sansa clip+ 8go skips through songs

MP3 players Sansa Clip | Clip+
1

I received my new sansa clip+ 8go a few days ago, set it to MSC, connected it to my computer and dragged and dropped music files.

All is fine save that for certain albums, the clip skips through every song on the album in a continuous loop without stopping to play any of them. I’ve checked, all albums are in MP3 format, nothing different between those that play properly and those that the clip skips through. I don’t get it.

Does someone have an idea why this is and how to solve it?

Thanks

2

Hi, did you ever solve this problem? It feels like half the albums on my Clip+ are skipping over without playing and I have no idea how to fix it.

3

Adam, are you sure all the files are mp3 or another format that the Clip+ supports? If they are protected WMA(the default format that Windows Media player Rips to), then I suggest that you rerip them to mp3 files. 

While the player can play protected WMA files, it has much shorter battery life playing protected files, and the player must be in MTP mode when the protected files are transferred, and Windows Media Player(or another Media player that also transfers the licenses) must be used to transfer the files otherwise they won’t play. 

If you don’t need to use protected files, I suggest the usb mode of the player be set to MSC, and that MP3 files be used, a even with unprotected WMA files, battery life is much worse than with mp3 files. If the files are all mp3 files, and the usb mode of your player wasn’t set on MSC, and you have copies of all the music on your pc, I suggest formatting the player using the player menu(settings, system settings, format) which deletes all the songs off the player, setting the usb mode to MSC(settings, system settings, usb mode, MSC), then connecting the player and copying the music to it.

Are you sure your tags are in order? The tag browsing on the Clip+ is not true tag browsing, but a recreation from the database table, which depends on the tags. are your mp3 tags ID3V2.3 ISO8859-1 which the player expects? Do those files that the player skips over play okay on your pc?

What are the other stats for the mp3 files that don’t play? Are they at a non standard sampling rate or bitrate? 

Are they constant bitrate or variable bitrate?

If you are using a memory card, make sure it is class 4 or slower. The Sandisk players have many issues with faster cards, except that when the free alternative firmware(operating system) Rockbox is used, class 10 cards work fine.

If you don’t have any protected files, you could try the free alternative firmware(operating system for the player) Rockbox, which has many great features, and much greater flexibility in terms of the files it supports(except that it doesn’t support  protected files). I have Rockbox on my Sandisk Clip+ and Clip zip. Rockbox.org

4

Look at the files that are skipped. If the albums came from Mac OSX, each album folder includes “finder” files that also have the mp3 extension. They start with dot underscore.  They have filenames like  ._01-track 1.mp3 and are 0kb in size.  The Sansa can’t play them because they aren’t songs–so it tries to play them, because they say .mp3, but then doesn’t find anything to play. . 

The finder files will be in a subfolder of the Artist/Album called MACOSX. You can search your Sansa for MACOSX folders and delete them all from the Sansa. 

This post has some programs that will do that too:

http://forums.sandisk.com/t5/Sansa-Clip-Sansa-Clip/phantom-files-that-won-t-play/td-p/333559

5

I read another post about this that said the Clip+ doesn’t play WMA Pro files, and that seemed to be what those particular tracks were encoded as. I’ve not checked all of them yet, but I’ve converted a couple of albums to WMA lossless instead and they play fine now.

It’s going to be a slow and annoying process weeding out all the other albums and converting them, but at least I’ve got a solution now and know what to avoid in future!

6

Unfortunately the Sansa only plays the files it wants to play. Seems like WMA Pro is not one of them. It looks like you’ll have to convert. Do convert to the highest bitrate available—320 kpls mp3 or whatever works on WMA. Mp3  plays on everything. If your ears are really good and you are using real headphones–not stupid little earbuds–then you could also convert WMA Pro to FLAC, which is lossless: bigger files, better fidelity, and the Clip will play them.

You may have to work on the tags to make them appear in listings anywhere beyond Folders.

7

FLAC is also lossless and might give you smaller files, and the Sansa will play it.

https://xiph.org/flac/

8

I believe WMA Pro is the same as WMA Lossless. As mentioned FLAC is the way to go if you want truly ‘lossless’ music but a smaller file size. Otherwise, 256 kbps or 320 kbps (the highest) MP3 gives you even smaller files but very high quality, and unless you are a dog you very likely won’t hear a difference. :wink:

9

I can’t even hear the difference between 320kbps mp3 and 256kbps, so using FLAC doesn’t make sense for me.

Some put their CDs on their pc in FLAC, but then make mp3 files from the FLAC to put in a portable player. Aside from taking up more space on the player, using FLAC on the player also reduces run time between charges.