Folders and Files mysteriously being removed? (clip+)

[spiderlance]

Just got a clip+ and installed rockbox on it.

Put the USB mode into MSC

Copy and Paste music to my 16gb MicroSDHC under the folder MUSIC

unplug and boot back into RockBox then update the database.

check to make sure my songs are there. they are.

I did this two more times, then when i checked my songs. they are all gone, and some of the folders are gone too.

I plugged it back in and looked the SD card in explorer. the card is about 50% full but there is NOTHING on there, just a few empty folders.

This is frustrating me, someone tell me what I'm doing wrong.

thanks in advance

[saratoga]

Are you in MTP mode?

[spiderlance]

Are you in MTP mode?

read the second line of my post, no I'm in MSC

[gevaerts]

Are you unmounting properly?

[spiderlance]

Nope, I just pull the plug when it's done copying. does this actually make a difference somehow?

[gevaerts]

does this actually make a difference somehow?

Yes. It tends to cause exactly the sort of issues you're seeing.

[spiderlance]

Yes. It tends to cause exactly the sort of issues you're seeing.

alright I'll do it this way and let you know how it goes.

[bluebrother]

Nope, I just pull the plug when it's done copying. does this actually make a difference somehow?

Maybe a bit of explanation here:

The FAT filesystem has some part that are required to get changed frequently (mostly the FAT). Writing such changes to the disk every time will make writes slow, and similar is true for reading. Therefore all major OS cache those parts of the filesystem. Now if you simply unplug the player the OS has no way to write changes done to the cached parts back to the disk since that is gone. Messing up the FAT can cause serious problems. As a result it is really important to unmount a disk (and this does apply to all disks, and is also true -- to some differet degree -- for otherfilesystems). Windows has a "safels remove hardware" icon in the systray for a reason, OS X will also tell you to not do this and the desktop environments on Linux usually have something like that too.

If you already did it wrong the filesystem will contain errors, and you shoupd really check it before doing anything else.

[spiderlance]

Okay, I've reformatted the card about 3 times, I've tried safely removing the device and the files I just copied are not the card (yet taking up space??).
Also another thing I noticed; the first copy I did worked fine, BUT, while rockbox showed all the music I copied, the OF only showed about half the files I copied. and it seems like it randomly picked which files to show. this was after a full format on the card and safely removing the device.

Maybe a bit of explanation here:

The FAT filesystem has some part that are required to get changed frequently (mostly the FAT). Writing such changes to the disk every time will make writes slow, and similar is true for reading. Therefore all major OS cache those parts of the filesystem. Now if you simply unplug the player the OS has no way to write changes done to the cached parts back to the disk since that is gone. Messing up the FAT can cause serious problems. As a result it is really important to unmount a disk (and this does apply to all disks, and is also true -- to some differet degree -- for otherfilesystems). Windows has a "safels remove hardware" icon in the systray for a reason, OS X will also tell you to not do this and the desktop environments on Linux usually have something like that too.

If you already did it wrong the filesystem will contain errors, and you shoupd really check it before doing anything else.

Thanks for clearing that up, would I be able to use NTFS on this card?

[GodEater]

Thanks for clearing that up, would I be able to use NTFS on this card?

1) No you wouldn't - Rockbox doesn't read NTFS.

2) It wouldn't help - you should ALWAYS safely unmount a filesystem before you physically unplug it. Doesn't matter if it's NTFS / FAT / <insert other file system here>

[spiderlance]

Alright, thats okay. well after formatting and using the safely remove device option, the problem still occurs.

the first time I add songs works fine, everything shows up.

the second time, I add the songs wait for the copy, safely remove. and they are not on the card, next time I plug the card back in, they are gone.

I might have to resort to copying all my music at once. which is annoying. it wont let me copy more music, if I want to copy more music I will have to reformat and start again. which is balls. I used rockbox on my iriver H320 many years ago and I remember it being an awesome firmware that I never had any problems with.

Any other ideas?

[Chronon]

Maybe you have a bad card.  Is there any difference in behavior if you load files onto the card with a card reader? 

This doesn't seem to be a problem with Rockbox since you see the same sort of behavior with the original firmware.

[bluebrother]

Alright, thats okay. well after formatting and using the safely remove device option, the problem still occurs.

did you check the filesystem for errors? On Windows use chkdsk /f x: from a cmd.exe window (replace x: with the correct drive letter), on Linux fsck.vfat. If the card has errors safely ejecting it won't magically fix them, and with filesystem errors any weird behaviour can occur.

[Chronon]

I'm pretty sure spiderlance has formatted and has been safely removing/unmounting since then.

[spiderlance]

hey guys, havnt had much time lately, but I ran a chkdsk just now and there wasnt any errors. I also tried copying the files onto the card with a normal card reader and it worked fine, so it would seem it's not a problem with the card. I'd say it's most likely a problem with the official firmware after I've added songs to the card and it does that "Refreshing your media" stuff.

EDIT:

okay I have had a bit of luck, and I don't know why I didnt try this sooner, I was copying my folders into the "MUSIC" folder on the SD card, this time I just copied them to the root folder, I have added songs a few times now and nothing has gone missing yet. "refreshing your media" seems to replace the "MUSIC" with the subfolders "AUDIOBOOKS" and "PODCASTS", so it probably does other things too (like delete your files). not sure if this is a bug but it might be worth investigating.