I have recenlty bought the clip+ 8 gb model with the intention of holding ~24 GB of music on it (~64kbps Vorbis Ogg). Having filled both the internal 8GB and the 16GB card I have noticed that the clip + can only seem to see about 4GB worth of data on the SD card. When connected into my computer I can see the full file system without problem - through both a USB card reader and the Clip + player itself.
When the card was inserted it took the usual long time to traverse the file system and build the inernal database etc.
Is there some firmeware related known problems that restrict the Clip + to only addressing 4GB of an SD card or is it likely to be a limimtation to the number of files it can handle. I have arranged music in Letter/ Artist / Album / Song format so I don’t think the problem is the player stating the directories.
The clip itself in “info” view shows the correct size of the SD card and reports, correctly, the remaining space.
I have made sure there is enough room to store the internal tag database but this problem is at the file system levelm as well as library level. The “folder” view (filesystem) doesn’t show any of my folders past around the 4GB mark nor do the Tags of such files get read when the player is updating it’s media library.
I have had a look on the SanDisk site and cannot see anything to suggest a 16GB card would be no good. If this is the case then I’ll be very dissapointed indeed as it was my intention to get a 32GB Sandisk Micro SD card when they become available to raise the players capacity to 40GB.
I can’t see if being a fault with the card as I have used it in a phone which could address all the files, the files are all there via card reader and player when connected to the computer, the card is SanDisk branded etc.
Yes, 64 kbps. This is about equal to the quality of 128kbps mp3 thus very acceptible (although ogg is VBR so the rate varies from 32 - 98 in these files however average tends to be 64). I am running tests now but I am surprised it there is a file number limitation in the “folder” view which is simply opening file system directories.
There were 8511 files in total, but not all in one directory. They were in /MUSIC/(first letter of artist)/Artist/Album/Track hence no folder had more than about 30 files / directories in them at most.
I am running some tests now to try and ascertain what is causing the problem.
I’d have expected SanDisk to explain any limitations of the player on their product description if there are any, i.e. max SD card, max number of files etc.
Yes, as I mentioned in my original post. The files are present on the file system when mounted on a computer. They are present when mounted either through a USB card reader or by the SD slot in the Clip +. Only the first 4GB worth of files were visible from the file system view on the player. This only applied to the SD card. The full 8GB of files can be seen in either tag or folder view on the 8GB of internal memory.
It’s pretty obvious if you are selling a small capacity flash player that people will use small ogg’s as opposed to larger MP3 files so as to get the maximum amount of music on the player so I’d be quite upset at SanDisk if this problem turns out to be with the actual firmware.
It’s pretty obvious if you are selling a small capacity flash player that people will use small ogg’s as opposed to larger MP3 files so as to get the maximum amount of music on the player so I’d be quite upset at SanDisk if this problem turns out to be with the actual firmware.
Thanks,
Rob.
Not necessarily. A sizable portion of the public wouldn’t know what an ogg was if it bit them on the foot.
The sound quality of these Sansas has led many people on the opposite end of the spectrum to use FLAC or Q10 ogg files on theirs, in search of the “ultimate” sound. These people would not consider 128kbps mp3, or 64kbps ogg or wma, to be acceptable at all. I couldn’t fit my entire 42GB library on an 8GB+16GB Clip+ or Fuze, and that is only 5,594 tracks, with an average bitrate of 224kbps.
When producing a device such as this, a company has to try to take into account what different users will want from it, and for the most part, Sansa has done a pretty good job, IMO. :smiley:
Message Edited by Marvin_Martian on 12-11-2009 09:52 AM
If they produce and market an mp3 player that says it is 8GB + SD expandable and plays oggs - and someone buys it expecting to be able to fill it with oggs but 12 GB of this data is missing - the player is far from finished and has been misadvertised / is in need of an urgent firmware update.
If it is being marketted it should function as marketted (i.e. it should be thoroughly tested - which if this problem turns out to be definitely firmware related if most certainly hasn’t been).
Anyway, such anecdotes are not relevent to the problem as why the player doesn’t seem to be capable of handling the size / files on the card.
In order to try to work out whats going on I have replaced the .ogg files (all 8000+ of them) with empty files with the same names in an attempt to have an almost empty cardwith same number of directories and files in the same structure. The player has been in “Refreshing Your Media” state for well over 2 hours now. I suspect this points to a file number issue however I’ll update the post with my finding - I might format the player to remove the residual meta info DB and start a fresh.
