New to Rockbox and just a tad overwhelmed.

[sosilver]

Win 7 64 bit OS,   MP3 player Sanza E280 V1 with final FW update.  Installed Rockbox 3.7 with the RB utility under the installation tab.

Before I ask my questions just a big thank you to the people at Rockbox, ( who ever you are ), for making it so damn simple to install.

I'm very much what you might refer to as a silver surfer, so anything that is easy is much appreciated.

My only criticism to date is the manual instructions are so very convoluted, I have read them over and over, still can't make sense of all it has to say which is why I'm here.

To be fair I was told Rockbox wasn't for my generation, to customisable which in simple terms means a lot of fun for young people and a steep learning curve/confusion for others.

My only reason for installing Rockbox was so I might take advantage of using a larger micro sdhc card in my Sansa player which is near to bursting with MP3s

I have enjoyed the simplicity of the original Sansa software and was delighted to find Rockbox allowed duel booting, having said that, I have been playing with Rockbox, it does have some very nice touches which are a delight.

To my questions, briefly, in Win 7 desktop under my computer I have my music folder, contained within are sub folders named 30s,40s, 50, 60s each of which contain hundreds of MP3 music files of their respective period.

I installed Rockbox on to my Sansa, no problems, my MP3 files are there and playable.

Unlike the original Sansa software where I could set it to play all randomly my understanding is I have to create a large play list in RB if I wish the same but I can't.

Under playlist/create playlist/,   it counts to 20 then a small window appears stating "Error Assessing Directory".   What am I doing wrong?

Is a possible reason that I have to clean up my MP3 files of garbage?, meta data, ( I think it's called ), if so, I have just learned how to use Win 7 own MP3 tag editor.

Is all this excess information the cause of me being unable to create a play list under RB.

Is it posible to set RB to play all randomly or must I create a playlist first?

I got loads more questions but this first post is longer then I intended.

Any advise would be appreciated but keep it simple and clear.

[torne]

It sounds like your player's filesystem might be corrupted; try checking it for errors. (in Explorer, right click on the drive icon, select Properties, go to the Tools tab, press Check Now, and tick "Automatically fix filesystem errors" before pressing Start).

[sosilver]

Thank you Torne.

I've not had to do that before and it worked just fine. 

Next question or two if I might.

Under playlist in RB I selected create playlist, 1,951 tracks were inserted which sounds about right.

When I select current play list I can only see 88 tracks, how do I get the other 1,860 odd tracks to show in the current play list or am I not understanding how play list/s work?

My aim is turn on the Sansa and listen to all my MP3 files  randomly, I assume I do this  by making sure the player is in shuffle mode and select resume playback or do I achieve random playback from within playlist for all of them?

[audio-i]

It seems that under "current playlist" you have the initially added tracks (until the error occurred) or a playlist created with a limited amount of tracks. Now that you created the new playlist containing all the tracks, you'd have to select it and play it, it should be "root.M3U8" placed in your device's root, as explained in this section of your manual: http://download.rockbox.org/daily/manual/rockbox-sansae200/rockbox-buildch4.html#x7-650004.4

[sosilver]

Win 7 64 bit OS,   MP3 player Sanza E280 V1 with final FW update.  Installed Rockbox 3.7 with the RB utility under the installation tab.
Thank you audio -i, your explanation made a lot of sense,  unfortunately, to me,  your link/ the manual doesn't which is why I am here on this forum asking the questions I am.

To achieve my aim/requirements as stated in my last post, this is what I did, (I am however wondering if there is a faster way? ).

Select files/scroll, highlight and select folder or MP3 file, ( long hold ), sub-menu will appear/highlight and select "Playlist "/ then select "insert".

Doing it that way works just fine but I have 117 music folders, it's going to take forever to create one long play list to achieve what I want which is to play all my MP3s randomly/ on shuffle.

I was wondering if there was, under Win 7, an easier way of creating a play list which could then be transfered to RB/the Sansa player?

Advise would be appreciated but keep it simple and clear, I'm still getting to grips with Win 7.
 
 

[audio-i]

Under playlist in RB I selected create playlist, 1,951 tracks were inserted which sounds about right.

I thought you created the playlist using this option, which, rather than "inserting", saves a new playlist with all your tracks in the root of your device named root.m3u8 (which you would then find using the browser selecting "files" in the main menu)

[sosilver]

If there is one thing I'm learning,  is to try to remember and use the same terminology as used on these forums otherwise thing get further confused. A better word to have used would have been "installed" but when you create a playlist a little window appears and states/uses the word "inserted " X number of  tracks, it wasn't my term.

As explained in my last post, I now know how to create a large playlist using RB via the player.

The problem is it's going to take a long time to create a large playlist with all the music folders/MP3 tracks I have installed.

By mounting my player under Win 7 I was wondering if there was a way I could make a long playlist and transfer it to the player?

