Database won't init

[ataraxia]

I just upgraded rockbox to r17605-080522 on my E280.  It booted fine, and when I went to the database it says "database is not ready, Initialize now?"  I select yes.  It starts building the database and locks up at "712 found".  It lets me scroll through menus and such, but never finishes initializing the database.  If I reboot and go back to the database it says the same thing with the same results.

So, to try and diagnose this, I reinstalled the bootloader with sansapatcher to make sure its up to date.  I completely deleted .rockbox and my music folder and recopied over a clean .rockbox folder (same version).  I removed the microSD card.  It still tells me the database is not ready, and when I hit select to initialize it it says, "Building database... 284 found (PREV to return)."  And it stays there as long as I sit and wait.  I can return to the menu, but the database is still never updated.

I ran a chkdsk from windows on the partition and there are no errors. 

Thank you for your help!

-Michael

[MarcGuay]

There are a few reasons why this can happen... Searching the forums for "database choke" turns up a lot of stuff...

[ataraxia]

I see that previous issues are related to bad id tags or songs, etc.  However, I deleted all media from the device and it still has the issue.

To further try and correct this problem, I just booted into recovery mode and formatted the device.  I reinstalled the bootloader and unzipped a new copy of rockbox to the device.  Still the database build locks up at "282 found (PREV to return)."  There are only 242 files total on the device at this time.

[PaulPosition]

Unless I'm mistaken, there's one step you haven't listed :

"...unzipped a new copy of rockbox to the device. then [copied the same music files back / copied all new music files / didn't write any music to the disc (?!?)]"

If you take a closer look at those threads, you'll see most people pinpointed the problems as pertaining to badly formed tag/corrupted files by actually testing with half the files, then the other half, (think the old 'mastermind' game) etc. to find which one file was the culprit.

[ataraxia]

I didn't list that step because I hadn't done it, yet it still was locking up as if there was a malformed id3 tag or bad file somewhere (even though there were no files)

Ultimately I did copy back a coupla' folders of .flacs that I knew worked.  Somehow the process of writing files back to the disk and updating the database with legit files fixed it.

I'm still not quite clear as to why formatting the device didn't fix the problem...

Thanks to both of you for your suggestions.

[pixelma]

I see that previous issues are related to bad id tags or songs, etc.  However, I deleted all media from the device and it still has the issue.

To further try and correct this problem, I just booted into recovery mode and formatted the device.  I reinstalled the bootloader and unzipped a new copy of rockbox to the device.  Still the database build locks up at "282 found (PREV to return)."  There are only 242 files total on the device at this time.

I believe the database still has the bug that it doesn't build when there are no music files at all. Just tried on my Ondio without the memory card: building the database in the foreground stops with "667 found..." and according to the stats plugin, there are only 628 files (music: 0) on there. It just stays there at the splash and only stopping works, but of course the database stays uninitialised.

* pixelma will search the tracker for bug reports and add it in case there is none

EDIT: It's now at http://www.rockbox.org/tracker/task/9093 (not filed by me but by someone else after a short discussion in IRC about this again, the main database developer is aware of the problem but doesn't seem to have much time currently).