Clip only showing first of series of mp3 files (audiobook)

MP3 players Sansa Clip | Clip+
1

I recently put an audiobook, that I had ripped from library CD’s into mp3 files, on my Sansa Clip.  I started listening to the audiobook and when I reached the end of the first file (Disk 1), it stopped.  When I looked at the player, I did not see the other six mp3 files of the audiobook.  I thought maybe I had somehow only transferred the first file, but when I got home and connected the Clip to my computer, it showed that all 7 files were indeed on the player.  I was able to work around this by deleting the first part that I had listened to.  Then the one file showing on the player was the Disk 2 mp3.  When I finished listening to that, I deleted it and went onto the next.  This is not right though.  Every other audiobook I have listened to brings up all the parts and I can listen seamlessly from one part to the next.  Does anyone have any suggestions as to why this is happening and any fix for it?  Thank you! 

Peggy

2

I found a solution, although I have no idea why it makes a difference.  I had originally put the mp3 files in a subfolder of Audiobooks.  I moved them to a subfolder of Music.  Now, all the remaining mp3 files of the audiobook show on the player and can be listened to in sequence when I select “Play All”.

3

I had a problem with files renamed in the record directory. The clip appears to place more restrictions on files in other than the music directory. Unfortunately, Sansa hasn’t seen fit to explain or specify what files should look like and what goes where, so about the only way is to find out by trial and error. They may be of the opinion that nobody reads manuals anyway so why bother to spend much time writing them. I suppose that is why we have forums.

4

The difficulty in copying multiple CD’s from an Audiobook is that frequently the files on the CD have the same names.  CD1 would have  files labelled Track 1, Track 2, …Track n and these would be the same names on the other CD’s for the AudioBook.  There is no way to properly copy these to the Sansa Clip (or any other MP3 player) without first modifying the ID3 Tag structure of the files on these CD’s.  What you must know is the Sansa Clip relies primarily on the ID3 tags associated with the audio files.  The names really don’t matter and even what folder you make on the clip doesn’t matter.  The other point to note is that putting them in the music files as verse to putting them in audiobook folder on the Sansa Clip is NOT the solution.  You have to first rip the cd’s to an MP3 format and there are several programs (including windows media player) that you can use to do that.  After you have them on your hard disk in a directory (I usually create one called Ripped) you can now modify the ID3 tags so the Sansa clip can properly handle the individual files on all the different CD’s you started with.  The ID3 tag you are principally concerned with is the title tag.  If you go into windows explorer and highlite the audio mp3 file and then right click and choose properties from the drop down menu.  You then go to details (if you have Vista OS) or summary (if you have windows XP) and you will see a window with the ID3 Tags.  These include: title, album artist, genre, #(track Number), and others.  You are primarily interested in the title, album and genre.  If you look at the title it might have track1 or cd1 track 1 or some other designation in it.  You must make sure that the titles for each of the files on the one cd you ripped are different and identifiable by a numeric order like track1, track 2, … track n.  The problem comes about when each of the Cd’s use the same title designations.  You need to change this so on CD1 the titles for all the files look like:   CD1 track 1,  CD1 track 2, …  CD1 track n and for CD2 the title look like:   CD2 track 1,  CD2 track 2, …  CD2 track n.   Now the Sansa clip can distinguish the different CD’s and still have an ordered approach to the individaul files on each CD.  The track numbers actually represent the chapter numbers in the book on an individual CD. 

Now for the hard part.  How do you change the ID3 tags on your hard drive for these MP3 audio files.  You cannot do it easily with windows explorer, or windows media player.  You would have to go into each track on each cd and modify the name from say track1 to CD1 track1 on CD1 and then for all the other tracks on that CD1.  Then you would have to repeat the process for all the other CD’s.  The easy way to do this is to get the program MP3tags at this site:  httx://www.mp3tag.de/en/index.html

Replace x in httx with p   http

You might have to search on this page to get the download but it is free and it works.  You can read the documentation about this program on the site page.  I will show you one way I did it.  You need to setup an action by clicking on the action link in toolbar of the MP3tag program.

Create a new action in an existing action group and choose Format value as action type.

In Field you can choose to which tag field the formatting rule should be applied.
In Format string enter the placeholder for the field selected above and the string which should be appended.

Example:
If you want to append the string " xyz" to the current value of the comment field:

Action type: Format value
Field: COMMENT
Format string: %comment% xyz

Of course you can use this also to add "xyz " in front of the tag value or to copy one value to another field.

This info is available at this site:  httx://forums.mp3tag.de/lofiversion/index.php/t980.html#entry4106

You need to try it and play with it.  Replace x in httx with p    http

This does work.  I have several books loaded and playing on my Sansa Clip under Audiobook and they each show their own directory structure on the Sansa clip.  I was not able to get help form Sansa Technical support on this issue as they told me I would have to do it windows media player and do it manually for each file on each CD.  The only response they could offer is that it is the same on the other MP3 players out there.  They had not heard of the program MP3 tags.  It is great and really makes it easy to use the Sansa Clip.  It would be nice if Sandisk would adopt this program and provide it with the Sansa clip and provide instructions for it similar to the one I outlined above.  This is only the tip of the iceberg for this freeware program it can do a lot more.  Try it.

5

I do appreciate your time for that lengthy explanation, but I really don’t mind the fact that I have to put my mp3 audiobooks into the Music folder.  Most of my audiobooks are Overdrive downloads from my library, and I have no problem with those.  Also, I have no problem with track numbers when ripping CDs.

Here is the way I rip audiobook CDs which eliminates the whole track number situation (it’s not too detailed, just my shorthand version that I saved):

Open iTunes (it’s a free download, even for us non-iPod people).
Insert CD.
Highlight all tracks.
In Advanced menu
  Select “join CD tracks” (see note below, if it’s grayed out).
  Select “submit CD track names”.
  Fill in information if necessary.
  Select “create mp3 version”.

Note:  Check out “Why is the Join CD Tracks menu item dimmed in the Advanced menu?” here:

It takes about 8-9 minutes per CD.  When done, you can move the files from Music\iTunes\iTunes Music to your folder of choice.  I have a folder “Books on CD” and make subfolders for each audiobook.

I love my Sansa Clip and am currently resisting buying one in another color!  :slight_smile:

    

6

I agree with you that putting files other than music files in the music directory is not the correct solution, but it will certainly work with mp3 files. The Sansa isn’t smart enough to know whether an mp3 file is music or speech or neither, assuming you can think of something which is neither.

One problem is the Clip doesn’t correctly handle mp3 files stored in the voice directory, which as I stated previously is not consistent with the way the Sansa M240 behaves.

The main problem is audiobooks may not be in mp3 format, and those, as well as wav do not have tag data. It’s wav files that are generated when doing a recording and like I stated earlier I know of nothing that officially explains any of this. The manual doesn’t even correctly specify the type of files my clip will handle since later firmware has added some.

Posts such as yours are helpful, but one shouldn’t have to experiment or guess or consult forums to learn the basics of using the clip. I don’t use audiobooks. I’ve been told the audible folder is for stuff downloaded from audio.com and I suppose audiobooks is for well, audiobooks, but it sure would be nice if Sansa bothered to explain all this in their online manual.