First of all I filled my clip+ with hundreds of songs that I purchased from Napster that wont play. I have been hearing that Napster used the old bait and switch in that they sell you the rights for a little while and then oneday you suddenly dont have those rights any longer. I did get a pop-up that said something about “sychronize” with Napster but it seems they are now owned by Rhapsody so I wasnt able to log in. Anyway, Sandisk should either block songs that cant be played or store them to a special folder so we dont have to spend hours sifting songs just to later sift and unload/sychronize them, which is also very tedious.
Secondly, I figured that the above problem could be related to the fact that I actually had never downloaded Sansa Updater to my computer; mostly because everything seemed to be downloading fine. Unfortunately, either the firmware or updater download made things even worse because now there is no Sansa Clip+ icon to send songs to after clicking “send to”. I tried to rollback the device, restored to an earlier date, and trouble shooting but still have the same problem.
I’m not a Napster guy, but what do you mean that you bought the songs from Napster? Did you pay a price (e.g. 99 cents) for each song you bought? Or did you have a monthly subscription with Napster?
My thought is, if you had a monthly Napster subscription, you only generally are allowed, under these subscription services, to play the music as long as you keep on subscribing to the service (and paying the monthly fee). Also, now that Napster is part of Rhapsody, you may need to subscribe to Rhapsody (and pay the monthly Rhapsody subscription fee) to play the songs.
Perhaps a Napster-type person here will have more specifics.
As to the song transfer issue, it may relate to the USB mode your player is connected to your computer under (set under the player’s system settings)–this gets reset when you update the player’s firmware, to Auto. You might try setting to MTP or MSC mode.
My manual does say that the Clip+ accepts secure WMQ songs but I cant play many of the almost 700 songs for that I purchased for $1.00 each. I tried to burn some of them to a CD first but I seem to have lost the rights for that too. I am going to contact Napster’s new owner and then try to synchronizing the songs.
I did reset the Clip but I havnt looked at the USB setting yet
If you purchased the songs and they are in unprotected WMA format, they should indeed play on your player. By any chance, is it possible that the songs are in protected format?
Secondly, I figured that the above problem could be related to the fact that I actually had never downloaded Sansa Updater to my computer ; mostly because everything seemed to be downloading fine.
This, by itself wouldn’t have anything to do with your problem. In fact, the Updater is little more than a resource hog and nag-ware as it phones home every time you plug your player into your computer looking for an update. It’s highly doubtful there will be any further updates for the Clip+ and pretty much everyone here recommends un-installing it and just updating manually if/when necessary.
Although as Miikerman pointed out, updating the firmware will change your USB Mode setting so you’ll have to change it back to the way it was before the update.
Well, bummer if those Napster files are indeed drm protected.
That’s the problem with this sort of services: you start to use them and there’s a big chance they decide to discontinue the service, make you lose your music and other stuff like that.Ahhh… the joys of drm!
Good thing there are plenty of workarounds for drm; pretty sure good ole Tunebite is able to handle just fine converting Rhapsody protected music, just as it worked with Napster protected files.
Let it be said that removing DRM from audio files with any software, in spite of what it may claim is normally considered illegal and advising or recommending use of such software or procedures is against this forum’s Rules & Guidelines.
