I have a Sansa Fuze that I got December 09 and it is the 3rd Sandisk product I own. Unfortunately, a couple months ago it started having issues. When I plugged it in one day I didn’t hear the Microsoft USB sound (duh-DUM) and the computer would not recognize a device was plugged in. Instead I heard “duh-duh-duh.” This puzzled me. and I tried fixing it by switching from Auto Detect to MSC (Which I don’t know what it is but it worked) and the computer recognized it and I went on my way updating it and such. After that I started getting the red screen “Synchronize to continue your music subscription,” but only on songs that had been ripped from a CD. Songs downloaded via torrent or Walmart Music still worked, but CD tracks don’t. So I’m guessing it is copyright related but I’m thoroughly confused. Please help!
If you’re using encrypting files as you rip them from CD, you probably want to stop doing that immediately. Just use plain MP3 if you’re not already.
What Saratoga means, if you’re not a computer expert, is:
Windows Media Player is a sneaky &^%$&#$.
MTP connects to Windows Media Player. The idea was to have the Fuze work with WMP the way dopI players work with iTunes.
MSC makes your player look like a basic hard drive or flash drive to your computer. WMP will also send stuff over, but actually you don’t need it–you can just drag-and-drop. Which is what I do.
But back to WMP. Its default setting is (or was–it may have changed in the most recent version) to “Add Copy Protection” when you rip your album to your computer. Copy protection means that you can only play those songs on a limited number of devices. The “Synchronize to Continue” message, which is very confusing, means that you have run into copy protection barriers. WMP’s hidden copy-protection codes are telling the unit you are a horrible music pirate.
The first thing you should do is go into Windows Media Player and change the Rip settings from .wma–which can have copy protection–to .mp3, which doesn’t. (If you don’t see a menu with Rip, Sync, etc., right-click on the words Windows Media Player at the top of the window.) Choose a high quality .mp3, like 192 kbps or above, so it sounds good.
Then, unfortunately, you have to re-rip your albums. Once they’re ripped to mp3 you won’t have any of this nonsense to deal with. And you can stay in MSC and just drag and drop. You can put the files anywhere on the unit except Temp or Photos.
I have had pretty good luck using wmp, it just seems so easy. I just checked and my copywrite protection was off thank goodness.
I got a new larger card (16mb) and reset up my fuze. I was going to drag and drop, I even changed to msc and tested a few albums. It didn’t seem any faster and it was more confusing to keep track of what I had so I changed it back when I reformated and resynced.
I briefly tried mediamonkey but wmp seemed easier there too. I guess because I already have a “music library” in windows. I am thinking of subscribing to rhapsody but wonder if the rhapsody files get mixed up with the ripped cd files, I would rather keep them separate.
Okay so I switch to mp3…How do I do that exactly? 
Of course, WMP won’t let you do VBR mp3’s, either…another reason not to use it.
I have version 10 of WMP. I’m sure 11 is a little different, but it will go something like this.
First, put it in Full mode so you can see everything. Right-click on the top of the little player window if you don’t see labels like File, View, Tools, etc. and change to Full Mode.
Under Tools/Options go to the Rip Music tab and under Rip Settings change format to mp3, and slide the slider to the right toward best quality (at least 3/4 of the way over). Hit OK to save that and you’ll be ripping to mp3.
Oh I respect that theres a copyright issue. But I’m still confused as to why this happened so randomly. The player worked fine for 3 months and then it started having all these problems.
Ok guys I still can’t figure the problem out. Please help! 
We need to know what you have tried.
Have you:
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Taken the non-working files off the Fuze? (You may have to switch USB Mode to MTP to see them, but then switch back to MSC.)
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Re-ripped the CDs to .mp3 files after changing Windows Media Player settings as above.
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Drag-and-dropped the new mp3s onto the Fuze.
Okay so I’ve isolated the problem I think.
Let me explain again.
