CAN ANYONE PLEASE TELL ME HOW TO UPDATE MY FIRMWARE ON MY SANSA CONNECT SO THAT THE WI FI WILL BE ABLE TO WORK?
SpacePatroller wrote:
Since this is “HELLO”, I guess it’s as good a newbie thread as any.
I just got a sansa connect with wifi. with which I’m pleased so far. Now what I’d like to know if I’m limited to 2BG microSD cards. The firmware is listed in Properties as 1.1 I’d also like to connect it to my main sterieo system and need to know how to do this if it can be done.
Thanks
You can use up to a 16GB microSDHC card (and possibly a 32GB though I don’t know anyone who’s tried it).
To connect it to your stereo system, just get a cable which plugs into the Connect’s headphone jack and then into the jacks on your stereo.
Message Edited by PromisedPlanet on 02-02-2010 01:11 PM
That’s 20GB to you, bub. 
Thanks for the link … I’m a big sci-fi fan.
SpacePatroller wrote:
After 17.93264 gb, I lose count. I wonder how many bytes it takes to fill the Royal Albert Hall
I take it it Ineed 2 more pieces of software. Recovery Tool and Media Covert, which I can’t fine
Why do you believe you need the recovery tool … is your Connect not able to support 16GB microSDHC cards, or playback video?
If you want these functions but don’t care about the WiFi functions:
If you want the WiFi functions, follow the seventh post in this thread:
http://forums.sandisk.com/sansa/board/message?board.id=connect&thread.id=2793
SpacePatroller wrote:
A though has occured to me. Whle trying to figure out what I might need or can use, the Recovery Tool being foremost as it’s mentioned all over the place, I’ve been all over the place looking for links to download these things and I get bounced around like a pinball.
Here’s the deal I have 30 GB of webspace and 600 GB/mo bandwidth at Bravenet. I doubt I’ll use more than half. Now it would be in my interest to have the stuff in one place and maybe even linked from here so that one can go to one spot and find them all. Also, some of the more software technically skilled reputable board members may come up with improvements or useful stuff. Do you know that in Cuba the car of choice is a 19i59 American car? They’ve kept them running for 50 years for low bucks. If they can find a way to get it done in a dictatorship, it stands to reason that when individuals are free to pursue happiness, where there’s a will, there’s a way.
If the things can be zipped, I can put them up on my webspace as downloads
Message Edited by SpacePatroller on 02-03-2010 04:58 AM
You mentioned also wanting the Sansa Media Converter … unfortunately it’s no longer available as a download on its own, as SanDisk wants to keep track of its download via the Sansa Firmware Updater, for some reason. But the Sansa Firmware Updater doesn’t recognize the Connect. What you’d have to do is get a supported Sansa, the list is shown here:
http://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/156/kw/firmware/r_id/101834
The run the Sansa Firmware Updater against IT, and it’ll allow you to download the Sansa Media Converter.
Some people have reported success using Rhapsody software to convert videos for the Connect, I haven’t tried it myself.
SpacePatroller wrote:
is thsi. To try out my connect, I just grabbed a folder full of mp3’s from my desktop and dragged it in, There are other audio folders I’d like to put there. Would the connect let me use multiple folders and how would I use them
Thanks
The Connect will pick up any audio files of supported formats no matter where you place them in internal memory or on the expansion card. I don’t think it’s even necessary to place them under the “Music” folder in internal memory, though I could be wrong about that. Any way, songs can be placed into folders as you wish.
BUT, the Connect’s interface doesn’t show folders. It categorizes songs by Artist, Album, and Genre tags, and Playlists. If you want to be able to view your songs as they were stored on your PC in folders, you’ll need to arrange the tags or playlists that way. Note that the only way you’d get any level of nesting is by setting your Artist to the names of one level of folders, and the Albums to the next level (and that’s as far as you can go).
@promisedplanet wrote:
You mentioned also wanting the Sansa Media Converter … unfortunately it’s no longer available as a download on its own, as SanDisk wants to keep track of its download via the Sansa Firmware Updater, for some reason. But the Sansa Firmware Updater doesn’t recognize the Connect. What you’d have to do is get a supported Sansa, the list is shown here:
http://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/156/kw/firmware/r_id/101834
The run the Sansa Firmware Updater against IT, and it’ll allow you to download the Sansa Media Converter.
Some people have reported success using Rhapsody software to convert videos for the Connect, I haven’t tried it myself.
Didn’t realize that. Sure enough, plugged a Connect into USB and left my SansaUpdater.exe running for 40 minutes of “currently checking for updates,” until it finally failed.
Re: Video
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Best to follow PromisedPlanet’s advice of borrowing a supported Sansa to use the Sansa Updater to get SMC.
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If you want to try installing an older version of Sansa Media Converter (Dec., 2008), I have posted that old installer here. Don’t know if, or how well, it will work, as I cancelled a test install of it because I didn’t want to uninstall the latest SMC.
