for some time now my Sansa Fuze (Firmware V 01.02.26F) suddenly freezes during playback in irregular intervals. When that happens I can only turn the player off by pressing the power button for a longer time (maybe 10 seconds or a bit longer). When I turn the player back on, it will refresh the database which is very annoying due to the fact that this refreshing process always takes about 5 Minutes. The problem occured when I added new files but the problem now also appears when playing other MP3s.
At the moment there are 2692 MP3 (and only MP3) files stored on the internal memory (8GB) and the additional microSDHC-card (also 8GB). Replay Gain is not activated.
And yes, of course I would install the latest firmware - if my problem was listed under “Bugs fixed”. Also I’m afraid that the “enhancement” that the new firmware adds (“Max volume level is lowered in Normal volume setting to comply with new European Union requirement”) will lower the maximal volume, what I’d like to prevent.
Maybe something is wrong with the file system, you could try formatting the internal memory and/or the card (which will of course delete all the files).
And the volume limit of the latest firmware is not an issue, you just have to set “rest of the world” as the region.
Your new files may have had tags that the picky Fuze cannot read.
You should delete the most recently added albums and see if that fixes the problem.
If not, put the Fuze in MSC mode and run Error-Checking (right-click on each drive, Properties/Tools/Error-Checking) and see if that fixes the problem.
If not, back up your music, Format the Fuze from its Settings/System Settings menu, and add the albums back a few at a time. If it goes batty again, you’ll know which album caused it.
Going forward, get mp3tag. When you install it, allow it to add itself to context menus.
Open it, and in Tools/Options/Tags/Mpeg set Write to ID3v2.3 ISO-8859-1. Those are the best tags for the Fuze to read.
When you get an album of mp3s, right-click on the folder and use mp3tag to open it. Highlight all the files (assuming they are in top to bottom playing order–otherwise click on the Track Number heading to organize them in playing order, or put them in playing order yourself if necessary). Under Tools, go to Auto-Numbering Wizard, choose the Leading Zeros option and run it.
That will do two things. It will put the track numbers in the Fuze-friendly 01, 02, 03 etc. format instead of 1/12, 2/12, etc. And it will write them as ID3v2.3 ISO-8859-1 because you’ve set that as the default. Time required per album: all of 10 seconds.
Maybe something is wrong with the file system, you could try formatting the internal memory and/or the card (which will of course delete all the files).
And the volume limit of the latest firmware is not an issue, you just have to set “rest of the world” as the region.
However,there have been plenty of instances where a reformat was not necessary at all…
If not, put the Fuze in MSC mode and run Error-Checking (right-click on each drive, Properties/Tools/Error-Checking) and see if that fixes the problem.
For things like this, I recommend everyone to keep a backup of everything that is on the Fuze. That way, you won’t have to spend time waiting for the music, videos, ect. to be copied back onto the PC before reformatting.
