Recently, my Sansa M250 MP3 player no longer bookmarks the file when it’s shut down. I listen to a lot of audio books, some with files 1 hour long. Without bookmarking, the player is virtually useless to me. How do I fix this?
wow, your lucky . the 3 i bought never book marked from day 1. =last year!!! i also use only for audio books—zero music. so i can not use them at all. i also can not fast forward or back ward without it starting over from the begining,so i gave up. went back to my old mp3 a m240 model silver works perfect…but now what i ve got 3 new m250’s… the m250 firmware updates have not helped . i sure hope somebody has a solution for us because sandisk does not seem too care…help…help… saddletramp
your message was veiwed 173 times and no help??? that is odd!
@bluesim wrote:
Recently, my Sansa M250 MP3 player no longer bookmarks the file when it’s shut down. I listen to a lot of audio books, some with files 1 hour long. Without bookmarking, the player is virtually useless to me. How do I fix this?
bluesim…a few questions.
what firmware version does your m250 have? what encoding (wma, mp3) are your audio books? what is the average approx run time of the files your audio books are composed of? will the player keep your place (bookmark) if you shut down somewhere in the 1st 10min of say an hour long audio book file?
I have the same issue, I listen to books, have an M240 with bookmark and a m250 w/o bookmark. Fast forward/reverse quickly takes you to the beginning of a file, so that doesn’t work. If this is a common problem with m250 I’ll move on. Any suggestions for an mp3, for audio books, with > 2g with a dependable bookmark?
@gessbs wrote:
Any suggestions for an mp3, for audio books, with > 2g with a dependable bookmark?
I load audiobooks on and still use the m250 with firmware v.4.1.08 for my wife and mother…with little problem as long as the files are mp3 OR wma files < 10 minutes run time.
However for my own use, I moved on to the Panasonic SV-MP020…a 2gb flash player which is slightly smaller than the m250 and uses a AA battery for tremendous play time. Its a simple player which uses folder/file ordering (like your hard drive) rather than ID3 tags. Fully supports audiobooks with bookmarking, file scrolling FF & Rev. It’s sound settings are presets only and does not come with the fm radio. I believe it has been discontinued by Panasonic, but they’re still easy to find on ebay and elsewhere. I’ve been using mine for about 8 months and highly recommend it for problem free audiobook handling/playback.
@gessbs wrote:
I have the same issue, I listen to books, have an M240 with bookmark and a m250 w/o bookmark. Fast forward/reverse quickly takes you to the beginning of a file, so that doesn’t work. If this is a common problem with m250 I’ll move on. Any suggestions for an mp3, for audio books, with > 2g with a dependable bookmark?
This is a common, unfixable problem on *some* M200s. I have two M230s that resume (bookmark in your terms) properly after shutdown/restart. I have one M240 that resumes properly, one that doesn’t (it behaves like yours). More information is on this thread and possibly others (I didn’t search).
jjrphs clued me in to a workaround: convert to MP3. Though some have complained that the problem manifests itself on some podcasts (which are virtually all encoded as MP3s). Perhaps those were just poorly encoded podcasts.
The Clip and Fuze are good choices, though you have to make sure your audiobook gets loaded into directory \Audiobooks, or is tagged as an audiobook. Though I haven’t yet found a way to have it automatically play the next file in the book. These players write a resume point for all podcasts and audiobooks, so you can switch away from an audiobook or podcast, and come back to it. But you have to remember what file of the audiobook you were last listening to.
The Creative Zen and Zen X-fi have full-fledged bookmarks, though you must set them manually. It will resume properly on the last file played if you immediately push Play after a startup (I think). I think also (don’t have these players) that the resume may only work if you have shut down the player when it was playing, and will not resume if the player had automatically shut down because it was paused too long. That’s the way it works in the earlier model, the Zen V.
None of the above players have replaceable batteries. You didn’t mention your source of audiobooks, so I answered for those sources that require MTP (OverDrive Media and NetLibrary). Your choices broaden if you rip audiobook CDs (you won’t require MTP). I don’t know about Audible audiobooks. The Zunes now support OverDrive Media audiobooks too, and they resume all audiobooks and podcasts at the last point listened. They are nice players, but no drag-and drop, you’re tied to the Zune Software, which gives some people problems.
