Will my folders work better if I use a microSD card?

Hi, This player obviously cannot handle the simple pasting of folders containing mp3’s without some folders magically disappearing once the player is disconnected from the computer. I did way more work than I had to to get all my “drag and dropped” folders to show up, but then, they got jacked up again during the last update. Anyway, my question is this… If I use a microSD card (instead of the player’s memory), can this problem be solved??? All I want to do is copy folders from my computer to the player and have them available to me (not invisible). Thanks, Jeff

I believe this is yet another case of misunderstanding how this player works. It does not read, or store by folder and/or file name, but rather by ID3 tag. So while you put your files together in special folders, etc. when you unplug from the computer, you will not be able to find them in the normal menus. This does not mean they have disappeared, only that you’re looking for them in the wrong place

The menus (Artist, Album, Track, Genre, etc.) are populated from the information gleaned from the individual ID3 tags during the database refresh after unplugging from your computer, not the folder and/or file names. Your files/folders are still there as you dragged and dropped them; just re-connect to your computer and you will see.

If you wish to navigate by folder/file name rather than by ID3 tag, just go to the bottom of the Music menu and select the Folders option.

Oh yeah, using a Micro SD card won’t make any difference at all. The player will see it as a separate memory location, but the way it reads tags is the way its firmware is written. A card won’t change that.

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.

“If you wish to navigate by folder/file name rather than by ID3 tag, just go to the bottom of the Music menu and select the Folders option.”

This is exactly what I am doing. Some of my folders are not visible. I did a lot of work and had all folders visible, but then, some disappeared during the last Sansa update.

What exactly do I have to do to make ALL my folders visible when I go to Music >> Folders???

Jeff

Here’s another thing that makes absolutely no sense to me.

I bought a box set of Bob Marley and ripped all the music to one folder on my computer (all songs discs and songs were ripped in the exact same manner).

I then created four folders in the exact same way and put mp3 files into each folder to make playlists.

I copied all folders to the Sansa, but only one folder is visible under Music >> Folders.

How can this happen when all mp3’s, and all folders, were created in the exact same manner?

Shouldn’t either all folders not be seen (or all be seen) when I go to Music >> Folders considering all were created in the same way?

All ID3 tags, or lack thereof, are the same for everything, so please explain how some can be visible and some are not.

Thanks,

Jeff

First, you need to decide whether you are going to use MSC mode or MTP mode. Unless you are dealing with protected music, use MSC mode all the time. Next, you need to be aware that if you update firmware the player will default back to auto mode, which will in turn use MTP mode on a windows computer which may or may not require a certain version of WMP, I’m not sure since I never use it.

If your music is untagged, you should see a folder called unknown into which those untagged files shoud show up. As others have said, you should be able to see your files in folder view with folder structure as you see in windows.

Now some people have said you will not see music outside of the folder view if there are tagging problems. I’ve never seen such a problem but for a long time I’ve always tagged my music using mp3tag. I really doubt not tagging is a problem except not doing so defeats the purpose of having something like the clip in the first place. Very inexpensive players don’t use tags and their navigation is via folder view. However, I’m not about to dispute those who claim there could be a problem, just tag the music anyway using mp3tag or similar. Most operations can be done fairly painlessley.

You used the word playlist. The Sansa reserves playlist for a set of files from anywhere on the drive or memory or card (but not mixed). I think you meant to segregate into different folders, which is a slightly different meaning of the word for a non-Rockboxed Sansa.

Hello,

Thanks for your reply.  I switched to MSC.  I reformatted the player.  I dropped all my music folders from my computer in the “Music” section of the player.

I still have the same problem.

When I say “playlist”, I am talking about the fact that I have songs in certain orders in certain folders, and I want to be able to access that folder and play all those songs in the exact order they are in on my computer.  Thus far, that has proven impossible (in some situations) with this player.

For example, I have 3 Bob Marley “mix” folders on my computer that I dropped on the player.  When I go to Music >> Folders on the player (in MSC) mode, I only see one Bob Marley folder, and all the songs from all three folders are in this one folder. 

Where are the other two folders that people are saying I should have no trouble seeing?  This is the exact same problem I had in MTP mode, so switching to MSC has made absolutely zero difference with my problem.

Again, all folders are tagged, or not tagged, in the exact same manner, so why are some folders visible and others not?

What else should I do?

Thanks,

Jeff

Ok, I finally figured this out.

The problem only happens when I have multiple folders of the same artist (which I have a lot of).  

For example, I have three Bob Marly folders…

Bob Marley I

Bob Marley II

Bob Marley III

They player puts all songs into one folder and two folders are not visible.  

I renamed the folders using A, B, and C and Gold, Silver, Bronze, and now I see all three folders.

It seems the player cannot differentiate between I, II, and III, so it just keeps one folder and puts all songs from the three folders in one.

Thanks,

Jeff

I can’t believe you have 3 Bob Marley folders. :stuck_out_tongue:

It depends on the tag values. If all tag fields are blank, my experience is the player will dump everything in the ‘unknown’ folder and play them in their file structure order*. You need to look at the tagged value for those Bob Marley files. If the album fields are identical (which I suspect), then the clip just uses that album name. The play order within an album is determined by the tagged track#. The displayed title will be the title field in the tag, else I believe the windows name. That’s why with all these variables it’s so important to tag everything.

* file structure order is the order files are stored within a directory. This has nothing to do with what windows displays, but is the order in which the files are written to an empty directory. It’s what you will see if you list the files from command (dos) window using the dir command without switches.