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If all that fails, here’s a great post by PromisedPlanet giving the video specs which you can use with some video conversion app, and drag-and-drop to the Connect’s Videos folder.
SpacePatroller wrote:
I tried to work the download and all I got was pinballed around. I must be missing something.
Let me be sure of this. My connect with firmware version 1.1 will support up to 16 GB? I am starting to look for micro SD cards for it so I need to know for certain.
With regard to what I have in memory now. I’m used to just putting my pointer on the folder on the desktop, right-clicking, selecting Play with Media Player then clicking and having it work… Now I have two alternatives. 1) going through all my mp3’s and putting an entry in the “album” section of the properties tag and hoping that works. 2) Making playlists, The former would take weeks and require that I delete the material that’s currently in memory and I don’t know how to do the latter. can playlists be made onboard the connect? I don’t have Yahoo Jukebox and nor how to use it anyway. As I said, I’m a total newbie but I like what I see so far. Glad I got the thing.
I believe the version of the firmware which added MicroSDHC (> 2GB) support is:
ZAP: 1.1.1.50371
OS: 1.1.1.50239
This was done way back in Nov. 2007. If you have an earlier version of the firmware, you can always install either one of the two I referenced earlier (Sansa’s latest “official” no WiFi release, or WiFi via manual method).
One issue that I have seen with a fully loaded (many files) 16GB microSDHC is that if it’s in the Connect, and then you plug the Connect into USB, the amount of time required to read the files on the card causes an MTP timeout (I think), and the Connect is not visible to your computer. I don’t know if anyone else has seen this. The solution would be to take the card out when you plug the Connect into USB.
Regarding folder playback, if I understand what you’re saying, you’re not concerned about actually navigating through a folder structure on the Connect using the Connect’s menu system, you just want to be able to copy an entire folder tree to the Connect and play the songs within it, correct? I think the devil is in the details of what you mean by “having it work”. Do you expect a particular playback order?
Message Edited by PromisedPlanet on 02-04-2010 08:26 AM
On the Connect, the firmware version is shown under Settings => Info => Software Versions.
SpacePatroller wrote:
By “having it work” I mean playing only the material in the folder and no material from other folders, but since the Connect does not seem to be directory based, then I guess I’ll either need to set each folder as an album by going into each mp3 file properties/summary/advanced and specifying an album to match the folder name. or learn how to do playlists, which I’ve been meaning to do anyway so this may make it sooner rather than later; it’s just that I’ve never seen instructions in plain English or less involved than calculating a two-way Analysis of Variance. If I could learn that, then I’d have a working knowledge of m3u files, which I could use. One folder has over 600 files. I am not concerned with order, In fact, I want to Shuffle
I’m not sure what you mean about playing only the material in the folder and no other folders. By copying a folder (whether it contains subfolders or not) to the Connect, YOU control what folders can be accessed by the Connect.
I’m also not sure why you think you would need to make the MP3s’ folder tags match their folder names, if you’re not concerned about being able to navigate songs in the Connect by folder.
If you simply want to have your Connect play songs in random order, copy them to the Connect with whatever folder hierarchy you choose, turn Shuffle mode on, and play a song. The Connect has no problem finding songs within any folder structure within its internal memory, it just can’t present the songs to you on its interface as a folder hierarchy.
I’m not sure but I think it’s the OS version that’s more relevant to functions like microSDHC support. I’m guessing that ZAP stands for Zing Access Protocol. The “Zing” portion of the firmware was/is the part that handles streaming media over WiFi, I think.
OK, so there are a few different ways to approach what you’re trying to do. One would be to use a media manager, like Windows Media Player, Winamp, or (I recommend) MediaMonkey to create playlists, and then sync the playlists to the Connect. You can either create “smart” ( or “auto” ) playlists which automatically contain songs with a particular tag value ( eg “year >= 1950 and year <= 1959” ), or you can create regular playlists where you click-and-drag the songs you want into the playlists.
Note that if you use a smart/auto playlist, the tags you reference (eg, year tag) would need to be set up correctly in the MP3s. You can do this with the same media manager program. MediaMonkey (and probably the others) will let you set tags to a particular value for multiple songs in one operation, if you need to do this. Also note that smart/auto playlists are good because, as you add songs to your library, they’ll automatically join the appropriate playlists if tagged correctly.
With the same editing capability, you could set the artist/album/genre tags, if you prefer to do that instead.
I’m not sure what you mean by “genre is a bit limited”. The Genre tag can be set to any string value within reason. You could set the Genre tag for all your early Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Big Bopper songs to “1950s”, if you wanted.
The most straight-forward way to do it is via playlists. I’d recommend trying that, though that’ll require you installing and learning a tool like MediaMonkey. I think you’ll be glad you did. Otherwise, I’d recommend using the Genre tag.
