playback issue *NOT* solved!!!

[weazil]

I posted last week reporting large gaps of silence between tracks.  I updated rockbox and the problem vanished...temporarily.  It came back, with a vengeance.

I am running a late daily build (last week, I don't know the number).  I have an ipod video 30g.  As far as I know, I am not running anything like crossfade, etc.

Here is specifically what happened today.

I went to the gym.  I quickly put together a playlist composed of 4 songs.  I am not too familiar with rockbox yet, so it took me a while to figure out how to make the playlist play.   When I first tried to play the tracks, the player would not cooperate.  I could navigate menus, but there was no sound at all.

I rebooted (using holding the play button).  The playlist was saved, so I tried playing it again immediately.  The first two songs played with no problem.  The third song had a 30-ish second gap before it played.  The 4th song had a smaller gap, but midway through the song, the audio stopped, the display dumped me to the main menu, and the player froze.  I was forced to do a hard reboot.

After rebooting, I just chose an album (NiN  oh yeah) and played it.  It played with no trouble.  No gaps, no nothing.

As far as I can tell, the problems arise when I ask the player to access music in different folders. I was using mp3/mp4 tracks located in my own directory structure.  I was not using a database.  

I can easily reproduce this problem by modifying settings.  If I try to change skins, audio or system settings, I generally have to restart my ipod to coax it into playing music.

I'm worried my hard drive is ****ing the bed.  What do you think?

I really appreciate the help, and the hard work that goes into this project.

-weazil

[Febs]

I am running a late daily build (last week, I don't know the number).  I have an ipod video 30g.  As far as I know, I am not running anything like crossfade, etc.

Update to the most current build and see if your problems still exist.  

[weazil]

well, alright, i'll do it.  But I see a vicious cycle here.

Problem -> update rockbox -> problem goes away -> wait 1 week -> repeat

[Llorean]

1) You yourself suggested it may be a disk problem, which would mean there's nothing we can do about it.
2) We can't really investigate a problem that isn't still around, so we do need to know that it still exists in an actually current version. For people to investigate problems that might already be fixed would  waste everyone's time.

[weazil]

well, I upgraded to the latest build, and for now it seems to be working fine.  I put the thing through the paces for a few minutes, making playlists, and switching tracks through multiple directories quickly.  I dunno.

Are there any steps I can take to assess the condition of the ipod disk?  Has anyone encountered problems like this?

Thanks again for the help

EDIT - I just had a thought.  Could the physical shock of running while listening have anything to do with this?  

[Llorean]

Running can cause read difficulties. Have you tried increasing the anti-skip buffer significantly for use while running?

[bluebrother]

I just had a thought.  Could the physical shock of running while listening have anything to do with this?

Also, you can physically damage your player by running with it -- a hard disc is a mechanical part and is not meant to undergo physical shocks of any kind. If you want a player you can use for running / jogging / etc. get a flash based one.

[weazil]

Running can cause read difficulties.

I'm not too good with this stuff, but this seems like read difficulty to me.  I'm going to try to replicate the problem without running.

[Febs]

Are there any steps I can take to assess the condition of the ipod disk?  Has anyone encountered problems like this?

Try running chkdsk:  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315265

Use the /r option.