iPod Nano 1st Gen + Rockbox: Problems

[flj^]

Having many problems with my (4 gig) nano and rockbox. They are as follows:

1: Database - When I try and update the database (manually or automatically), the number of entries it finds goes up well past 500; I have less than 200 audio files on my ipod. I do not use iTunes at all, I simply drag and drop files into organized folders on my ipod. Why is it finding so many more entries?

2: Playback - Whenever I go to play a file through the database, i get a dialouge that says "searching - xx", where the time will be anywhere from 30 - 170. Why does it take so much time, if any, to start playing a song? Also, if shuffle is on, another dialouge pops up and says "Shuffling...", and sits there for an additional 5 seconds before the song starts. I have the database set to load to ram on startup.

3: Buttons - It takes way to many button presses for things to be selected/activated, usually once to turn the LCD backlight on and than anywhere from 2-5 to get any sort of response from the player. Never had this happen with the normal ipod software.

4: Computer Connected - When I plug my ipod into my computer (over usb 1.0) while the ipod is booted up in the rockbox firmware, a nifty little USB cable rendering will show up on the screen, but within 2 seconds the ipod reboots and then goes back to the standard ipod software ("Do Not Dissconnect", etc). How do I get it to not do this?

5: Battery Life - My battery lasts for about 8.5 hours when fully charged, compared to 14-15 i got when using the standard ipod software. I have every power related setting set to as low as i can handle ( e.g. backlight stays on for only 2 seconds, shuts off on hold), but the battery still dies significantly sooner. All of my music is vorbis encoded (q 3.0) in ogg containers. What gives?

[saratoga]

4: Computer Connected - When I plug my ipod into my computer (over usb 1.0) while the ipod is booted up in the rockbox firmware, a nifty little USB cable rendering will show up on the screen, but within 2 seconds the ipod reboots and then goes back to the standard ipod software ("Do Not Dissconnect", etc). How do I get it to not do this?

Since theres no USB mode in rockbox yet, you probably don't want to change this.

5: Battery Life - My battery lasts for about 8.5 hours when fully charged, compared to 14-15 i got when using the standard ipod software. I have every power related setting set to as low as i can handle ( e.g. backlight stays on for only 2 seconds, shuts off on hold), but the battery still dies significantly sooner. All of my music is vorbis encoded (q 3.0) in ogg containers. What gives?

Search.

[Gorilla]

1: Database - When I try and update the database (manually or automatically), the number of entries it finds goes up well past 500; I have less than 200 audio files on my ipod. I do not use iTunes at all, I simply drag and drop files into organized folders on my ipod. Why is it finding so many more entries?

2: Playback - Whenever I go to play a file through the database, i get a dialouge that says "searching - xx", where the time will be anywhere from 30 - 170. Why does it take so much time, if any, to start playing a song? Also, if shuffle is on, another dialouge pops up and says "Shuffling...", and sits there for an additional 5 seconds before the song starts. I have the database set to load to ram on startup.

1. The same thing happens to my iPod.  The only thing I can think of is that the database also scans for album covers, pictures, etc.

2. Try enabling Directory Cache in addition to Load to Ram.

[bascule]

1. The same thing happens to my iPod.  The only thing I can think of is that the database also scans for album covers, pictures, etc.

I believe that is correct. Database scans *all* files, but obviously only stores the music ones

You shouldn't be able to create a playlist using the database that has more than your number of *music* files in it.

[sadffffff]

3: Buttons - It takes way to many button presses for things to be selected/activated, usually once to turn the LCD backlight on and than anywhere from 2-5 to get any sort of response from the player. Never had this happen with the normal ipod software.

can you tells us anything about the audio files you are playing? file type? bitrate? etc
i dont notice any lag at all on my 4gb nano while playing music, other than the lag associated with turning the hold switch off.

[flj^]

okay well i think the button pressing issue is just that my ipod is a little worn out, but all of my music is in ogg vorbis @ ~q3.0 (about 100-120 kbps, i think its VBR).

I read about the battery life thing, so thats taken care of. I just turned on the disk cache option and rebooted, and my ipod has been sitting at the splash screen with "Scanning disk..." for about 2 hours now. How long does it take?

[sadffffff]

disk cache option? i tried directory cache if thats what you meant, i didnt get any scanning disk notification and it didnt appear to turn on, isnt it just for the ipods with hdds?

if the button pressing is just from being worn out is should also happen in the original firmware. if you have an album in mp3, give that a try, or convert an album for testing purposes. im not using ogg files, but i would guess they take more out of the cpu than a plain old mp3.

[flj^]

oh okay I guess thats what I should have done.  still notice button issue with mp3 files, i put a few on to test.


But now my problem is that I cant get it to stop doing the "scanning disk thing". I left it on over night and the battery died and it still wont pass that stage. Can i manually turn that option off if i connect the ipod to the computer and maybe modify some file?

[pixelma]

You could either reset all the settings - on Ipod you have to switch hold on as soon as you see that Rockbox starts, I think - or you can edit the settings file on a computer. To do that hook your Nano up to a computer and open the file "config.cfg" in the ".rockbox" directory in a text editor, then delete the line "dircache: on" and save. Rockbox just stores values that are different from the default setting in this file, that's why deleting this line should be sufficient.

[Febs]

In addition, I would try running a utility to check your hard disk for errors.  For example, if you are in Windows, run chkdisk /f from the command line.

[flj^]

Okay well now windows wont even recognize the device, so I had to reformat it and start all over. USB 1.0 sucks...