Curse of the red dot solved.....sort of....

MP3 players Sansa Fuze
1

For all you Fuze owners who are tired of getting the red dot saying your’e tracks are expired, when they are not, here’s a cure.

Evidently, for some reason, either Sansa or Rhapsody’s problem, not pointing fingers… The subscriptioninfo.xml file is not being properly updated when you sync your player with rhapsody.  I’ve seen this on at least two different players, and even though channels update and licensed tracks get updated, Rhapsody for some reason is not updating this file to reset your “dot”.

As a result, your dot turns red, you get a nasty reminder to sync up with your PC and on the rare occasion it may lock up your player to force a reboot and resync of your database.  Which can be annoying with a large SD card.

To avoid this minor annoyance I provide the following fix until Sansa and Real get together to find root cause.

1.  Connect your Fuze to your computer in MTP mode.

2.  Navigate to the internal memory of your fuze.

3.  open the services folder, and then open the rhapsody folder.

4.  Copy out the subscriptioninfo.xml file to your desktop.

5.  Use a tool like xml notepad to “edit” the xml file.

6.  use the editor to delete the LicenseDuration tag and TimeOfLicense tag.

7.  Save the changes and then delete the subscriptioninfo.xml file on your player and replace it with the one you just edited.

So, you’re asking, what does this do.  Well for one, it will “grey” out your Account setting from the Settings/System Settings entry on your player.  Second, it will eliminate the dot completely.  Which, BTW will eliminate any reminder to renew your tracks.

That’s all it does.  Rhapsody Channels will still update, subscription tracks can still be transfered, and licenses will still renew.  The subscriptioninfo.xml file only controls the dot. 

Until Rhapsody and Real get together and find root cause, I suggest you use this to keep from having to endure the annoying RED dot.  You can’t do this to illegally bypass the DRM, this is only to get rid of the dot. 

I’ve done this for two months now and have not had any issues. 

Good luck, and I hope they fix this annoyance soon.  But until then, this is the best solution I’ve seen.

2

When I read things like this, I’m happy to live in a country where downloading music for free via p2p is 100% legal (although some people are trying to criminalize it…)

3

Thank you.  Will try at my own risk.

4

I’ve tried this process and it worked for a bit, but then, if I remember right, when I updated my channels or synched one of my playlists, not sure which, the red dot came back and the message that my subscriptions have expired pops up every time I start the Fuze. I’ve just learned to live with it.

5

@ssorgatem wrote:
When I read things like this, I’m happy to live in a country where downloading music for free via p2p is 100% legal (although some people are trying to criminalize it…)

Don’t know anyplace where stealing is considered “100% legal”, but it’s still unethical to enjoy the fruits of someone else’s labor. 

6

Hey qualityaudio,

Notice that when the RIAA proscutes someone, they don’t prosecute them for “stealing.”  :wink:

Stealing is defined as taking something with the intention of permanently depriving the owner of it.
As nothing physical exists to take, you cannot permanently deprive the owner of it.

It is breach of copyright… not theft. There is a legal distinction between the two despite the adverts anti-piracy groups put out.  :wink:

8

“Unethical to enjoy the fruits of someone else’s labor” ???  I thought that’s what they were laboring for.  Musicians want to be heard, first and foremost. Ask the real, committed ones. The career is a means to that end. 

Yes, musicians should be paid.

Whether they should be paid via a minuscule royalty (15-20% at best, for a superstar with clout, after all advances and “packaging costs” are recouped) on sales of compact discs, with the rest of the money going to record labels that have historically done their very best to exploit musicians, and often rob them outright of what they have earned, is a separate question. 

You can directly support musicians whose music you have discovered and downloaded online by going to concerts, buying T-shirts,  telling your friends about them, calling your radio station to play them, etc. And if you care about them continuing to make music,  you should. 

But this is not as clear-cut a question as “stealing” makes it out to be.  For a lot of people, the internet, downloading included, is the new radio–a way to check out and discover music.  Indeed, it has worked better than radio for everyone except those with the clout and payola to get their music played on Top 20 stations.  But the old-line recording companies keep trying to criminalize the internet instead of recognizing that it has changed the game. Just because you can find free mp3s on Google doesn’t mean that Google should be shut down.

I’ve enjoyed the fruits of many people’s labor via Google: blogs, news, video clips, music. It’s not unethical–it’s about human interaction. 

Message Edited by Black-Rectangle on 09-19-2009 07:31 PM

9

Sorry for running the thread off topic but those were some interesting responses and points of view on the downloading question. Thanks. I’m bumping this thread again because this problem was finally solved for me. I just bought a new computer running Vista. I deauthorized the old computer, installed Rhapsody on the new computer, and after connecting the Fuze, the red dot turned green. So I guess that’s the fix. Get a new computer.

10

Well, I’m still trying to talk to Rhapsody about this issue.

My player has still has a similar issue.  In this case, Rhapsody still thinks the last time I synced was Feb 10, 2012 and it never updates this data, so it writes an expired subscriptioninfo.xml file.

Of course I get the run around because very few in Rhapsody even know how PFS works.  (If you want to know, do a google search on “Rhapsody_Ready_Optimized_PFS_TestKit_1.0.5.pdf” and you will get a test document that tests all you would ever want to know about how devices sync with Rhapsody.

Be aware, this document will not allow you to extend your actual licenses.  The license files attached to subscription tracks is still very proprietary, so this can’t be used to circumvent any DRM, so it’s not “illegal” to have.

Until Rhapsody can call me and tell me why their Rhapsody client (either locally or through their subscription servers) refuses to write a proper subscriptioninfo.xml file, I’ll just have to hack my way through it.

BTW.  If you resync, there is the possibility that your client will reinstall an expired subscriptioninfo.xml file again, so you have to re-edit it.

It’s a pretty small thing to do once a month, but I plan to stay on their butt until they can provide me a good answer.