1.) Computer not recognizing Fuze (Duh duh dum instead of da DUM)
2.) Joe switches Auto-Detect to MSC (The only one the computer would recognize)
3.) Most songs aren’t playing. (Synchronize to continue your music subscription)
So after really thinking, I’ve concluded that something is happening where its not playing WMA’s. When I rip music from a CD or but from Walmart Music, they are WMAs and they don’t play. When I torrent songs, they are mp3’s and they are fine. So Im wondering what happened in the first place to where the computer wasn’t recognizing it in Auto-Detect anymore after it had been no problem.
@joemass wrote:
Okay so I’ve isolated the problem I think.
Let me explain again.
1.) Computer not recognizing Fuze (Duh duh dum instead of da DUM)
2.) Joe switches Auto-Detect to MSC (The only one the computer would recognize)
3.) Most songs aren’t playing. (Synchronize to continue your music subscription)
So after really thinking, I’ve concluded that something is happening where its not playing WMA’s. When I rip music from a CD or but from Walmart Music, they are WMAs and they don’t play. When I torrent songs, they are mp3’s and they are fine. So Im wondering what happened in the first place to where the computer wasn’t recognizing it in Auto-Detect anymore after it had been no problem.
Are you using Windows Media Player to rip your CDs? WMP’s default rip settings are to create “protected” WMAs. Change it to MP3 and re-rip your tracks, delete the WMAs from your player, transfer the new MP3s to your player, and you should be fine. Even better, don’t use WMP. Its MP3 encoder is inferior. Use a program that uses the LAME MP3 encoder.
Message Edited by gwk1967 on 07-16-2010 11:57 PM
gwk1967 wrote:
@joemass wrote:
Okay so I’ve isolated the problem I think.
Let me explain again.
1.) Computer not recognizing Fuze (Duh duh dum instead of da DUM)
2.) Joe switches Auto-Detect to MSC (The only one the computer would recognize)
3.) Most songs aren’t playing. (Synchronize to continue your music subscription)
So after really thinking, I’ve concluded that something is happening where its not playing WMA’s. When I rip music from a CD or but from Walmart Music, they are WMAs and they don’t play. When I torrent songs, they are mp3’s and they are fine. So Im wondering what happened in the first place to where the computer wasn’t recognizing it in Auto-Detect anymore after it had been no problem.
Are you using Windows Media Player to rip your CDs? WMP’s default rip settings are to create “protected” WMAs. Change it to MP3 and re-rip your tracks, delete the WMAs from your player, transfer the new MP3s to your player, and you should be fine. Even better, don’t use WMP. Its MP3 encoder is inferior. Use a program that uses the LAME MP3 encoder.
You were told this 2 months ago by 2 separate people. Believe it yet?
gwk1967 wrote:
@joemass wrote:
So after really thinking, I’ve concluded that something is happening where its not playing WMA’s. When I rip music from a CD or but from Walmart Music, they are WMAs and they don’t play. When I torrent songs, they are mp3’s and they are fine. So Im wondering what happened in the first place to where the computer wasn’t recognizing it in Auto-Detect anymore after it had been no problem.
Are you using Windows Media Player to rip your CDs? WMP’s default rip settings are to create “protected” WMAs. Change it to MP3 and re-rip your tracks, delete the WMAs from your player, transfer the new MP3s to your player, and you should be fine. Even better, don’t use WMP. Its MP3 encoder is inferior. Use a program that uses the LAME MP3 encoder.
You were told this 2 months ago! Maybe now you’ll believe it?
I dont know how to change it to mp3’s 
Sorry I really don’t know WMP well.
joemass wrote:
I dont know how to change it to mp3’s
Sorry I really don’t know WMP well.
I don’t use WMP 11, but in version 10go into the Tools menu|Options… and click on the Rip Music tab. Here you’ll find the Rip Settings to change it.
joemass wrote:
I dont know how to change it to mp3’s
Sorry I really don’t know WMP well.
I don’t use WMP 11, but in version 10 go into the Tools menu|Options… and click on the Rip Music tab. Here you’ll find the Rip Settings to change it. 11 should have something similar.
