I am unable to fast forward within an audiobook file (d/led from library not audible). When I hold down the >> button it merely scrolls through the files rather than fast forwarding within a file.
Help!
did you trasnfer in auto-detect mode as opposed to msc?
Yes. I’m in auto-detect and I have the latest firmware. 
I have the same problem. I can fast forward, or move backwards in the first 20 minutes or so of each book file. After that it skips to the next file. Also, if I stop and turn off the player past the first 20 minutes of a file, it will start with the next file. Since some of the book files are 80-90 minutes long, it is very frustrating if I have to stop before the end of the file. I often have to relisten to 30 minutes to get back to the point I left off. I bought this player specifically to listen to audio books on long trips. I am disappointed. 
This acts like a firmware bug, although I have updated to the latest firmware. Do the SanDisk tech support people ever respond to this fourm?
“I have the same problem. I can fast forward, or move backwards in the first 20 minutes or so of each book file. After that it skips to the next file. Also, if I stop and turn off the player past the first 20 minutes of a file, it will start with the next file. Since some of the book files are 80-90 minutes long, it is very frustrating if I have to stop before the end of the file. I often have to relisten to 30 minutes to get back to the point I left off. I bought this player specifically to listen to audio books on long trips. I am disappointed. 
This acts like a firmware bug, although I have updated to the latest firmware. Do the SanDisk tech support people ever respond to this fourm?”
Ditto…I’ve got 2 m250 players with firmware v4.1.08 with this same problem. The frustrating part is the players came with v4.1.07 and didn’t have this problem before updating to the latest firmware…should’ve left well enough alone. It seems there are alot of folks out there using their players for audio books, yet Sandisk is unresponsive to tailor their firmware for those needs.
The Sandisk players I’ve purchased are as follows:
DAP 512Mb x 2
DAP 1Gb
e130 sd 512Mb
e140 sd 1Gb
m250 2Gb x2
Out of the bunch, the only player(s) to work flawlessly with audio books are the old DAP players which utilize a simple file/folder organization structure. The only downside to those are capacity. The e100 series players are close, but suffer from a lack of a book-marking feature and are battery hogs. The 1st m250 (can’t remember the firmware version) I bought couldn’t organize a book with greater than 99 files and had an upper limit on the total number of files the player could view/access…I exchanged that one at the time I bought another m250 recently. It was blissfull to find these later m250s could organize and had properly working book-mark features…they were perfect for my audio book needs until I updated to the latest firmware v4.1.08. Short lived bliss it was.
I think Sandisk needs to recognize they have a significant audio book user base and their firmware falls well short. Audio book usage reveals the weakness of the firmware that may or may not appear with music.
Message Edited by jjrphs on 10-31-2007 06:24 AM
ive having the same problems. my audio books work fine for the first 15 minutes or so of each part. after that, it goes to the beginning of the file if i pause, try to fastforward, or turn it off and then on again :o(
is there any solution to this? i emailed sandisk, and they havent gotten back to me.
~Amy
I am having this same problem, called customer support today, they said they would research the prolblem and get back to me. I told them that alot of people who listen to audiobooks are having this problem with this player and that they need to fix their firmware. I hope they listened to me. We will see when they reply back to me. I will keep you updated.
Hey all, this is what their response was today. I think this is total ■■■■ I don’t have this issue with my other two players m230 and m240. My response to them is below.
Audiobooks that are in MP3 or WMA formats, are not supported on the M200 because of this reason.
To verify this, it is listed on our website under the M200 Page
The 7th bullet down explains
“Support for MP3, WMA, and DRM WMA and Audible file formats. Does NOT support audio books in WMA and MP3.”
So, for now, you can fast forward in aprox 10 minute intervals, to prevent it from looping the song from the start.
Best Regards,
Steven B
SanDisk Technical Support
(my response):
But then why does my M230 and my M240 support this? I use both of them and I have no trouble with the books playing, and if this is an issue why don’t you have a patch to fix it? Most of the people who I have talked to use sansa m200 series exclusivlally for audio books. Maybe the company should address this, because I will be taking my sansa m250 back and getting a Creative Zen instead, they have addressed the audio book listeners needs and have a player that will support them.
good lord. thanks for the update christylynh! i was hoping they’d be able to fix the firmware. i guess not 
.
looks like i’ll be buying a creative zen or soemthing. the reason i bought an mp3 player in the first place was just for audio books .
“Support for MP3, WMA, and DRM WMA and Audible file formats. Does NOT support audio books in WMA and MP3”
why doesnt it mention THIS on the product packaging? i feel ripped off.
~Amy
I bought one m250 and when it seemed to work ok with audio books,
I got 3 more m250 players, just for the purpose of listening to audio books.
I did not test them with long mp3 files and just realized the problem.
This is very frustrating to say the least.
Message Edited by y360 on 12-30-2007 12:13 AM
One of my m250 has firmware version 3.x.x and it fast forwards slowly without acceleration,
but at least it does not skip to the next track.
The problem is only with firmware 4.0.8 which has the accelerated fast forward.
Moving beyond 20 minutes triggers a skip to the next track. This is really a bug with 4.0.8 that they should be fixing.
I think the player only recognizes the WMA and MP3 files as music files…
Message Edited by TyrAnasazi on 01-02-2008 12:16 PM
I own four m200s–2 1GBs and 2 250s. Three worked perfectly fine for both Audible and ripped audiobooks for several months.
