Overdrive audio book chapters playing out of order - new issue

MP3 players Clip Sport Go
1

Overdrive audio book chapters are playing out of order on my Sansa Sport Go. I have been using the Sport Go to play Overdrive audio books without issue for over a year. This problem started only in the last week.

Note: Overdrive is an app used by public libraries in the U.S. The app is on my laptop. After I download an audio book from the library using Overdrive, I can use Overdrive to copy the audio book to Overdrive supported devices.

The Overdrive audio books play correctly on other devices Overdrive supports: an old Sansa M300, a kindle fire, an android phone, and a Windows 10 laptop. Therefore I have concluded the problem lies with the Sansa Sport Go and not with Overdrive.

I have deleted the Overdrive audio books from the Sport Go and copied them back. When I do this, the chapters are played out of order but in a different wrong order.

Shuffle is off on the Sport Go; I always have it off.

In an attempt to solve the problem, I did a full format on the Clip Go (through Windows) and downloaded and installed the appropriate version (1.04) update. Copied a few Overdrive audio books to the Clip Go. Result: chapters are still played out of order.

Checked details of the Overdrive audio book chapters in properties ; they have correctly numbered titles like “the book title-part 01”, “the book title-part 02”, etc. I expected the titles to look okay since the Overdrive audio book chapters are playing in order on everything except the Clip Go. I have verified the chapter titles are the same whether they are on the Clip Go or on my laptop.

Just for the heck of it I copied one of the Overdrive audio books from the Clip Go to my laptop, edited the chapter titles so they read “chapter 01” and so on instead of “the book title-part 01” and copied the chapters back to the Sport Go. Result: chapters are played in order. WHAT.

Overdrive audio books typically have chapter titles such as “the book title-part 01” or “the book title - part 1”. Sometimes there is a zero before the chapter number, sometimes there are spaces around the hyphen but in general all chapter titles are similarly formatted. Until a couple of weeks ago Sport Go dealt with the Overdrive audio book chapters just fine. Suddenly the Sport Go does not.

Are the chapter titles getting truncated or cut off by the Sport Go so it doesn’t catch the last section “part 01” or whatever? This is what I assume because chapters are played out of order in a different way each time I delete an audio book from the Sport Go and copy it back using Overdrive.

I also assume chapter titles are getting truncated or cut off by the Sport Go because editing the chapter titles to a shorter string (just “chapter 01” etc.) seems to fix the issue; the Sport Go played the book chapters in the correct order. This test also proved shuffle is off. :smiley:

The audio books tend to have long chapter titles, and some include apostrophes. Example:

“Churchill’s Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare-Part03”

Anyone know the max character length of a chapter title the Sport Go can handle, and if special characters like an apostrophe break it? Really do not want to edit the chapter titles of every book. :stuck_out_tongue: Especially when my ancient Sansa M300 handles the same Overdrive audio books just fine.

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Hi @clrmp,

Please refer link for end users inquiry : Ask a Question

Hope it helps!!

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I just bought a Sport Go because my previous Clip’s battery is not holding a charge. I don’t know if my Go is playing out of order or not yet. I tend to listen to it when I am going to sleep. I try to go back to the part where I remember what was going on. I am unable to do it with the Go. It goes all over the place. If I fall asleep at part 1 and am in the middle of part 2, previously I would just hit the button, go back to part 1 and fast forward to where I stopped listening. Now it goes willy nilly to other parts of the book. If I finally find part 1 if is very sluggish in fast forwarding. If I decide I want to go back to part 2 it may take me there but will not allow me to reverse out of where the book stop. I am returning this because I thought it was defective. I have read negative reviews for this MP3 player, and maybe mine is not defective at all and they just don’t operate well like the older ones did.

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nalaxu, my problem was exactly the same as yours, including the jumping all over the place when I tried to advance to the next chapter. The sandisk jumps all over because every chapter looks the same to it because it is not getting complete chapter title info.

The good news is:

  1. It doesn’t happen with every audiobook I check out of the library with Overdrive. What seems to break it are chapter titles that are overly long, or chapter titles with special characters in them such as quotes.

  2. Editing the chapter titles to shorten them and remove any special characters fixes the problem. After I do that the audiobooks play flawlessly.

The bad news is renaming chapter titles is time consuming. You have to copy the audiobook mp3 files from the sandisk to your computer because you can’t edit the titles on the sandisk directly. I have created a folder on my computer desktop just for audiobooks I need to edit.

After copying the audiobook to your computer, you have to edit each chapter title one at a time by rightclicking on the audiobook’s mp3 files, selecting properties, selecting details, and then click on the title field which is just below “Description.” When you click on it, the title will be highlighted and you can then edit it.

What I usually do is just erase all of the title except the number so “The Top One Hundred of Italy’s Pasta Dishes - 01” (or whatever) is “01.” Don’t erase the leading zero; the sandisk will need it if there are more than 9 chapters.

What makes the chapter title editing a little less horrible is making sure the “title” field is displayed in Windows file explorer. That way you can see at a glance which chapter titles are done. You can also detect if you made any typos while editing the chapter titles.

Then I delete the audiobook on the sandisk.

Then I copy the edited audiobook to the sandisk, into the Audiobook folder.

Note that you don’t edit the mp3 file names. Editing the mp3 file name does nothing. It’s the title in properties-details that matters.

Also should mention that the problem is the Sandisk Sport Go, not Overdrive. I can copy any audiobook over to my really old sandisk (2012) and the chapters play flawlessly.

5

Thank you for this update. I don’t know if I can figure out how to do this. Almost all of the audiobooks I listen to are from Overdrive, which has been very easy to transfer files to my previous clip.
I have been using SanDisk MP3 players for years. I started with the Sansa Fuzes, which I loved. Then on to the clip which I loved too. So very disappointed with this version. There are things that I would change if I could, besides how it doesn’t read my books properly. Surprisingly, last night the Clip seemed to work ok. This one is getting returned and hopefully the new one is a little bit better. I don’t know what to get if I am still unhappy with it. I have been looking around at different MP3 players. Some of them don’t support audiobooks, which is all I use mine for.
If I continue to have problems with my replacement I will refer to your info on how to fix the names. I am just not sure how I would do that from Overdrive.
Thanks again.

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Update: after months of Overdrive audio book chapters playing out of order, the issue suddenly stopped without me making any changes on my end.

Where before about half of the Overdrive audio books had the issue, for over a month now all the audio books I’ve checked out from a library using Overdrive have worked perfectly on my Clip Sport Go. So it seems that Overdrive “fixed” the problem because nothing has changed on my Clip Sport Go.

Wondering if anyone else has seen this problem resolved.