MSC, folder browsing, missing files & Japanese data junk = Unusable player

First of all please excuse my mistakes since English isn’t my native language, but I have a lot of problems with my new Sansa Clip+ and I’m out of ideas.

I purchased a Sansa Clip+ a couple of days ago and so far I am very unsatisfied with this product. I decided to give SanDisk’s Sansa Clip+ a try because I want to use the player with my WinXP- as well as my Linux-PC (MSC capability) and because most of my mp3-files don’t have an ID3-tag I need folder browsing to select my songs.
None of these two purchase decision work with my Sansa Clip+ player.

The first thing I did was to switch the USB mode to “MSC” and after I connected it with my PC the player showed up as an USB flash drive. I copied some albums to the “MUSIC” folder (all mp3 without DRM) and safely removed the player.
When I started it up I noticed, that in some albums some tracks were missing (in both folder browsing and ID3 mode) and that there was junk data (for example in Japanese letters) in some others.
When I connect the player to a PC again (XP or Linux) all the files show up correctly and also the missing ones can be listened to or copied back to the PC. I tried this a couple of times and all the time some different files are “missing” when I look for them on the player (eg one time album A copies correctly, but album B misses track 7 and the next time album A misses the tracks 3-5 but album B is complete).

After that I upgraded the firmware to version 01.02.09, formatted the player with its internal formatting-software or with the Windows XP dialog (FAT32; NO quick format!) and reset the player to its factory settings, but the problem still persists.

I am very grateful for any ideas, because at the moment the whole player is pretty much unusable for me and not at all what I suspected.

Message Edited by sacli on 03-17-2010 06:09 AM

Are you scrolling down and selecting Folder within the main Music menu? If not, the player is reading the ID3 tags by default. That’s why some are missing and have foreign characters listed in the track info.

Are you scrolling down and selecting Folder within the main Music menu on your player? If not, the player is reading the ID3 tags by default. That’s why some are missing and have foreign characters listed in the track info.

Are you scrolling down and selecting Folder within the main Music menu on your player? If not, the player is reading the ID3 tags by default. Remember too, that using the Folder navaigation is only that; navigation. Once you select a track, whatever ID3 tags info is there is what's going to be displayed on the 'now playing' screen. That could be why some are missing info and have foreign characters listed.  

Yes, I’m talking about the files in “Music > Folders” within the main menu (NOT the “Now playing…” screen).

Here I already see some junk data (although only the MUSIC folder should be visable) and Japanese writing. Note that none of my mp3s have any Japanese letters in their filename or ID3 tag nor is it the selected player language. Other pieces of junk data are also found in the various album folders between regular tracks, the player skips those if I just let it play and continues with the next valid track.

But I can select track information on these junk data and it reads that the length of those are 00:00, artist and album tag is filled with Japanese letters or numbers and the size on one was 4210 MB although the free disk space on system information is correct.

And remember that all mp3s (also the missing ones) are all listed and useable in the file mangager (eg Explorer) if I connect the player to the PC.

Message Edited by sacli on 03-17-2010 08:16 AM

The Japanese letters seem to show up when ID3 tags the player expects are not set. The easiest way around that is tagging the files properly, which also allows you to use the normal browsing capabilities of the player, instead of the folder view. In Linux you can do that with id3v2 and a little bit of bash scripting, for example scripts see:

No idea an the track skipping, so far I have only seen that with broken files. Might be that the player is less tolerant on broken files then other players, a reencode of the files might fix this. Also make sure that the files have the proper file endings (i.e. not .ogg as .mp3 or visa versa).

This is not the case, since the Japanese letters (and there are also sign combinations, numbers or just single letters on junk data) don’t show up on specific tracks, but on useless junk data which isn’t representing a specific mp3 file. This junk data also shows up directly in the “Music > Folders” view where I haven’t put any mp3s (all of them should be in the MUSIC folder).

Also my mp3 files aren’t broken, because if I format the Sansa Clip+ and reupload the same albums, different files don’t show up when I try to use the player each time (although they are ALL useable if I connect the player to a PC). It is definitely the fault of SanDisk’s player which isn’t working at all as I expected.

Well, you might have gotten one with some internal problems (ie: defective). Can you return it to your dealer (where you bought it) and get another? If not, you should call SanDisk Tech Support. If defective, they can issue an RMA# (Returned Merchandise Authorization) to get a new one sent to you.

I don’t know where you’re located but here’s a list of SanDisk Tech Support Centers and contact information around the globe.

Or if you’re in the US you can also do a ‘live chat’ with Tech support by clicking on the link on this page. They also can issue RMA’s.

Good Luck! Let us know how it goes. :smiley:

Thank you all for your replies and help.

I just received my new SanDisk Sansa Clip+ player, after I requested a replacement for the first one from Amazon and everything seems to work just fine as it should.

If anyone else has the same problem I suggest that they also return it for a new one.

Have fun with your Sansa Clip+ player!

I’ve got to say, SanDisk is very good about replacing damaged products. Although there are a very few who would disagree due to misconceptions about what warranties actually cover, their customer service is definitely top-notch!

Glad to hear everything worked out well for you! :smiley: