Sansa Fuze+ Firmware 02.38.06

the folder view needs fixing.

I have loaded the player with lots of mp3 files in subfolders in /Music/ and the folder view says it’s Empty.

@heavy wrote:

Using something called “folder view” and then expecting the songs to be sorted by tags is ridiculous.

absolutely agree. There is alot wrong with this firmware, but you have to try to have your head present when you are writing complaints…

heavy/newbie

You’ve both missed the point.

Folder View should be a mechanism for allowing you to browse the structure of your music (it doesn’t work for audiobooks or podcasts).

Whether tagging or folders or whatever are used for browsing, it’s all down to how the firmware builds the .idx and .dat files. All it is a is a database of your music with a bunch of indexes allowing you navigate in a particular way.

Having some kind of stucture and hierachy allows you to group your music the way you like.(i’d also like to group my podcasts similarly into Crime,Sci-fi,Drama etc - which is hard when you have to rely on them all being tagged as podcasts).

Once you’ve navigated through the folders (not files) until you’ve found the tracks you want then there are numerous ways yo could present them, Alphabetic, Track No,Date, Size etc. (in just the same way that when you navigate through a folder structure in Windows Explorer you have a choice of how it’s presented).

Flexibility should have been built in allowing you to select (as you can in Explorer) how the individual files are presented once you get down to the folder level. (honestly it’s not that difficult, all you have to do is is use a different part of the media information when you’re processing an individual track and building the key).

Personally I wouldn’t have added it to Music, but would have added it alongside Music,Video,Books etc as a global option as to how to browse all media on the device. Then I could have browsed my Videos so I can decide whether I want to watch a cartoon or sci-fi instead of having to browse by file name. Ditto podcasts etc.

p.s. further investigation shows that the files/tracks are not sorted into filename order but in fact are sorted into title sequence i.e the sequence of the title tags!!!

Will next FW fix time bug?  I have fuze+ 8gb btw. How long we have to wait for it?

this product should be renamed to “Sansa shuffleplayblackonly Fuze  - - -”

Because for me it’s the only way to prevent myself from smashing it.

It’s the only player in 2011 that:

  • takes at least 5h to recharge

  • IMPOSSIBLE to scroll trough albums/songs/artists, yes IMPOSSIBLE (unless you have 2 albums). so forget choosing the song to listen to, either you put it in shuffle mode or you can spend 10 minutes to search for each specific song

  • while recharging doesn’t show the status!

  • cant even keep the time

  • takes 1 minute to load for reasons we will never know

I just cannot believe that the developers can’t fix those things or that they actually released it like it was in the first place. It ■■■■■ now, imagine how it was with the very first firmware! there must be someone above them driving the programmers to stupidity.

Was I too harsh? Think twice

About “time bug” see here: http://forums.sandisk.com/t5/Fuze/Fuze-clock-works-only-if-device-is-switched-on/m-p/241790#M3449

after update, none of my music was showing up under folder view. I tried inserting and removing a micro SD, no dice. In order to get the player to recognize my music I had to remove and re-add all of it. I can see it fine now, folder browsing works fine. I like the looping menus. Not essentially, but a welcome addition. I would like true folder browsing for my podcasts and audiobooks. Not a big deal, though, as the current view works fine. I mostly use my player for podcasts, however, and am not a heavy music listener (I have maybe 6 albums on there.) My biggest complaint (that’s left, the locking was the one I hated, but new locking is great) is that I have to convert videos to play on the Fuze+. This makes video blogs/podcasts more trouble than they’re worth. I am using Video4fuze, on Ubuntu, for conversion, and it takes forever. I don’t expect this to be fixed, though, and may be something beyond the scope of firmware. I bought this player specifically because I wanted to be able to watch video podcasts with no hassle, and would have got a less expensive one (like the clip+) had I known it would be such a pain to watch them. I cab tell you this - if a port of Rockbox ever makes it to the Fuze+, I will likely ditch the factory firmware. That’s a big if, of course.

One other problem :slight_smile: When I use the voice recorder, it cuts out really badly while driving. Works fine when the engine is running, car stopped, but is unusable when in motion. I have no idea what the problem is there, or how to fix it. But I prefer the sound quality of the Fuze+ to my cell, and wish it was more usable. While I’m wishing, a way to use an external mike/headset to record would be awesome. Any advice from anyone? Besides “Buy a voice recorder” :slight_smile: ?

I figured the updates would have dried up looong ago !

Large respect to the Sansa Staff for keeping the updates coming :slight_smile:

First off s usual i did a manual update and then i thought this would be a good time to format the Fuze+

If you’ve seen the hidden files on the device you can see there is a lot of indexing cache activity…

So after that a put about 600 songs on all ofcourse properly tag’d

and wow start up was quicker and the device seems a bit more responsive.

I do have the clock bug i think though, it doesn’t stay set even if i restore settings

But its not a big deal i guess…

Looping menus are working great, i figured it would work better and i think it does.

Someone mentioned a bug with that where the cover art was wrong on looping and i did NOT have that issue

Good Job and Thank You

I copied over a lot of mp3 files in their folders and about 1/4 of the folders don’t show up on the folder viewer at all. I can not figure out why or how to make them show.

