Clip not recognised by XP but WMP 9 does?

MP3 players Sansa Clip | Clip+
1

The missus wanted an MP3 player, to listen to audiobooks. She already downloaded a few in MP3 format.

I went out and bought an 8Gb Clip today, based on good reviews on the net. Connected it and up popped Windows media player version 9. That was canceled as I wanted it to charge fully before trying to copy files about.

A couple of hours later, the little battery icon had stopped flashing, and I opened ‘My Computer’ the clip wasn’t there. Unplugged it, reconnected and Windoze media player opened, I have never ever used this software before, I prefer winamp for MP3’s so it was a bit of a mystery how to actually do anything with it, it kept wanting to connect to the net.

After a bit of headscratching,  we finally got the MP3 file in the left window, the Sansa Clip in the right window and found the ‘Copy’ button.

We waited for about an hour for it to copy over, the file was over 400Mb.

WMP shows the file in the ‘Audiobook’ folder, but the clip says it’s empty!

The manual says it should appear in ‘My Computer’ which it doesn’t

This cute device is turning into a nightmare.

How do I make it appear in ‘My Computer’ ?

Where did the 400+Mb file I transfered go?

Can I take it back to the shop and demand a refund? (kidding)

Version V02.01.16F

memory 7794mb

free 7220mb

songs 4

the 4 songs appear to have come with the player.

‘The Jones Gang - Angel/Any Day Now’

‘The Shanghai Restoration Project - Babylon of the Orient’

‘Alian & Ehren - Cobblestoned Waltz/Lillian’

‘The Red Thread - Wax Museum/Ship in the Attic, birds in the subway’

No idea where the 400+ Mb MP3 file we transfered dissapeared to.

Thanks in advance.

Rev

Message Edited by revjim on 01-25-2009 07:50 PM

2

Install WMP 11. WMP 10 should also work, but 11 is better for MP3 players. Sansas, at least. That should solve at least one of your problems (Sansa not recognized by the PC).

3

Well.

We installed Windows Media Player 11

It now sees the Clip in ‘My Computer’ :slight_smile:

But the working of Windows Media Player are a complete mystery, we have no idea how to ‘work’ this horrible piece of software. It appeared to search the entire hard drive, create a playlist, then started to ‘sync’ and download everything to the Clip. We stopped it, but don’t have a clue what we are looking at, or how to manipulate the list, right-click usually allows you to delete things, not in WMP that option is absent.

So we closed the WMP and looked at My Computer, ah! good old drag and drop…

It showed us the directories, and the files in them. Sure enough in the Audiobooks folder there was the 400Mb MP3 of the book she want to listen to.

Unplug the Clip, power on, navigate to the Audiobook folder, and…  Empty.  huh?

I am ready to write off the 40 quid I paid for it, and buy the cheapest sumvision mp3 player I can find in Tesco’s next time I visit, consigning the Sansa Clip to the dustbin.

Is it because the MP3 file is so large?

Why can’t I seem to remove any files from the Clip?

As you can tell I’m getting very frustrated.

Rev

4

@revjim,

When you plug the Clip back into your PC, does the audiobook file still show up? Can you double-click the file on the Clip and play it in WMP?

Windows sometimes reports a file copy as completed before all the data has been saved to disk (i.e. to your Clip, so if you unplugged the Clip a bit too soon, the file may not have saved correctly.

The next thing to check is whether the audiobook MP3 file is tagged properly.

Rather than rely on the filename to determine audiobook or track details, the Clip needs all the information to be embedded in the file in a “tag” - title, author/artist, year, etc.

If the MP3 tag is missing or incomplete, the Clip will typically show the file in an “Unknown” folder.

(MP3 tags are an industry standard way of cataloging MP3s, but a lot of users have trouble wrapping their head around it.)

You can use WMP to tag your MP3s. although many people on this forum prefer to use free software called MP3Tag

Then there’s the MTP/MSC issue.

The Clip can be connected to the PC in one of two modes: MTP or MSC - files transferred to the clip in one mode are not visible in the other. MTP is a WMP feature which is supposed to support DRM and make it easier for people to sync tracks to their MP3 player, but in practice it just confuses everyone… which is why there are so many questions in these forums from people asking how to enable MSC mode.

By default, the Clip should connect in MTP mode if you have Windows Media Player

http://forums.sandisk.com/sansa/board/message?board.id=announcements&message.id=96&jump=true#M96.

In MTP mode, the Clip appears in My Computer as a special folder named “Sansa Clip 8GB” or similar; in MSC mode, it will appear as an extra disk device, probably as E:

Either way, you can use Windows Explorer to add or delete files on the Clip like any other drive.

5

Sorry I’ve not replied, been a bit tied up with work and things.

The wife has been fiddling about, she can now play the audiobook and so won’t let me near the thing!

I hope that when she’s listened to the book (at a few minutes per day) I can have it back.

I’ve been reading, I now suspect the tag problem, and despite trying to place the file in the audiobook folder, the Clip decided to stick it in ‘Unknown’

I will have to dig out my tag program and make sure.

Later folks

Rev