Empty Music Folder

dopple · July 12, 2008, 11:58am

Hi Guys,

I have the 2GB Clip.

I have a new PC running Win XP.

The PC did not see the Clip as a drive on auto-detect so I changed to MSC mode.

It now comes up as the F: drive but the MUSIC folder is empty despite have 1.8GB of

music in there.

I’ve tried everything I can think of, including looking for hidden files and updating to the latest firmware but

there are still no files in the MUSIC folder.

Strange thing is that my old PC (running XP) didn’t have this issue.

Advice please. Thanks.

miikerman · July 14, 2008, 3:48am

The Clip only sees files put onto the Clip in the same mode: MSC and MSC, MTP and MTP; not MSC and MTP.

neutron_bob · July 14, 2008, 3:06pm

@miikerman wrote:
The Clip only sees files put onto the Clip in the same mode: MSC and MSC, MTP and MTP; not MSC and MTP.

Tom a to, tom ah to, pot a to, pot ah to… Clip, PC… I mix em up too without coffee.

The Clip will see and display all files MSC or MTP with ID3 tags, but Bill Gates decided you can’t do that on the PC.

If you are in the alternate mode, files loaded in one mode “disappear” from view while in the other mode. Switch USB modes on your Clip, and you’ll see a filled Music folder again.

Bob

miikerman · July 14, 2008, 9:55pm

Thank you and yes, I was referring to what can be seen on the computer–it’s USB mode specific. The Clip itself will show everything that is on it.

pawinterks · October 23, 2008, 4:48pm

I used to be able to see ALL my files when in Auto USB mode. Now I can switch to MSC mode and the folders are there, but show empty. Most of my files are audiobooks in the Audiobooks folder. In MTP mode I can’t see ANY files except in the Audible folder. Windows Media Player only recognizes the Audible files and regular (wma) music files. All files in the Audiobook folder are hidden. Looking at the player menu, it appears all my files are still there and accessible. I suppose I’ll have to reformat and reload if I want to correct the situation. Lately the Clip (4GB) has been hanging on startup and it takes a bunch of fiddling to get it going again. I’m at V01.01.30A and hoping that the next firmware will fix this problem. I also have a Fuze and it seems to work much better (8GB + 8GB micro SD). I was hoping to reserve the Fuze for music and the Clip for audio books, but it looks like the Clip is a little flakey.

tapeworm · October 24, 2008, 2:04am

You might have some bad ID3tags that is causing your Clip to hang or freeze up during start-up.

It might also be a good idea to run ChkDsk with the /f switch to check (and fix) any errors.

pawinterks · October 24, 2008, 6:51pm

Is there a way to test ID3 tags? I have a program - Tag & Rename that I use to view / update tags but I don’t think it will test a tag (maybe if it doesn’t display a tag or crashes that might tell me. I did run a chkdisk but it didn’t seem to find any errors. In another thread, someone was talking about the Clip not supporting Folders - is that why they have disappeared? The Clip appeared to support and display in Windows Explorer a structure like AUDIOBOOKS\Author\Book Name\Files… I just copied a set of files into AUDIOBOOKS without any additional folder organization. It seemed to work, but means I need to name the tracks with additional info 01-01 –> Author-Book-01-01. My Fuze seems to work fine with folders organizing either Audiobooks or Music folders.

ytsejam1138 · October 24, 2008, 7:31pm

I’m not exactly sure what you mean by test a ID3 tag. I use MP3Tag to edit my tags. It will show you what the current tag is. Check it out here: Mp3tag - the universal Tag Editor (ID3v2, MP4, OGG, FLAC, ...)

tapeworm · October 25, 2008, 12:58am

pawinterks -

Usually when a Sansa ‘hangs’ on the beginning of a song, it’s because there’s something in the ID3tag it’s trying to read, but can’t. Much like a child’s undeveloped brain, when it doesn’t know how to process something, it simply sits there and does nothing. But it keeps getting this information and ‘it does not compute’. Hey, come to think of it, Windows does the same thing! :smileyvery-happy:

This can sometimes cause the more troublesome ‘freezing’ in the ‘refresh database’ initialization too. In my experience, it’s usually foreign or strange characters, text (or anything) in the Comments field of the tag, sometimes ‘bonus’ tracks marked with [*] or [#], and sometimes multiple artists (collaborating on the same track) names separated by a slash mark ( / ).

There is no program that I know of that will ‘test’ ID3tags per say. This is something you will have to get involved with. MP3TAG, a free program mentioned by ytsejam1138 is among the best tag-editing software out there. And it can be set to do many things automatically. I haven’t used it, but I’ve heard “Tag & Rename” is also good. But examining the tags for errors is something only your eyes can do.

The missing folders problem is not the same as the Clip ‘not supporting folders’. I suspect that your folders are still there; you just can’t see them because you’re in the opposite USB mode as described in the previous posts. If you put your music on in MTP mode, then you will only be able to see the folders in that (MTP) mode. Same goes for MSC mode. One mode will not see the folders added in the other mode.

It’s best to pick a mode and stick with it. I prefer MSC. It’s easy & less complicated thatn MTP. It makes your player be seen just as another drive to your computer. Drag & drop from one to the other. No muss; no fuss. Nothing gets on there without you knowing about it. No tempermental Windows Media Player and all it’s little quirks. But you have to figure out for yourself which is better for you.

Another thing to check is whether you have Windows set to ‘show hidden files & folders’.

tapeworm · October 25, 2008, 1:00am