After searching the forum, I find that I’m not the only user who has a problem with the extremely slow “refreshing your media” problem. There are about 900 posts worth of annoyed customers grappling with this issue across multiple devices.
I’m using a Clip+ with a 32 GB SDHC card, and my test involved a single new MP3 file being added. I timed my media refresh. 42 minutes!
This is unacceptable. How did this pass through quality assurance? Surely, someone testing the device would have pointed out that having to wait nearly an hour every time you wanted to listen to music was a bad design.
The worst part of all of this, is that I don’t even use the player’s built in database. All of my files are neatly separated by artist into their own folders, and I use the folder view to search through them.
I don’t want the refresh, I don’t need the refresh. How do I turn it off?
Well, there’s no way to turn it off, but I must say your results are not typical. Most (if not all) of the slow refresh times are on the new Fuze+, not the Clip+. I have an 8GB Clip+ with a 32GB card in it. The internal memory is completely full and the card has about 6GB free on it. I haven’t timed it, but my refresh time is well under 5 minutes.
As long as you say yours is taking, I’d bet there’s something about your file’s ID3 tags that causing the slow read of the database. If you look around the forum, you’ll see references to MP3Tag and the format of tag to avoid the least problems. Also, any extraneous information in the tag is not only unnecessary, but can actually cause problems such as you’re experiencing so you want to delete or blank out anything in the Comments field of the tag.
The time to refresh is also determined by the number of files it has to read. If, for example you have several thousand small files (2-3 min. low bit-rate .mp3), it will take much longer to refresh than if you have fewer, but larger files, like OGG or FLAC or longer duration ones like audio books.
Maybe if you do a little poking around and/or give us more details about the files, tags, etc. we can help you figure out why yours is taking so long.
I have tried my entire music collection in Winamp, foobar2000, and Windows Media Player, and even my old MP3 player. Each of them rapidly reads my ID3 tags without any slowdown. But let’s just assume that the problem lies in Sandisk’s inability to parse sub-standard ID3 tags in a timely fashion. Let’s assume that I rip out 90% of the info in my tags, and I get the refresh speed down to the 5 minutes you’re talking about.
That’s still too long. I want to be able to put music on my Clip+, take it off the USB cable, and listen to music immediately. I don’t want to have to wait five, three, or even one minute. As I said, I don’t use the database, so why do I have to wait for it to refresh every time? Is it too much to ask to add a setting to allow me to turn it off?
Let’s assume that I rip out 90% of the info in my tags, and I get the refresh speed down to the 5 minutes you’re talking about.
That’s still too long. I want to be able to put music on my Clip+, take it off the USB cable, and listen to music immediately. I don’t want to have to wait five, three, or even one minute. As I said, I don’t use the database, so why do I have to wait for it to refresh every time? Is it too much to ask to add a setting to allow me to turn it off?
If you’re that impatient that you won’t wait five, three, or even one minute for the player to read the contents of its memory so that it can display what is on it for you, then the Clip+ is not for you.
Yes, you do have to wait each and every time for the database refresh whenever anything changes in the memory. Yes, it is too much to ask for a setting to turn it off. This is the way the player works. Period. Many before you have asked the same questions for years now, and SanDisk has not changed what they determine to be the way they want thier mp3 players to work.
Hey, at least it’s better than the old e200v1 series . . . with those whenever you turn the unit on with a memory card inserted, it will refresh the database, looking to see if anything has changed regardless of whether it was even plugged into a computer in the meantime. And the processor is a lot slower, so refreshing can take upwards of 7 or 8 minutes.
I know this probably isn’t the answer you’re looking for, but that’s just the way it is. If this player isn’t your cup of tea, maybe you should look for one that fits your needs and/or desires better.
Let’s assume that I rip out 90% of the info in my tags, and I get the refresh speed down to the 5 minutes you’re talking about.
That’s still too long. I want to be able to put music on my Clip+, take it off the USB cable, and listen to music immediately. I don’t want to have to wait five, three, or even one minute. As I said, I don’t use the database, so why do I have to wait for it to refresh every time? Is it too much to ask to add a setting to allow me to turn it off?
If you don’t want to wait five, three, or even one minute for the player to read the contents of its memory so that it can display what is on it for you, then the Clip+ is not for you.
This is the way the player works. Period. Many before you have asked the same questions for years now, and SanDisk has not changed what they determine to be the way they want their mp3 players to work.
Hey, at least it’s better than the old e200v1 series . . . with those whenever you turn the unit on with a memory card inserted, it will refresh the database, looking to see if anything has changed regardless of whether it was even plugged into a computer in the meantime. And the processor is a lot slower, so refreshing can take upwards of 7 or 8 minutes.
I know this probably isn’t the answer you’re looking for, but that’s just the way it is. If this player isn’t your cup of tea, maybe you should look for one that fits your needs and/or desires better.
This is the way the player works. Apparently, the Clip+ does not fit your needs/wants. You should probably look for another one more appropriate to the way you use it.