I’ll then try again with high number of ogg’s with / without tags
mp3’s 64kbs with / without tags
mp3’s 320 kbs with / without tags
It’s sad really as otherwise this is the perfect player for size, battery, replay gain, gapless playback etc. I’d seen a few reviews where people were looking forward to getting 32GB SD cards and filling those with music.
It’s pretty obvious if you are selling a small capacity flash player that people will use small ogg’s as opposed to larger MP3 files so as to get the maximum amount of music on the player so I’d be quite upset at SanDisk if this problem turns out to be with the actual firmware.
Thanks,
Rob.
fwiw, my guess is that OGG (and especically at just 64kbit/s) is fairly niche, even among Clip+ users – furthermore, I’m at the opposite end, as I try to load FLACs when I can (which I also assume to be fairly niche).
That said, if you are indeed hitting a max file limit, it also seems to me the Clip+ should simply permit more files. My guess is that they use 128bit/s as the baseline. This will become a bigger problem if/when 32GB microsdhc cards become available.
Question: if you browse via the folder view, does that show the missing stuff? I’m not quite sure if the folder view would be limited by the same constraint, so it’s at least worth a try…
24 GB of songs at 64 kbps is probably around 12,000 songs. It makes sense that you can only see around half of them on the player. The player has a limit of around 8,000 songs, but the limit is also also further constrained by having nested folders, long folder names, and long file names or tags contents.The player has a very limited amount of memory to hold the path names and tags in the database, so if you keep the file and folder names small, and also choose small tags, you might get to the 8,000 or so song limit. With longer path names though and a few levels of folder nesting, the limit might be somewhere in the 5,000 to 6,000 song range which seems to be what you are experiencing. My advice to you is to use a higher bitrate(perhaps 96 kbps or 128 kbps?), and try shortening the folder names and level of nesting, and perhaps also shorten the tags and filenames.
Yes, I mentioned this in my original post. Viewing the “folder” view, i.e. the FAT file system from within the navigation of the player (when the player is not connected to a computer) only showed 6 directories. There should have been 12 more but there were simply missing from the menu. I have now just had to perform a 15 second reset on the player to get it to come back on after attempting to reconnect it to the computer before it had finished it’s “refreshing your media” scan.
I don’t think the fact that Ogg is not a popular format has anything to do with it. It appears so far that the same thing would have occured if the files were mp3 at a low bit rate… Once again, this is irrelevant. If you sell an item advertised as being capable of playing a music format (typically in the range of 64 kbps) then it should be tested prior to release. Again, it is advertised as playing WMA files which most poeple using a small device encode to be around 96 kbps - thus not that different number of files / storage presentedby myself in ogg
Again, I’ll try not to start completely blaming SanDisk just yet - I’ll keep fiddling with various combinations. I was wondering if there was any one out there who has a 16GB SD card and fancied seeing if they could replicate the problem.
Does anyone actually employed by SanDisk read this forum? Is the firmware source code (assuming it’s C) available to read at all from anyone / where? I know that’s asking a lot but the truth would be in the code
@jk98 wrote:
24 GB of songs at 64 kbps is probably around 12,000 songs. It makes sense that you can only see around half of them on the player. The player has a limit of around 8,000 songs, but the limit is also also further constrained by having nested folders, long folder names, and long file names or tags contents.The player has a very limited amount of memory to hold the path names and tags in the database, so if you keep the file and folder names small, and also choose small tags, you might get to the 8,000 or so song limit. With longer path names though and a few levels of folder nesting, the limit might be somewhere in the 5,000 to 6,000 song range which seems to be what you are experiencing. My advice to you is to use a higher bitrate(perhaps 96 kbps or 128 kbps?), and try shortening the folder names and level of nesting, and perhaps also shorten the tags and filenames.
Hello,
Yes, if this is the case then are we looking at a finite size of the meta DB the player holds. i.e. is the DB free to expand into any available storage on the internal flash or is it limited to a set amount. I’ll try the SD card again with nothing on the internal memory.
However, firstly, if there are limits then they should be made clear on the SanDisk site. It isn’t unthinkable that somoene would want 8000 - 8500 songs on the device if they fit. Secondly it’s poor programming if the “folder” aka file system view prevents you from seeing whats on the file system and instead shows you the paths stored in the meta DB and no the reality of the filesystem! Is this what really happens. It would explain the problems being seen.
