Did I mess my Clip up by connecting it to a Mac? (Also MTP vs. MSC and charging details?)

MP3 players Sansa Clip | Clip+
1

Hi,

I hope somone can help me out with this…

I just got a Clip and love it. I don’t use anything to sink files up or create playlists, but I’ve been keeping it in MTP mode when dragging and dropping files over because I thought I read on here that you lose some features or info if you use MSC mode (?). Anyways, I was at a friends house and downloaded a couple podcasts on their Mac laptop (I have a XP SP2 at home on my laptop). They had a USB to mini connector for their iPod that they use to transfer (and charge), so since I didn’t have mine with me, I just used theirs and conncected the player to their iPod.

First thing I noticed was that it automatically went to MSC mode and I could not get it to be recognized in MTP mode on the Mac book. So I couldn’t see the files I already had on the player and add these new ones to them (it would only let me add them in MSC mode, and then I’d have files on the player in two different modes, which wouldn’t be ideal because they wouldn’t be all together – so I didn’t bother transfering the files).

Second thing, of course, is that the player started charging. I figured, hey, it’s already down to half-power, I’ll just let it charge then. However, once it got to about 3/4 full on the bar meter on the player itself, it stopped charging! I unplugged it and plugged it back in and it then said it was back down to half-power again! Uh-oh… I got worried about that weirdness, so I just unconnected it. It seems to be working okay. And I’m going to wait until the battery completely dies before charging it here at home on my XP laptop.

Questions:

1. Did I mess something up or hurt the player in anyway by connecting it to that Mac book with the iPod mini to USB cable? (Technically, they’re not meant to be used with Macs, right? And I can always bring it back to the store and get another one if needed…)

2. Why did it stop charging at 3/4 then go back down to 1/2 level and start charging again on the Mac book?

3. Is it possible that the battery got messed up by doing this and now won’t fully charge or work 100% correctly when I charge it on my XP laptop?

4. What are all the pros/cons of both MTP mode and MSC mode?

5. When recharging, is it better to let the player die then charge in full instead of charging it just a little bit here and there?

Any help is appreciated – thanks! Happy Holidays!

2

Hi,

I hope somone can help me out with this…

I just got a Clip and love it. I don’t use anything to sink files up or create playlists, but I’ve been keeping it in MTP mode when dragging and dropping files over because I thought I read on here that you lose some features or info if you use MSC mode (?). Anyways, I was at a friends house and downloaded a couple podcasts on their Mac laptop (I have a XP SP2 at home on my laptop). They had a USB to mini connector for their iPod that they use to transfer (and charge), so since I didn’t have mine with me, I just used theirs and conncected the player to their iPod.

First thing I noticed was that it automatically went to MSC mode and I could not get it to be recognized in MTP mode on the Mac book. So I couldn’t see the files I already had on the player and add these new ones to them (it would only let me add them in MSC mode, and then I’d have files on the player in two different modes, which wouldn’t be ideal because they wouldn’t be all together – so I didn’t bother transfering the files).

Second thing, of course, is that the player started charging. I figured, hey, it’s already down to half-power, I’ll just let it charge then. However, once it got to about 3/4 full on the bar meter on the player itself, it stopped charging! I unplugged it and plugged it back in and it then said it was back down to half-power again! Uh-oh… I got worried about that weirdness, so I just unconnected it. It seems to be working okay. And I’m going to wait until the battery completely dies before charging it here at home on my XP laptop.

Questions:

1. Did I mess something up or hurt the player in anyway by connecting it to that Mac book with the iPod mini to USB cable? (Technically, they’re not meant to be used with Macs, right? And I can always bring it back to the store and get another one if needed…)

2. Why did it stop charging at 3/4 then go back down to 1/2 level and start charging again on the Mac book?

3. Is it possible that the battery got messed up by doing this and now won’t fully charge or work 100% correctly when I charge it on my XP laptop?

4. What are all the pros/cons of both MTP mode and MSC mode?

5. When recharging, is it better to let the player die then charge in full instead of charging it just a little bit here and there?

Any help is appreciated – thanks! Happy Holidays!

*********************************

Recently I saw many posts in there suggested that there are problems with the device and MAC computer so I would not recommend you using it on a MAC especially on the packaging box does not say that it will support MAC so I don’t think it’s a good idea to try.  As for the recharging, you can charge whenever you like, a little bit of here and there should be fine.  You should not get any problem with charging on your PC.  As for the weirdness, I think your device is under MSC mode with MAC so the features with battery charging might not work properly so that’s why you see a weird thing there.  As for the pros and cons of MTP and MSC.  Well, MTP is called media transfer protocol, which microsoft created it hoping that it would give users a better or friendly use of the device and connection and it is the only mode that allows you to sync subscription music to your device.  MSC = mass storage capacity works like a thumb drive where you can just drag and drop files to your device and get on with life without the interfacing of applications and such.  However, MTP works better with playlist, subscription synced and it also works as drag and drop files as well so it’s a preferred mode but it’s all depend on each person’s taste.

3

Thanks for the post!

My main concern is whether or not I hurt the player by connecting it to a Mac and letting it “charge” for about 20 minutes before it started doing the weird stuff I described further above – and whether or not I should just bring it back and get another one (which I’ll do, if that’s the case).

Does anybody know the answer to this?

Thanks!

4

It should not hurt your device by plugging into MAC.  If your device is still working meant that there is nothing wrong with it because if MAC did a score on your device, you would not be able to use it right now or might have problem already :)  So you are safe to use it

5

Hmmm… I don’t know… I let the battery go down to empty (basically, the player said that the battery was low and would not play), then plugged it into my PC to charge. It’s been charging for 3 hours and 25 minutes now, and it’s still charging. The charging indicator is bouncing between the 3/4 full mark and full (when I first start charging, it bounces between the emtpy and full mark).

Should it still be charging or should it be full by now?

(I know it takes 3.5 hours for the initial charge – and I am charging it from empty, I guess – but I’m almost at 3.5 hours now!)

Also note: The 3/4 mark was what it got “stuck” on (i.e. it stopped charging and stayed at that level) on the Mac, before it went back down to the half mark and started charging again.

EDIT: IT FINALLY JUST FINISHED! I THINK I’M GOOD TO GO… :slight_smile:

Message Edited by M-3PO on 12-26-2007 04:51 PM

6

Now, if you have WMP11 installed on your computer, you can check the device properties for the battery level as well.  From there, you will know for sure if your device is actually charged or not…also, do you have the latest firmware, latest firmware also tells you exactly where you are on the battery bar.

7

It just finished as I was typing! :slight_smile: Thanks!