I've been busy trying to work it out for myself, I have been chopping and changing through the manual and the forums.

The above question has been asked by and solved by others, (I think ) but the solution/s is/are beyond my understanding as things stand at the moment, but if explained simply, I will try to follow.

Next question, from with in the player,  when I choose main menu/files/scroll-highlight root.m3u8 and select, a track plays, if I right click another track plays and so on, is that how it should be? it's not a list as such.

Also, main menu/files/scroll down, the last six files are, battery_bench.txt, dynamic.m3u, dynamic.m3u8, root.m3u8, version.sdk, version.TXT.

Apart from the root.m3u8 file can any of the above be deleted or should I leave alone?

Next, when I mount and open my player under Win 7, I can see all my music folders/ MP3 files, what I can't see is a file, root.m3u8, should I?

There is a single VLC file called "root", if I click on this a single track will play, if I click on it again another track will play.

Does all the above appear as it should be?

[audio-i]

Next question, from with in the player,  when I choose main menu/files/scroll-highlight root.m3u8 and select, a track plays, if I right click another track plays and so on, is that how it should be? it's not a list as such.

It is; perhaps what you need is to view the playlist; after selecting the already mentioned root.m3u8 playlist, go to menu>playlists>view current playlist. All the tracks on your device should be there

[Progweed]

sosilver: You don't need to create a playlist as there is a much simpler method to play all tracks on the device randomly. First press and hold Down to access the quick menu. To the left there is an item saying "Shuffle No". Press Left to change that to "Shuffle Yes". Press Select to exit the quick menu.
Now open the database (it will be initialized on first use, which can take few seconds) and select "Track" in the database menu. You will see a list of all tracks on your player in alphabetical order. Select one and the device starts playing the entire list in random order, as you turned on shuffling before.

[sosilver]

Thank you audio-i,  I can see the playlist as per your advise

Regarding my last post and those six files, which can I remove safely if any? they don't seem to be causing a problem, I am wondering why most are in the location they are?

When reading through the manual I noted there were warnings that enabling USB HID or that might have been disabling it, ( settings/general setting/system/usb-hid ), may  cause problems with certain PC OS's.

My OS is Win 7 64 bit, should I have this setting enabled or disabled, I don't exactly understand what it does?

[Chronon]

USB-HID driver just allows your player to act as an input device (as well as a storage device) while connected to your PC.  As far as I have seen, certain versions of OSX seem to have a problem with this.  I'm not aware of issues with Windows 7.

Regarding the files that you listed, all of the files ending in .m3u or .m3u8 are playlists and can be removed if you wish.  The battery_bench.txt is a file that's created by the battery benchmarking plugin in Rockbox.  If you know what conditions were present when it was made you might consider uploading the results to the wiki.  Otherwise you can safely delete this.  The other ones are files that are used by the original firmware.  I don't know if they can safely be deleted or not.

[sosilver]

sosilver: You don't need to create a playlist as there is a much simpler method to play all tracks on the device randomly. First press and hold Down to access the quick menu. To the left there is an item saying "Shuffle No". Press Left to change that to "Shuffle Yes". Press Select to exit the quick menu.
Now open the database (it will be initialized on first use, which can take few seconds) and select "Track" in the database menu. You will see a list of all tracks on your player in alphabetical order. Select one and the device starts playing the entire list in random order, as you turned on shuffling before.

Thank you Progweed for that, your tip works just fine for me,  , one question, where or how do I access the quick menu, do I have to be in main menu to do this and simply hold down the central button on the E280?

[Chronon]

Regarding the Quick Screen:
http://download.rockbox.org/daily/manual/rockbox-sansae200/rockbox-buildch5.html#x8-1040005.13

[sosilver]

Regarding the Quick Screen:
http://download.rockbox.org/daily/manual/rockbox-sansae200/rockbox-buildch5.html#x8-1040005.13

Thank you Chronon, I will read and get to grips with that link.

My next question and I think it either me or a forum glitch.

I have asked an administrator via a PM but they are busy people so not received an answer as yet and I am worried I might appear rude for not replying responsively.

I tried earlier to send you and Progweed a thank you post via this page for the advise/help, I selected the quote tab or if it appeared the reply tab but I kept getting a message informing me I could not double post, to go back and edit my post, but I hadn't written one, I was trying to.

It happened with your last post, I was attempting to reply to it, selecting the quote or reply tab but it kept informing me I couldn't double, am I not understanding something?

Yet I can reply/post to this one. 

[Progweed]

Thank you Progweed for that, your tip works just fine for me,  , one question, where or how do I access the quick menu, do I have to be in main menu to do this and simply hold down the central button on the E280?

Glad it worked for you.
Well, the quick menu works everywhere, that's what makes it so useful. You have to press & hold Down (a.k.a. "Long Submenu" in Rockbox terms) to access it and you leave it by pressing the central button (a.k.a. "Select").