It seems that the most likely solution then is to remove the tags. Hopefully this would allow for enough space in the meta DB for the paths and filenames of all the files but this does mean that a future 32GB expansion is most likely going to require a firmware update in order to be useful for most people.
Removing the tags might not be the best thing to do. If I were in your place I would first try reducing the folder names, perhaps even to a single charachter or two, and of having a lower level of folder nesting. Even if you get rid of the tags and simplify pathnames you might not be able to have much over 8,000 songs visible(the song limit isn’t exactly 8,000). The general assumption is that for music people will use at least 128 kbps. A few years ago 64 kbps wma was also considered a standard, however now that high quality mp3 players generally have at least 4 GB of storage, the standard is to expect songs to be at least 128 kbps.
frosty, your case reminds me of a past experience that I’ve had with a fake MS duo card from ebay. The card was supposedly 4gb; but in reality it was just over 512mb, along with an intricate array of mechanisms to make you think that it was a 4gb card.
The card reader indicated that it was 4gb, and you could write up to 4gb of data on it, after which it was full, like a proper card. You could browse its contents, and see its file structure and individual file sizes. But files written after the 512mb point, would just be dummy files, which appeared like ordinary files, but seemed corrupted when they were to be opened. I tried filling it up with photos, and the photo which was on the border of 512mb would appear half ok and half missing/corrupted.
I’m guessing that’s not your case, but it’s worth considering; to test the card just fill it up and try opening several files on your computer, from the first data written, to the last.
p.s just received my clip+ and I already like it very much:)
Removing the tags might not be the best thing to do. If I were in your place I would first try reducing the folder names, perhaps even to a single charachter or two, and of having a lower level of folder nesting. Even if you get rid of the tags and simplify pathnames you might not be able to have much over 8,000 songs visible(the song limit isn’t exactly 8,000). The general assumption is that for music people will use at least 128 kbps. A few years ago 64 kbps wma was also considered a standard, however now that high quality mp3 players generally have at least 4 GB of storage, the standard is to expect songs to be at least 128 kbps.
Thanks for that. I’ll have a play with it properly tonight and see how if ends up. Not wanting to sound like a scratched record going on forever but it doesn’t really matter what most people are doing with bitrates, the player should be expected to handle the types of files it has been designed for. 64 kbs ogg (or quality .5 - 1 as it’s properly known) is the common bitrate used for similar quality to mp3. If the player has been designed with ogg compatibility and the SD expansion then it should be able to cope.
I think the firmware *needs* to be changed in the future so that the “folder” view is just that, i.e. a walk through the file system, not the paths stored in the MTABLE.SYS file or where-ever else the information is held (to be honest I can’t see *any* tags in that file so I am assuming the meta bd where the tags are stored) is not visible from the mounted file system).
If I have almost 8GB used internally + 4 GB visible on the SD card using common directory layout (i.e. 12 GB at 64 kbs) then the player must have been designed to only just be able to cope with maximum memory it can take (16 GB at present + internal = 24 GB) . i.e. it is most likely only just managing to do the 24 GB if I were to use 128 kbs MP3’s. When the SanDisk 32GB micro SD’s do hit the market you’re probably going to see this problem cropping up a *lot* when there’s people trying to fit almost 40GB of standard 128 / 160 kbps mp3 files on the device.
Either file system traversal based on realtime filesystem access needs to be introduced or there needs to be the ability to sacrefice more internal memory for a meta DB big enough to fit all the tag info on there.
Either way, one for the firmware developers me thinks. - esp before the 32 GB cards are launched.
frosty, your case reminds me of a past experience that I’ve had with a fake MS duo card from ebay. The card was supposedly 4gb; but in reality it was just over 512mb, along with an intricate array of mechanisms to make you think that it was a 4gb card.
The card reader indicated that it was 4gb, and you could write up to 4gb of data on it, after which it was full, like a proper card. You could browse its contents, and see its file structure and individual file sizes. But files written after the 512mb point, would just be dummy files, which appeared like ordinary files, but seemed corrupted when they were to be opened. I tried filling it up with photos, and the photo which was on the border of 512mb would appear half ok and half missing/corrupted.
