered this CLIP Zip and received it 2 days ago. As reported by numerous other users, the playlist method of organizing music does not work. I'm using the same WMP method i did with my old fuze, but only the songs are sync'ed, NOT the playlist they are supposed to be in.

I've tried firmware 18 and back to 12 but no dice with either one.

Is it too difficult for sansa to provide the same interface with WMP as they already did with the old fuze ?  How about at least an acknowlegement by the company that they know this is a problem and when they expect the firmware to provide a solution ?

This device is useless to me without playlists. I'm getting ready to send this back and flame it on every comment site i can find. The price difference between this and a Nano has already been overshadowed by the hours of time and aggravation this has caused me.

Hello Sansa, are you there ? 

[calenti]

I have to second this - looking at the latest patches, why are we getting stopwatch tweaks (does anyone really use that, except maybe to time how long you have to spend Google-diving to find a workable solution to the problem of the disappearing playlists) and non-functional playlist management?

Sansa hardware is great but the software/firmware stinks of hoopty and has for some time. Please spray a little Axe on this thing by putting back FUNCTIONAL custom playlists.

Not where I have to go on a Google hunt, or give my poor CZ a hobby-kit OS, or play Raiders of the Lost Firmware (reverting back to .12 firmware made my saved playlists reappear), but just a simple, functional program that can let me easily distill my music collection into a few tight playlists. Something like a Songbird that worked, or Mp3Tag that worked on iTunes libraries, or a Winamp plugin with the musical title "Send playlist to Sansa".

Really, if you did that, well, Apple would still be $475/share but your customers would be happier and spend more time evangelizing for you than ripping on you.

[msb3200]

Creating playlists really should not be made this difficult. After reading through the forums, I decided the best approach was to create a .pla format playlist using Windows Explorer.  And it can be created but isn't persistent. All the entries referencing external memory get zapped once you reconnect via USB and reference the device in any way (Windows Explorer, WMP 12, Winamp, etc.)

I've created Playlists in my new Clip Zip from songs in my internal memory and my external microsdhc card. I did this via Windows Explorer by creating a new playlist in the internal playlist folder, and dragged and dropped them to the new playlist (it is .pla format). I was then able to disconnect from my computer, and was successful in playing the playlist, accessing songs from both internal memory and the external card. I even powered the Clip Zip down and turned it back on to ensure persistance (and it still worked).

Upon reconnection to my computer, the Clip Zip somehow modified the playlist and deleted ALL entries from the external card. I tried again, with the same results (edited the playlist, disconnected, worked successfully, reconnected, Clip Zip zapped the entries). 

I did it again, this time creating copies of the playlist in the playlist AND root folders of the internal memory. Tested again with the same results. ALL .pla files had the external memory songs deleted!

I can reconnect for charging, but that's it.

I tried going to 01.01.12, but that didn't appear to work for me either.  

I even tried a playlist with just external memory songs, but when I reconnect, the .pla file is gone, replaced with .pla.ofn, .pla.ref. .pla.sid files, as well as a file with Chinese characters in the name. 

SanDisk support tells me the you cannot combine songs from both internal/external memory, other than the Go List.  but as I said, I was able to do it, it's just that the Clip undoes it.   So I guess SanDisk recognizes this is a problem - they just don't want to fix it.  To me, this would appear to be a basic function.  And external memory should be treated no differently than internal memory.  I would never had allow that software out of test if I managed the release!

[msb3200]

The response I didn't want to see from SanDisk:

As mentioned in our previous email, I would again like to inform you that you can save songs to the external memory of your sansa clip zip player and play them as well. However, Incase you create playlist in the external memory of your Sansa player, The playlist will disappear every time its database is refreshed.

Maybe this is the reason that you can create the playlist in the external memory and play them for a while. However, when you reconnect your Sansa player to the computer, its refreshes its database and detects the playlist in the external memory and automatically modify or delete them.

But my question back is why?   I guess they figure "it's not a bug - it's a feature".  

One thing which I can't get across to them is that the playlists in internal memory (and references external songs) get the external memory entries zapped (it doesn't zap the entire playlist).  Must be the language barrier. 

Doesn't this sound like something that should be easily solved? (I know it can, as I lead multiple development projects utilizing global resources over my 30 yr career).

[Marvin_Martian]

This is one of many reasons the alternative Rockbox firmware is so popular.......there is a bit of a learning curve, but the full potential of these players' excellent hardware is realized.