Sansa Clip Zip Is SO irritating

I am so frustrated with the zip model - I had the old plus and it was nice and easy, but was stolen. I bought the Zip cause I saw it played FLAC files.

Correct me if I am wrong, but these are flash memory drives with players on them - essentially. I just want to drag, copy, move my music files onto the device and play it. Apparently I need secondary software, need to spend time on forums, research, etc. just to keep music straight on my player.

When I open the device on my computer it shows files nice and straight, when I unplug it and play it, totally different…I made the terrible mistake of charging it while I was listening to music on my computer through windows media player and I certainly did not click sync, but that is what it did. When I go out today, I have duplicate files, half my music got kicked off and filled with tons of files from my computer I seldom listen to. WHY make a simple nononsense player so difficult with all this *&%$ most people never need nor use? If I wanted my MP3 player to have “synergy” with my computer, I would have bought an ipod, and that is why I hate them - they want to dominate your whole computer. This player should be as simple as my memory flash, I never have issues with it. Plug it in, move the files, and they are there, just like I moved them when I plug it in the next location.

The zip is no different than the clip+. In settings under usb mode select msc mode. your computer will recognize it as an ordinary flash drive. mtp mode will sync with wmp. Always make sure you are in msc mode with any Sansa player if you want to drag and drop.

???

@mascis

Set the Player to MSC Mode. Plug it on PC and it show as Drive. Copy Music Files in Music Folder. Unplug Player. Database Rebuild is work. Finish

No Software Needed?

I did what was suggested: set it to MSC mode. Now my computer doesn’t recognize it and it won’t turn on at all.

Update: I suppose I did a reset (held power button down for a long time) cause I was able to get it turned back on. I promptly switched the setting back to auto detect because MSC doesn’t seem to be working real well. I was on my way to the gym and so turned around because I can’t work out without music. I cursed it the whole time - it just seems to never end with this thing. Anyone want to buy one?

In MSC mode the device is basically just a USB disk drive. If that doesn’t work, something is wrong with your computer. Can you mount other USB devices like thumb drives?

Yes, other drives work fine. When I originally switched it o MSC, I plugged it back into my computer and I could see the device, but when I went to the music file, it showed nothing in there (?). I was grateful is wasn’t trying to sync though, and thought it a good setting to charge it without being worried it would sync (spent a lot time fixing it after the last sync). I unplugged and listened for a while, then cut off. Later, tried to turn back on, and it wouldn’t. I plugged into computer and now nothing - the computer didn’t recognize it. I then did a restart (I suppose), and changed the setting back.

Maybe I am expecting too much out of this player.One thing maybe someone can shed some light:: a lot of complete CD’s I attempt to put onto player will show they moved over fine. But when I unplug and play, I see that the artist, CD title are there, but when I go into the CD, only the first track will be there, nothing else. If I look in the ‘unknown’ folder, the rest of the CD is usually there, with no names, just track 2, and on. When I plug it back in, I don’t even show an ‘unknown’ folder. I then usually delete the CD and try again, sometimes works, usually not.

Are your files properly tagged?

Yes, absolutely, they are all tagged correctly. Most perplexing is when the clip is plugged into my PC, I go in and view the files and they look beautiful, just as they do in music documents on my PC. But when I unplug and scroll through the player, everything is different (and not in a good way:)… Are the things I am describing not normal? I assumed this was the norm since I see so many recommendations to download tagging software.

mp3 tag works great. Under tools, you want to check "ID3v2.3ISO-8859-1

I went to download that MP3 tag a couple of weeks ago, and there were four different icons saying “download” and 3 are malware (I picked the wrong one and got a nifty new toolbar and new home page that took time to get rid of).

Can you provide a link to the actual download? Thanks.

www.mp3tag.de/en/

@mascis I think you should flash the firmware once again, then put the player in MSC mode. If that doesn’t work, try rockbox Hope this help you.

Or Tag & Rename.

http://www.softpointer.com/tr.htm

Disabel Unicode.

@mascis wrote:

Yes, absolutely, they are all tagged correctly. Most perplexing is when the clip is plugged into my PC, I go in and view the files and they look beautiful, just as they do in music documents on my PC. But when I unplug and scroll through the player, everything is different (and not in a good way:)… Are the things I am describing not normal? I assumed this was the norm since I see so many recommendations to download tagging software.

You  might want to check the tags (the files’ metadata) again.  The computer, in file view (e.g. Windows Explorer), shows the file names.  Players (including the Clip) show the files’ tags (the metadata), which can be different from the filename info.  It sounds like that is your issue.

A tag editor like MP3Tag can let you edit/add the ID3 tag info.

Another option:  you also can view the files on your player via folder view (at the bottom of the Music category listing), which will show your files via folder and file names (just like on your computer), rather than the tags.

Tag and rename is the same type of software as MP3 tag, correct?

I believe I understand metadata, though I’ve only skimmed the info - some music files on my pc are tagged correctly, but when I drag my mouse curser over the song files, I see different information sometimes. This may be from ripping music to pc off of burned cds that are mixed with different artists. Music that I ripped to my pc from the original cd or bought online, seem to work okay.

I still don’t understand the glitch of putting only the first track in the album file and the rest in an unknown folder.

I will give one of the tagging softwares a try and see how it goes, also redo firmware. Thank you for all the help.

Yep, Tag & Rename and MP3Tag both are “tag editors.”