I’m guessing that’s not your case, but it’s worth considering; to test the card just fill it up and try opening several files on your computer, from the first data written, to the last.
Yes I have heard of similar stories but this is definitely a genuine SanDisk 16 GB card, and I’ve been using it in another mobile device without problems for many months (there was just under 16 gb of ogg’s on it and they all played). I think the long and short of it is what’s been mentionen already, that the space in the tag / filename database has been consumed / cannot grow and the file system view is most likely reffering to that as opposed to whats present on the disk.
p.s just received my clip+ and I already like it very much:)
Yes, I only received the device last week. I’ve been eagerly waiting for a chance to load the SD card up with my converted oggs. I am quite dissapointed as the idea of having a 24 GB solid state player, smaller than a match box was very exciting indeed. I mean it’s not the end of the world and will probably be ok with enough fiddling later on.
I do like the player - a lot! I spent ages looking for something like this. The menu is excellent and easy to use, battery life good, really small, gapless playback, replay gain small size, built in clip, decent radio… I mean i’ve been chuffed to bit’s with it until discovering the missing files problem this morning. Again, not a show stopped but certainly not happy about the prospect of not being able to get the 32 GB card when it comes out. Having 40 GB on a device like this would have been awesome.
“the player should be expected to handle the types of files it has been designed for. 64 kbs ogg (or quality .5 - 1 as it’s properly known) is the common bitrate used for similar quality to mp3. If the player has been designed with ogg compatibility and the SD expansion then it should be able to cope.”
My guess is that the vast majority of those who use OGG use at least 128 kbps to get better sound quality.
The Clip+ has a very limited amount of physical ram, and it seems like the databse has to fit in physical ram, so the only answer to allow more songs than around 8,000 or so is to have a Clip+ V2 with more physical ram. This would also decrease battery life, unless they use a larger battery and make the player thicker(i want a slightly thicker version of the Clip+ with a bigger battery, but want the most play time possible rather than having more ram in the player).
Let’s see how many files you can get visible if you reduce the folder names to just one or two charachters, and reduce the level of nesting, then get rid of the genre tag if you never search based on it.
“the player should be expected to handle the types of files it has been designed for. 64 kbs ogg (or quality .5 - 1 as it’s properly known) is the common bitrate used for similar quality to mp3. If the player has been designed with ogg compatibility and the SD expansion then it should be able to cope.”
My guess is that the vast majority of those who use OGG use at least 128 kbps to get better sound quality.
The Clip+ has a very limited amount of physical ram, and it seems like the databse has to fit in physical ram, so the only answer to allow more songs than around 8,000 or so is to have a Clip+ V2 with more physical ram. This would also decrease battery life, unless they use a larger battery and make the player thicker(i want a slightly thicker version of the Clip+ with a bigger battery, but want the most play time possible rather than having more ram in the player).
Let’s see how many files you can get visible if you reduce the folder names to just one or two charachters, and reduce the level of nesting, then get rid of the genre tag if you never search based on it.
All the people I know who have such devices use 64 kbps because the sound quality is as good if not better than 128kbps mp3 and it lets them get more songs on the player(i.e. they get 8GB worth of music on a 4GB player).
I didn’t realise the DB would have to sit within the actual RAM of the player. I guess this is to prevent slower flash access times creating a slugish feel to the menu system however, surely this is governed by the firmware (i.e it could access the DB from flash and suffer the performance hit if required).Again, the option not to bother creating DB entries and using only the real filesystem for navigation (as an option) would get around this problem.
Yeah, well I’ll see what I can get it to do tonight. Again, if the player cannot cope with almost 24 gb of oggs then i’m not going to be best pleased that these limitations were not advertised on the site. Such is life. Like I said, when the big cards come out there is going to be more complaining as I can’t see how more than 24 GB of MP3’s at typical rates will be able to live on 32GB SD + 8 GB internal
"All the people I know who have such devices use 64 kbps because the sound quality is as good if not better than 128kbps mp3 "
For many such as myself, 128 kbps mp3 is not high enough in sound quality, and we use a higher bitrate. I use 256 kbps, but many use variable bitrate averaging around 192 kbps so they can fit a bit more on the player than by using 256 kbps.