Message Edited by PromisedPlanet on 02-04-2010 11:17 AM
http://www.mediamonkey.com/ … get the latest version.
“The large folder (617 items) does have a genre setting.”
I’m not sure what this means. Windows folders don’t have genre settings; MP3 files have Genre tags.
“the tag generator appears to have defaulted to “other” as a catch-all, would that be valid?”
“Other” is a valid genre, though I’m not sure if it suits your purposes.
“I take it that once this is done I really don’t need to stor folders in Connect, I can juct go into the desktop folder then Edit/select all/ copy then to Connect/interna memory/music/paste (after re-genre-ing the ones I want to put in other playlists.”
If you’re going to sync playlists to the Connect using MediaMonkey, you won’t be using Windows Explorer or copying-and-pasting at all. MediaMonkey will copy the songs and playlists to the Connect for you.
If you plan instead to manually copy-and-paste your songs, whether you store folders on the Connect depends on whatever method is easiest for you to copy-and-paste your songs onto the Connect.
Here’s an example.
On my PC, I have a set of artist folders under “My Music”. So under “My Music” you’d see a folder called “Elvis Presley”, “Jerry Lee Lewis”, etc. Under each artist folder, I have a set of album folders for that artist. And in the album folders, I have all the MP3s for that album. So a song’s complete location path might be:
My Computer\C:\Documents and Settings\Promised Planet\My Documents\My Music\Elvis Presley\Blue Hawaii\Almost Always True.mp3
If I wanted to manually copy all my music to the Connect, I would select all of the artist folders under the “My Music” folder, and copy and paste them to “My Computer\Sansa Connect\Internal Memory\Music” (assuming I wanted to store them in the internal memory, not the microSDHC card). That’s the easiest way to do it. This would copy all the artist and album folders onto the Connect, but that’s OK, the Connect can handle it. Elvis’s song, for example, would now be located at:
My Computer\Sansa Connect\Internal Memory\Music\Elvis Presley\Blue Hawaii\Almost Always True.mp3
Assuming the song’s Artist and Album tags had the correct values, using the Connect’s menu interface you would find “Almost Always True” under:
Music Library => Artists => Elvis Presley => All Songs
or
Music Library => Artists => Elvis Presley => Blue Hawaii
or
Music Library => Albums => Blue Hawaii
or
Music Library => Songs
or
Music Library => Genres => (whatever value you gave this song for its Genre tag)
“I’ve noticed a “system files” folder in Internal Memory. Is this useful and what for?”
Not really sure; possibly contains files required by the Connect for its operation, contents visible in Recovery Mode only. Best not to mess around with it.
Message Edited by PromisedPlanet on 02-04-2010 01:03 PM
MediaMonkey will allow you to display the full file paths of your MP3s. You can then sort based on those file paths, select multiple MP3s at once, and give them all the same genre in one operation. This would be useful to you if all your 1950s MP3s were in one folder, and you want to give them all the genre “1950”, for example.
MediaMonkey’s a great utility. I really like its smart playlist support. You can create a smart playlist based on practically every song attribute you can think of; not only its tags, but the location of the song, when it was added to the library, how many total songs you want in a playlist or how many megabytes, etc.
@spacepatroller wrote:
I had to abort on the download of MM: Too many red flags
First, I got redirected to “TrialPay”
Next, it said I was getting “Gold 3.something”, not Standard. As I understand it “Gold” is not free. I have not problme with that, If the price is decent, the Gold looks good. the Red flag goes up when I see other than I expect and no price is stated up front.
Third there were offers I take it that I’m required to accept one or more of
I did not live this long without any broken bones by not keeping my head on a swivel and the only thing I accept with strings attached is a guitar
I must have done something wrong.
I think you might have hit a wrong button.
Try this direct link and click on the black “Download Now” button on the left.
Try this link:
http://download.cnet.com/MediaMonkey-Standard/3000-2141_4-10109807.html?part=dl-101733&subj=dl
Here’s a thread within the MediaMonkey forum regarding white-on-black and other visually accessible themes:
http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=21341
“Black Monkey” skin:
http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=27198&p=136745&hilit=black+monkey#p136745
Message Edited by PromisedPlanet on 02-05-2010 08:35 AM
SpacePatroller wrote:
There are skins in the Media Monkey folder, I just don’t know how to access them yet.
Tools => Options => Skin (at bottom of list)
John Glenn in Orbit: GO!
If you already have songs in MM’s library, and want to purge, just select them all (control-A) and press Delete, making sure that you select “Delete from Library only” if you don’t want to actually delete those songs from your hard disk.
MM doesn’t make copies of your songs, its library only contains pointers to your songs, so do NOT delete the songs from your hard drive after you add them to MM’s library.
If a song is contained within multiple playlists, MM will only copy the song once. Those playlists will all have a pointer to that song.
The Sansa Connect doesn’t have a built-in crossfade feature.