This is how it works currently, but it doesn’t -have- to work this way. A setting to turn off automatic refreshing could be added. The Clip+ is a good player; I like it’s interface and format support, my only hangup with it is its obnoxiously long refresh time.
This is how it works currently, but it doesn’t -have- to work this way. A setting to turn off automatic refreshing could be added.
Yes, it could. But it doesn’t . . . and even after years of people harping, whining, complaining, pleading, hoping & praying for this, SanDisk has not decided to incorporate it. So it’s not likely that it will, especially when you consider the fact the the Clip+ is nearing the end of it’s like-cycle now and will probably be replaced with a newer model within the next several months or so.
However, Rockbox (3rd-party, open-source, alternative) firmware is now stable for the Clip+, and does what you want, plus a lot more.
I hear you Tapeworm. And you’re right, my voice is just a buzz among a tumult. Still, it’s worth a shot. Change doesn’t occur unless you make your voice heard. This is really my only major issue with the Clip+, so I’m not about to abandon it, but Sandisk’s apathy towards their customers will certainly be a factor in my next purchase.
I’ve looked into Rockbox, and while their firmware greatly increasing the number of features for the Clip+, they have yet to create their own USB driver for the device. So, you still have to wait for a media refresh every time you add/remove/edit your data. Hopefully, some enterprising developer will figure out how to replace it, and we’ll be freed from this unnecessary waiting.
Thank you Tapeworm, I appreciate your consistent feedback on this issue, as well as everyone else who offered their comments.
I’ve looked into Rockbox, and while their firmware greatly increasing the number of features for the Clip+, they have yet to create their own USB driver for the device. So, you still have to wait for a media refresh every time you add/remove/edit your data. Hopefully, some enterprising developer will figure out how to replace it, and we’ll be freed from this unnecessary waiting.
Give them time . . . they’re working on it. I’m sure they get it; they’re a dedicated and driven bunch.
Ok, let me add my $.02, first off, I have the clip+ 4GB. I bought a an external memory card and the clip hung once it first saw the external card while attempting to refresh the database.
The fix, depress the power button for at least 15 seconds. The clip should shutdown. Power the clip back on, insert the external memory card. The clip will refresh now but at a much faster rate and you shoud be good to go in less that a few minutes.
Hey, it’s not a McDonalds instant meal but it is one heck of a nice player.
Enjoy, your Clip should now recognize both internal memory and external memory.
Install Rockbox on your Clip and use it instead of the Sansa OS.
I did…one of thebest decisions I ever made!
Rockbox is indeed just great. I’m using it on a Clip v2. It only has 8 GB, so the “Refreshing your media” step was never all that long, but with Rockbox, I can load music onto it while it’s booted in the Sandisk firmware, then eject it. “Refreshing your media” starts running. Then I force-quit it by holding the power switch for about 10 - 15 seconds. Then I hit the power switch again, and it boots into Rockbox. At this point it takes a little longer than usual (maybe 10 seconds) to boot into Rockbox, but then it works great. No problems at all.
i am about to give it a go at it on the 2GB clip+ w/ 16GB microSD. Are there any bugs? I’m trying to mitigate the refreshing your media problem on the clip+ because its gotten to a point where I may sell it and go w/ a basic clip which where this problem didn’t seem so prolific.
Hi, please help, my sansa clip is a mess! it is stuck on "refreshing your media, for days, until it runs out of battery, and it is not charging. I have a Mac. i only managed to download to my computer files twice (5 recordings of half hour each) and then this started. I am losing hope and I dont find solutions here. anyone has any tips? I have tried to restart it many times, but it has no batt.
Hi San Disk guru, I see this will be the reply for my problem with my Sansa clip as well, do I ge my money back? I only used it twice to record, all I want is to download the recordings, I record a class once a week, that´s all, It worked for the fist two classes, and now it is stuck. regards, M
How can I get rid off or simplify these ÏDtags or MP3tags, which you say slow down the refreshing of the media? I just got a sansa clip zip 4GB and added a 32GB microchip. Now I loaded about 17GB of songs to the microchip, but the media refreshing is not yet finished after 3 full days. The songs come from bought cd’s, or were recorded with Audials9 from streaming radio (like alpenmelodie), or were extracted from Youtube via YoutubeMP3. Thanks in advance gfheiche
@gfheiche wrote:
How can I get rid off or simplify these ÏDtags or MP3tags, which you say slow down the refreshing of the media? I just got a sansa clip zip 4GB and added a 32GB microchip. Now I loaded about 17GB of songs to the microchip, but the media refreshing is not yet finished after 3 full days. The songs come from bought cd’s, or were recorded with Audials9 from streaming radio (like alpenmelodie), or were extracted from Youtube via YoutubeMP3. Thanks in advance gfheiche
You’ve most likely got more serious problems than just tags if it’s taking 3 days for complete a database refresh. It shouldn’t take any more than 20 minutes or so at the most.
I’ll wager that your converison program from streaming radio or Youtube is the likely culprit. The files may indeed play on your computer, but remember, this player has a teeny-weeny brain and therefore is much more picky about what it can and cannot read or play.