"All the people I know who have such devices use 64 kbps because the sound quality is as good if not better than 128kbps mp3 "
For many such as myself, 128 kbps mp3 is not high enough in sound quality, and we use a higher bitrate. I use 256 kbps, but many use variable bitrate averaging around 192 kbps so they can fit a bit more on the player than by using 256 kbps.
I use a mixture of 190 - 320 kbps MP3 at home or FLAC. However, I transcode to ogg for use on portable devices as I don’t require the ultimate in high fidelity when on the train / bus or other situations when casually listening. The lower bit rate ogg is ideal for this as it allows me to carry around a bigger selection of music without having to spend a billion pounds on some massive capacity “ipod” type player. I simply want to have the bulk of my collection (trimmed some of the more bizarre tat from the main collection) on the Sansa. Again, Ogg is perfect. I just checked the SanDisk website again:
Capacity playback matrix
2GB* 4GB*** **** 8GB\ ***MP3
Hours of music stored on device**
30 60 120
Number of Songs(up to:)
500 1000 2000
WMA
Hours of music stored on device**
64 128 256
Number of Songs (up to:)
1000 2000 4000
Notice they are doubling the estimates for the WMA files. Since the MP3’s are stated to be 128 kbps they are actively advertising the capacity using 64 kbps files. Again, you’d expect to be able to fill the player with such files and then add an SD card and get much more than a further 4GB worth on the SD card :-S
The fact these files are ogg is a moot point. The point is the player doesn’t appear to be able to cope with the formats even SanDisc themselves are using as an example.
Thanks,
Rob.
Message Edited by the_real_frosty on 12-11-2009 05:48 PM
As a quick test just delete a couple directories from the memory card (obivously, ones which DO show up on the player), then see if the count stays the same, just with a few more files. Do NOT delete the card then add some back on, but take a full card, list what shows up, then delete the dirs. It would be interesting to see what is happening. There may be a glitch in your unit stopping it addressing past a certain point in the card. Unlikely, but very quick to check.
Also, as a fellow Vorbis user, please can you check my other thread (Ogg Vorbis problems) and give some rough feedback in run time of the device using Vorbis. I’m only getting about 4 to 5 hours life (q6 / 192 kb/s). MP3s don’t cause a problem. Or, hey even just a quick statement here I’d like to see what happens at lower bitrates.
Concerning 32GB cards:
I’ve read repeatedly that Sandisk only support upto 16GB cards, I’m assuming that this is due to the fact that testing non-existant cards and supporting them doesn’t happen. However, they may actual mean it - and you may have just found the reason.
Good luck with the hunt for a solution. Sandisk support is fine if you don’t mind waiting a couple days between each reply and having to e-mail a few times to get the problem escalated. An 8000 songs limit does seem a little small, not in view of number of songs, but in view of OS support (although DB size is a good explanation).
@dihenydd wrote:
As a quick test just delete a couple directories from the memory card (obivously, ones which DO show up on the player), then see if the count stays the same, just with a few more files. Do NOT delete the card then add some back on, but take a full card, list what shows up, then delete the dirs. It would be interesting to see what is happening. There may be a glitch in your unit stopping it addressing past a certain point in the card. Unlikely, but very quick to check.
Also, as a fellow Vorbis user, please can you check my other thread (Ogg Vorbis problems) and give some rough feedback in run time of the device using Vorbis. I’m only getting about 4 to 5 hours life (q6 / 192 kb/s). MP3s don’t cause a problem. Or, hey even just a quick statement here I’d like to see what happens at lower bitrates.
Concerning 32GB cards:
I’ve read repeatedly that Sandisk only support upto 16GB cards, I’m assuming that this is due to the fact that testing non-existant cards and supporting them doesn’t happen. However, they may actual mean it - and you may have just found the reason.
Good luck with the hunt for a solution. Sandisk support is fine if you don’t mind waiting a couple days between each reply and having to e-mail a few times to get the problem escalated. An 8000 songs limit does seem a little small, not in view of number of songs, but in view of OS support (although DB size is a good explanation).
I’ll keep that in mind and give it a try, it could be a problem addressing the card above a certain address, which could also be fault of the card (however that’s unlikely as there has never been problems with the card on anything else). I’ll also get some q6 ogg’s on there and see how the battery holds up and let you know. I don’t have another 16GB card to test with. The best I can do is a spare 8GB I have somewhere, since the problem I am having is with a point > 4 GB of files this might be sufficient to rule out the card / addressing problems.
