I appreciate the time you took to help me with this. Before reading your message I had already opened the sansa player with “finder” using my mac. I dragged & dropped “clpza” into the player but not opened it. It is not in a folder of its own but just listed with contents of the player. To “unzip” ,do I just double click on it in the player or will this screw things up?
(I am a senior who has owned many computers dating back to the commodor and learned lots but have never taken any lessons.)
I appreciate the time you took to help me with this. Before reading your message I had already opened the sansa player with “finder” using my mac. I dragged & dropped “clpza” into the player but not opened it. It is not in a folder of its own but just listed with contents of the player. To “unzip” ,do I just double click on it in the player or will this screw things up?
Download and unzip the file on your computer first. Then copy the .bin file over to the player.
And with a Mac, you must use MSC mode. Manually set your player to this; don’t rely on the Auto Defect setting.
I appreciate the time you took to help me with this. Before reading your message I had already opened the sansa player with “finder” using my mac. I dragged & dropped “clpza” into the player but not opened it. It is not in a folder of its own but just listed with contents of the player. To “unzip” ,do I just double click on it in the player or will this screw things up?
(I am a senior who has owned many computers dating back to the commodor and learned lots but have never taken any lessons.)
Yes, the “clipza.bin” file is the one you want. You likely have the file type hidde on your mac but that’s the name of the file.
Drag/drop that file at the top level directory of the clip zip. Make sure first you switched the player to MSC mode as I described earlier. That makes the CZ look like a USB thumb drive to your computer.
Sounds like you did the right thing, just unplug it from your pc and let it do it’s thing. The CZ will detect the new update, install it, reboot and start up fresh. It should act like you just got it out of the box, asking for the first time things like where you’re located (for settting up the FM tuner) and other such things. After that you’re good to go. You will loose any settings though, like the FM radio presets. Kind of a pain, one reason I don’t update the firmware unless something fixes a big bug or there’s some big new feature I just have to have.
Make sure you do what Tapeworm and I suggested earlier, drag/drop it first into a folder on your mac (like on the desktop, so it’s easy to find) THEN drag/drop that extracted file onto the Clip. That makes sure the file was properly decompressed before being put in the root directory of the clip. Just unplug after you’re done, and the CZ will do it’s thing.
Thanks for trying to help but it is beyond me. I have followed all of your advice very carefully but I still have too many questions. I can’t imagine drag & dropping this huge file that looks like hieroglyphics after opening it. Something is amiss and I don’t want to damage the player. It already has a lot of files on it that weren’t there when I started all this.
^^^ The firmware is full of machine code. You’re not a machine, you’re not supposed to open it. You’re supposed to put it on the Clip, which will then use the code to update itself. Basically: Download > Unzip > move to player.
Thanks for trying to help but it is beyond me. I have followed all of your advice very carefully but I still have too many questions. I can’t imagine drag & dropping this huge file that looks like hieroglyphics after opening it. Something is amiss and I don’t want to damage the player. It already has a lot of files on it that weren’t there when I started all this.
ps. (I did have the player in MSC setting ) .
I think you’re making it more difficult than it is.
Plug the Clip Zip to your USB port with the included USB cable.
Download the firmware file found on pg. 1 of this thread. It’s the link that’s for manual download. Save the file somewhere you can easily find it. I find that saving to the desktop works easiest since I won’t keep the file for long.
Double click on the saved file you just downloaded.
A folder should open. There should be only 1 file in there. It’s called ‘clipza.bin’. If you hid extension names, it’ll just be named “clipza”. The file is around 15MB in size when unzipped. Don’t bother opening it, you don’t need to look at what’s in there. It’s binary code, you can’t read it. It’s gibberish to a human without the proper software tools. You just need to install it on your Clip.
Use your computer’s file folder tool, open your clip like you would a USB key. Drag/drop that ‘clipza’ file directly into the top level directory of your Clip Zip. Just move it over to the Clip like you would copy a picture or something to a USB key you would use with your Mac. It’s literally no different.
That’s it. When you unplug the device the Clip will do it’s thing. It’ll overwrite the old firmware, install the new, erase the file you just installed and you’ll be good to go. It’s no harder than copying a document to a USB thumb drive and works just the same.
Otherwise, find a friend or family member that’s more Apple savvy than I am. I’ve used mainly Linux and Windoze machines and they work pretty much the same way with their graphical user interfaces. I’m guessing Macs work pretty much the same way when writing a file to a thumb drive but if not have a friend/family member give you a hand. Or else, search on Google for how to write to a thumb drive with the Mac and do the same thing with the binary file (unzipped) dropped directly on the top level of the Clip’s directory. When you figure it out you’ll kick yourself that there wasn’t that much to it.
Thank you for not giving up on me tnmats. I tried one more time and this time it worked. I think the problem was that once I downloaded the file (called “clpza.bin.cpgz” on my MAC) I dragged it rather than double clicking it on the desktop. Double clicking again caused "clpza.bin to open(which is 15.7 MB) .I then drag & dropped it into the sansa player. Learned a lot on this one.
BTW, I read your last answer to my question on the Kindle Fire. I have had several learning curves lately. The KF, a swithch from a PC to a MacBook Air in the last 4 months and the recent purchase of the sensa clip zip. Whoo!!! I need a rest. :wink:
Thank you for not giving up on me tnmats. I tried one more time and this time it worked. I think the problem was that once I downloaded the file (called “clpza.bin.cpgz” on my MAC) I dragged it rather than double clicking it on the desktop. Double clicking again caused "clpza.bin to open(which is 15.7 MB) .I then drag & dropped it into the sansa player. Learned a lot on this one.
BTW, I read your last answer to my question on the Kindle Fire. I have had several learning curves lately. The KF, a swithch from a PC to a MacBook Air in the last 4 months and the recent purchase of the sensa clip zip. Whoo!!! I need a rest. :wink:
Ah, so you were sending the compressed file to the Clip. That explains it so no wonder it didn’t work. Glad you got it going and updated. You can join the ranks of Clip experts now. :smileyvery-happy:
How do yo like the Fire? My 12 yr. old daughter has become monomaniacal about getting one. I’m rather sick of listening to her blatherings about the thing…
How do yo like the Fire? My 12 yr. old daughter has become monomaniacal about getting one. I’m rather sick of listening to her blatherings about the thing…
I guess it’s time for her doing lots of babysitting, to earn the tablet . . . .
At 12 years old? Seems to me she would be the one to be “sat” at her age, not the other way around.
How do yo like the Fire? My 12 yr. old daughter has become monomaniacal about getting one. I’m rather sick of listening to her blatherings about the thing…
I guess it’s time for her doing lots of babysitting, to earn the tablet . . . .
At 12 years old? Seems to me she would be the one to be “sat” at her age, not the other way around.
Depending on the young person, 12 isn’t too young, at least not for a few hours of babysitting. lol I started babysitting when I was 11 to earn a little pocket money. And the kids were toddlers. The parents always came home to find their child safe and sound.
How do yo like the Fire? My 12 yr. old daughter has become monomaniacal about getting one. I’m rather sick of listening to her blatherings about the thing…
I guess it’s time for her doing lots of babysitting, to earn the tablet . . . .
I had a problem dragging and dropping the file into the SanDisk in Vista. Once I moved the cursor across to the other pane, it turned into a red circle with slash. Finally found I could copy, then paste into the clip zip directory in the other pane. But in the course of trying to do the whole process, I wound up with 4 copies of the unzipped bin in my downloads folder.