Both 250s now have the looping problem when you want to forward as does one of the 1GB. I called tech support several times
and of course they don’t know much about audiobook use and gave all kinds of advice that would not work including a firmware
downgrade so I gave up on help from that source. For now, I’m just using them for ripped books and the flaws there include skipping
tracks when synced and creating unknown files. What I find interesting is that I have kept them updated including the infamous
1.082 Updater which simply does not work and gives error messages constantly. I have reformatted 2 or three times but no joy with
correcting mistakes. Right now the Updater shows that I need 2.2.5 firmware while my player shows that it has 2.2.5A. Are these
the same or what? If Updater doesn’t work and I need 2.2.5 where can I manually download it? The lack of info from Sandisk is
appalling though these devices are good for the price, support that is real is desperately needed.
I’m wondering after reading that m200s do not support MP3 files which is the format for my ripped books why the players played those flawlessly for weeks but it was the Audible files which are a different format that went sour first.
The statement “does not support MP3 audiobooks” is in the General Info for m200s BUT is left off of info for each individual player
and I suspect it was added after so many calls came in from book users.
I’m working with a 2GB Sansa Clip right now and though it has battery issues it plays flawlessly; wonder for how long?
Donna in Arkansas
Message Edited by dford3772 on 01-12-2008 09:29 AM
Message Edited by dford3772 on 01-12-2008 11:22 AM
We need to keep calling and complaining until they release a fix for this.
The m200 product line is discontinued so I guess we’re out of luck as far as fixing this bug.
To sum up the m200 bugs with respect to audiobook mp3 files:
Players with firmware 3.x.x can properly organize only up to 99 files for any category such as artist, album, etc.
(i.e. transferring more than 99 files results in “unknown” tags for certain files in the player.)
Players with firmware 3.x.x do not have accelerated fast forward.
Players with firmware 4.x.x have accelerated fast forward, but passing the 15 minutes timepoint mark causes a skip to next track
The Sansa Clip has none of these issues.
I cannot rewind Audible books at all on two pink m240’s. They have 4xxx firmware and they do accelerate after holding them down a bit but it is to the next part of the book so they are useless to me. I happen to have 2 year replacement on these with Best Buy so
I am going to take them back and see what happens. This product was misrepresented by SanDisk because Audible support was on
the package. They both lost the ability to work between 7-8 months. My other m250s won’t play Audible accurately or rewind either;
they just loop from part to part. I do not have contracts on them so will use for ripped audio books until they are used up which could
be at any moment. Oddly enough they do work for those MP3 files at 128 bitrate with the only real problem being skipped tracks which usually can be found in an unknown file at the end of each book
which Sandisk told me was caused by player not being as powerful as PC. Now Sandisk has added the info that the m200s do not
support MP3 audiobooks. I’ve been through the Sandisk Support center several times, have reformatted, and tried to follow instructions that were incorrect. I bought a 2GB Clip on the strength of great reviews; I do like it but the battery is gone in only 7-9
hours and I have to charge it every day. I also have a contract on it and I feel sure it will have to go back to BB as well.
My Conclusion: Sandisk can make great products at least at the outset but they are not for audiobooks.
Donna in Arkansas
I have the same problem on a brand new player I just got for Christmas. This was after the original (other brand) player I got wouldn’t play Jiggerbug books because of proprietary software. The M250 was listed as one that would handle the software! So what’s the point of handling the proprietary book software if you don’t want to support book listening? It makes no sense.
I think if Sandisk is going to do that to us, they should at least give us a significant discount on some player that will actually work (do they have any that are good for audio book-o-philes?). Or they should refund our money. I have no use for player that doesn’t play books.
I’ve had the same problems as everyone else and I’m pretty disappointed. The only reason I bought the player was to listen to audiobooks. My wife bought the exact same player about a year earlier and hers works great. Her player has older firmware and she doesn’t have any problems playing audiobooks. Her player will FF and Rewind very slowly but at least it works. It also will resume where you left off when you restart the player; something mine will not do. I don’t know how many times I’ve had to start the player and leave it playing on a table for 30-40 minutes until it gets to where I left off.
At least the SanDisk customer service is very responsive and polite. They usually respond within an hour or two if I contact them via email. But, I haven’t had an entirely satisfactory response. I even linked them to this thread in one of my email complaints to them and said that my problems were not isolated. If you look at other devices’ threads you will see similar problems with playing audiobooks on SanDisk players. I was considering ditching the M250 and buying an Express player but I read a very similar thread on their message board. At least the M250 was inexpensive!
I would think that many, many people buy MP3 players to listen to audiobooks. I hope SanDisk fixes the problem soon. BTW, on the Express forum one of the threads says that the new Sansa Clip works well for playing audiobooks. Does anyone have first hand experience?
Resume feature should work in all firmwares. Assuming your new player is 4.x.x make sure you have the latest firmware.
As for the fast FF & RW no luck here as m200 series is discontinued and there will be no more firmware updates.
I suggest you keep teh m200 for audiobooks with short tracks and buy a Sansa Clip which has both resume feature and accelerated FF & RW.
Although when driving I find the Clip shape much harder to engage then the m200
The m200 has a form that makes it very easy to operate even without looking at it.
I wonder how many car crashes will be caused by drivers who try to figure out a button on their Clip while driving