This firmware is defective.

@mothy wrote:

heavy/newbie

 

You’ve both missed the point.

 

Folder View should be a mechanism for allowing you to browse the structure of your music (it doesn’t work for audiobooks or podcasts).

 

Whether tagging or folders or whatever are used for browsing, it’s all down to how the firmware builds the .idx and .dat files. All it is a is a database of your music with a bunch of indexes allowing you navigate in a particular way.

 

Having some kind of stucture and hierachy allows you to group your music the way you like.(i’d also like to group my podcasts similarly into Crime,Sci-fi,Drama etc - which is hard when you have to rely on them all being tagged as podcasts).

 

Once you’ve navigated through the folders (not files) until you’ve found the tracks you want then there are numerous ways yo could present them, Alphabetic, Track No,Date, Size etc. (in just the same way that when you navigate through a folder structure in Windows Explorer you have a choice of how it’s presented).

 

Flexibility should have been built in allowing you to select (as you can in Explorer) how the individual files are presented once you get down to the folder level. (honestly it’s not that difficult, all you have to do is is use a different part of the media information when you’re processing an individual track and building the key).

 

Personally I wouldn’t have added it to Music, but would have added it alongside Music,Video,Books etc as a global option as to how to browse all media on the device. Then I could have browsed my Videos so I can decide whether I want to watch a cartoon or sci-fi instead of having to browse by file name. Ditto podcasts etc.

 

p.s. further investigation shows that the files/tracks are not sorted into filename order but in fact are sorted into title sequence i.e the sequence of the title tags!!!

You could have a very high degree of flexibility by manipulating your ID3 tags.  Having a Windows Explorer-like environment in a portable player seems a bit non-user-friendly.

I tried to update my firmware, but never got the option or prompt to download it

Sorry, if this is not a regular chanel for my question, but this is my first post in sansa forum, well, my question is the next: Can I updating my sansa fuze+, with the last firmware, without updating with the past version?..

I bought a Sansa Fuze+ on June, and I havent never update the firmware.

thank you very much. 

Grettings from Peru.

@ariomvet wrote:

Sorry, if this is not a regular chanel for my question, but this is my first post in sansa forum, well, my question is the next: Can I updating my sansa fuze+, with the last firmware, without updating with the past version?..

I bought a Sansa Fuze+ on June, and I havent never update the firmware.

thank you very much. 

Grettings from Peru.

All firmware ‘updates’ are all-inclusive, meaning that you do not have to install all of them. The latest one will have everything that the previous ones did, plus the latest changes.

Sandro:  "- takes at least 5h to recharge

  • IMPOSSIBLE to scroll trough albums/songs/artists, yes IMPOSSIBLE (unless you have 2 albums). so forget choosing the song to listen to, either you put it in shuffle mode or you can spend 10 minutes to search for each specific song

  • while recharging doesn’t show the status!

  • cant even keep the time

  • takes 1 minute to load for reasons we will never know

  …

Was I too harsh? Think twice""

Hi Sandro,

I largely agree with most all of your criticisms and as you know I certainly lit the fire that finally led to Firmware 02.38.06.  It really was prematurely released by over a year and still is far from the quality of a shipping product.  But yes, I think you’re a little too harsh here. 

The slow load, the feedbackless 5 hour charge, the navigatonal difficulites are all indeed beyond amateur coding.  However, the load used to be even slower and when it finally finished it shut right off unless you tapped it.  At least now you can start it, put it down and then grab it in a minute.  The 5 hour charge is a known quantity, I just live with it… we don’t need feedback to know that it’s a charging dog.    Navigation is indeed super touchy and has a freeze/jump quality to it which is very amateur… but it is no longer impossilbe to get to a song or album. Before it really was physcially impossilbe to make it through the song list to the genres… it really was unachievable.  Now it is lame, but it is usable.  And there is the folder mode, which works perfectly.  On the time issue, outside of a sleep mode, why would anyone care if this thing even knew the time? 

Sandro:   " I just cannot believe that the developers can’t fix those things or that they actually released it like it was in the first place. It ■■■■■ now, imagine how it was with the very first firmware! there must be someone above them driving the programmers to stupidity."

I think that you might have this a little backwards.  I’ve worked for a few companies who have moved their software development offshore and although there is no way to be certain, in my estimation this has all of the hallmarks of offshore development .  A change in team would explain the incredible 3 year lag in getting out a new Fuze+.  Furthermore, the defining characteristic of offshore programming is a siloed almost tunnel visioned apporach to fixing a bug without consideration of what else may break, ie the interrelationship of the current block of code with other portions of the application.  This is why virtually every change, even simple ones, repeatedly breaks other parts of the Sansa software (clock.podcasts,timer, etc).  The traditional U.S. software development approach (where all this stuff was invented) was to create decoupled resusable stateless compenents while thinking holistically about and viewing the applicaton in its entirety… pretty much the polar opposite approach of this device.

