Audiobook resume failures

MP3 players Sansa Fuze
1

I listen to a lot of audiobooks and the Fuze is almost the perfect player for my needs.  Almost, I say, because about one time in twenty, when I try to resume an audiobook, it resets to the beginning of the file.  This is extremely annoying as I format my audiobooks as one large file.  The fuze does seek fairly quickly, but it can still take quite some time to find where I left off.

Relevant details:

  • Audiobooks are formatted as one large file, 48kbps, mono mp3 - constant bitrate - encoded with lame v3.98 64 bit on Linux (Ubuntu Intrepid, if that matters.)  I can provide a sample file which has exhibited this behaviour, if required.

  • I have updated to the latest firmware and this still occurs.

  • I am *very* careful to avoid the improper shutdown bug.  I not only make sure the backlight is on when I shutdown, I switch to a music track before shutting down.  I never see “Media refreshing…”

  • I have seen this happen with books stored on the internal memory and on a uSDHC card, if that is relevant.

A few other comments/bugs/wishlists:

  • For my purposes, real bookmarks would be gravy.  Very nice, but what I really, really want is reilable resume!

  • A seek mode using the wheel would be heaven.  I’d like to be able to click the center wheel, get a scrollbar with the track position and scroll the wheel to move around.

  • I’d artists and albums under audiobooks would be extremely useful.  With a 16G fuze, it is possible to load quite a few audiobooks. :slight_smile:

Thanks for any help you can provide.  Love the fuze - as I said, it is nearly perfect for me, except for that one glaring issue. 

2

Next will release will handle multi-file books much better.  It will keep the cursor position over the currently playing segment,  so you can resume the segment and then resume within the segment.

For long files,  please ensure your device or card is formatted using 32K allocation units.

We are making some fixes should make your resume more reliable.

3

Thanks.  I’ll reformat for 32k clusters.  Is there some advantage to doing so?

Great news on resume   Thanks!

4

One thing on the firmware updates is that they don’t seem to come when they are supposed to. They do come, just not always when Sandisk says they will. In this regard, patience and impatience alike are a virtue (patience in that you have to wait, impatience in trying to convince Sandisk to make the firmware sooner).

5

Huh.  Now I’m very curious what the benefits of 32k clusters are.  I reformatted to 32k clusters and retransfered my music.  Previously, I had noticed an occasional stutter while listening to FLAC files and scrolling around in menus.  This was very simple to reproduce.

It’s gone with 32k clusters.  Very nice. Prior to the reformat, the filesystem was not fragmented - I’d done the same reformat and transfer to the 16k cluster filesystem, so I doubt that fragmentation was the issue, if it really ever should be with a flash device.

Very nice.  Of course, now I’m curious about 64k clusters, and 128k clusters and… :wink:

6

Larger clusters = Less filesystem overhead.

7

Sloth,

You have a misleading screenname for such thoughtful posts.  Thanks for this thread and posting your results. 

8

@sansafix wrote:

 please ensure your device or card is formatted using 32K allocation units.

Is there a way to determine the current allocation units of our device or card without reformatting?

9

I dont know how,  but there may be some utility that can show the FAT structure.  Others on this forum can help.

10

On linux, fsck.vfat -v will display the cluster (allocation unit) size.

11

@sloth wrote:

On linux, fsck.vfat -v will display the cluster (allocation unit) size.

 

 

But you will need to download dosfstools to do that if you haven’t done that already.

12

For those of us that don’t have Linux…

  1. for the Fuze’s internal memory, do we use the Fuze’s “Format” command? Or do we use Windows, e.g., Windows Explorer’s Format (under Properties)?

  2. Does the following from this message still apply?

"For Cards > 2 GB use FAT32 with Allocation size = 32K (you can specify it using DOS command prompt)

For Cards 2 GB or less, the best performance is to format as FAT16. Default cluster size is OK."

  1. For a 2GB Sansa Clip or 2GB Fuze’s internal memory, do we also format as in #2 above to FAT16 with default cluster size? Since that is probably how it came from the factory, do we instead do nothing for 2GB Fuzes or Clips?

Thanks for this info. I’ve also experienced some stutter, but thought it was from my slow μSD card

Message Edited by jj2me on 12-10-2008 05:59 PM

13
  1. Devices Format command does the optimal format.  In XP,  the Windows Explorer format leaves you with 4K clusters which is NOT optimal.

2.  Yes it still applies

3.  Devices Format will select FAT 16 for 2 GB and smaller devices automatically.

14

Thanks much.  Looks like we won’t have to format the Fuze’s internal memory nor the Clip’s–they presumably came correct from factory, since the player’s “Format” command formats correctly.  It’s just μSD cards > 2GB that need formatting, to FAT32 with Allocation size = 32K.

15

@sloth wrote:

  • A seek mode using the wheel would be heaven.  I’d like to be able to click the center wheel, get a scrollbar with the track position and scroll the wheel to move around.

Yes, I would love that too. My Rio Karma used the wheel to seek in the Now Playing screen. Mind you, it had dedicated volume buttons.

Message Edited by pelago on 12-11-2008 10:43 PM

16

Sloth,

If its not too much trouble,  can you post one of the audiobook files to a free file sharing site,  and post the link here so we can download the file and try to resolve your problem.

Thanks,

sansafix