Judging by the stellar software design of the older Sansa devices, I assume that those product managers are probably used to specifying the features that they need to a team that has a meeting of the minds, says “Gotcha, know exactly what you mean” and then goes off and implements.  It just doesnt’ work that way offshore.  My guess is that this all started by showing the team some visual aspects of the iPod.  The PM’s probably anticipated that the team would “get it” but then they started from the user interface down with no sense of the great feel and interdepency of the UI and the indexing and timing interaction. Offshore development is a very linear and scripted approach.  Understanding of UI goals from a human facotrs or tactile aspect  is completely outside of the mindset and the PM’s would have actually had to delve into the feel and timing specifications in great detail to acheive any success.  This is why this development is so fast but so fragile and unsatisfying.  Contrast this with Apple’s approach where the slapping together of the physical components is moved to the cheapest stable location and the brains are in Cupertino with an engaged software team collaborating with a visionary and expert techncial human factors people.  The difference is palpable.

Let us be thankful that this is only an mp3 player and not the medical and financial systems where I first encountered and learned to understand this issue.

heavy:

“Flexibility should have been built in allowing you to select (as you can in Explorer) how the individual files are presented once you get down to the folder level. (honestly it’s not that difficult, all you have to do is is use a different part of the media information when you’re processing an individual track and building the key).”

Hi heavy,

There is a lot to complain about in the Sansa Fuze+ but you have homed in on the Folder View… the sole aspect of the system which is solid!

Folder mode works perfectly.  Directories sorted by name, files within them sorted by name.  Why would you want to mix media information with the physical file names?  The whole point of folder mode is to make the device navigable for non tagged or poorly tagged collectons or for those users such as Sandro and I with large collections who were once fighting a near unresponsive and now mediocrly responsive interface.  You do know that you can hit the directories with MP3Tag or something and rename the files automatically based on your tags.  But from your post, I think that your tagging is probably a big whacked so I doubt that any approach can make you happy.

I have purchased a 32 Gb iPhone to replace my beloved and recently deceased Treo.  I wouldn’t have gone with it, but as I had the Sansa Fuze+ instead of a usable mp3 player I went for it.  Being honest, the iPod interface on the iPhone is so far beyond the reach of the Sansa development team that I will probably never seriously use the Sansa Fuze+ (even though I can fit less than half of the content what I want on the iPhone).  With the iPhone, even when Rockbox is ready and we have a great unit, I won’t get much use of it.  However, I am about to use the Fuze+ extensively around a hot tub, a pool and on the beach for a few weeks… something that I’d never do with my iPhone.  I am really looking forward to it!   Last year at this time we did the same and all of us were comparing mp3 players and we all had quite a laugh at the expense of the lame Fuze+.  This year it will be a lot different.

I am trying to update a Fuze that has not been used in a couple of years. It works and plays the songs. However it does not showup on iTunes, or any other directory such as C: removable drive. How can I get it to be seen so I can update it? 

Very nice post fusionnow!

About the scrolling thing, I can’t use it, I don’t understand how it can be defined “usable”. I can’t scroll through songs because it’s too slow it takes minute to chose a song, i can’t call this “usable” if the point of a media player is this basically.

Other comments are to demonstrate how amateur this software is, that can’t even do simple tasks.

I think that for my main problem (the scrolling) adding a way to scroll though alphabet letters would resolve it.

a Fuze or a Fuze+ ?? they ARE different

i ask because you said you havn’t used your Fuze in a couple years

and i dont think the Fuze+ has been out “a couple years” *yet

@fuzionnow wrote:

heavy:

“Flexibility should have been built in allowing you to select (as you can in Explorer) how the individual files are presented once you get down to the folder level. (honestly it’s not that difficult, all you have to do is is use a different part of the media information when you’re processing an individual track and building the key).”

 

Hi heavy,

 

There is a lot to complain about in the Sansa Fuze+ but you have homed in on the Folder View… the sole aspect of the system which is solid!

 

Folder mode works perfectly.  Directories sorted by name, files within them sorted by name.  Why would you want to mix media information with the physical file names?  The whole point of folder mode is to make the device navigable for non tagged or poorly tagged collectons or for those users such as Sandro and I with large collections who were once fighting a near unresponsive and now mediocrly responsive interface.  You do know that you can hit the directories with MP3Tag or something and rename the files automatically based on your tags.  But from your post, I think that your tagging is probably a big whacked so I doubt that any approach can make you happy.

 

I have purchased a 32 Gb iPhone to replace my beloved and recently deceased Treo.  I wouldn’t have gone with it, but as I had the Sansa Fuze+ instead of a usable mp3 player I went for it.  Being honest, the iPod interface on the iPhone is so far beyond the reach of the Sansa development team that I will probably never seriously use the Sansa Fuze+ (even though I can fit less than half of the content what I want on the iPhone).  With the iPhone, even when Rockbox is ready and we have a great unit, I won’t get much use of it.  However, I am about to use the Fuze+ extensively around a hot tub, a pool and on the beach for a few weeks… something that I’d never do with my iPhone.  I am really looking forward to it!   Last year at this time we did the same and all of us were comparing mp3 players and we all had quite a laugh at the expense of the lame Fuze+.  This year it will be a lot different.

FWIW, you’re misquoting me and I totally agree with you.