Tracks Stopping on iPod Classic 6th Gen

[hubbanaut]

Hey! I got Rockbox set up on my 6th gen iPod classic last night and everything was smooth sailing. I added some files while Rockbox was booted the next morning, and since then, I've encountered an error where the first 10ish seconds of a song will play, then I'll get kicked from the while playing screen back to the database.

I've read that files can get corrupted when Rockbox is booted, so I tried swapping back to the default OS, clearing out the old files, then re-transferring the files, I still ran into the same issue. Eventually, I completely restored the iPod, reinstalled Rockbox, and everything worked like a dream for another full day before I encountered the same issue again. I'm not getting any error messages, but I've also noticed that the battery drains much faster now than it did before I installed Rockbox.

For additional context, it's the 80gb model, stock hard drive with great SMART numbers, and a fresh battery as of a few weeks ago. I've currently got about 40gb of music loaded up, mostly ALACs and FLACs. Happy to provide more info if it's handy!

[speachy]

Hey! I got Rockbox set up on my 6th gen iPod classic last night and everything was smooth sailing. I added some files while Rockbox was booted the next morning, and since then, I've encountered an error where the first 10ish seconds of a song will play, then I'll get kicked from the while playing screen back to the database.

Do the same specific track(s) misbehave?  This is a very critical question.

I've read that files can get corrupted when Rockbox is booted, so I tried [ a whole lot of utterly unnecessary stuff ]
For additional context, it's the 80gb model, stock hard drive with great SMART numbers,

That was only true of pre-6th gen devices modded with an SD card adapter.

but I've also noticed that the battery drains much faster now than it did before I installed Rockbox.

Is everything the same?  ie playing back the _exact same_ files, screen turned off, no EQ or any sort of fancypants DSP settings, etc?  (I suspect not)

I've currently got about 40gb of music loaded up, mostly ALACs and FLACs. Happy to provide more info if it's handy!

Aaaand here we get to the crux of the issue.  I'm willing to bet the files you're having problems with are FLACs that are encoded at a super high bitrate+resolution+channel count.  Decoding all of that data and then downmixing it to the 16bit@48KHz stereo output that the iPod can handle takes a _lot_ of CPU oomph.

(I don't know enough about ALAC to comment on its relative CPU efficiency vs FLAC, but I'd expect it to be in the same general ballpark, with the provisio that the original stock firmware can't play back high-res ALACs, nor can it play back FLACs at all...)

Going back to battery life, the ipod was designed around the assumption that the hard drive would only need to power up every ~30 minutes.  But going from 128Kbps MP3s (or AACs) to even "low-end" 700Kbps FLACs (ie stereo 16bit@44KHz. Higher res+channels will be MUCH worse) means you're now waking up about once every 5 minutes as you're now churning through ~6x the amount of data for the same playback time.

[hubbanaut]

Interesting, this is helpful, thanks! It's not specific tracks misbehaving -- every track I've tested will play for roughly ten seconds before booting me back to the database screen. Good to know that the issue I've been dancing around is iFlash specific, and you're right, no funky settings.

When I'm finding tracks to load up, I'm pretty careful about grabbing files that are 16/44.1, whether they're ALAC or FLAC. I guess there's a chance a couple higher bitrate tracks slipped through on accident, but do you think this would cause problems for my database as a whole, or just mess with playback on those specific songs?

As for battery life, too, the degree to which it has dropped off is what's making me wonder if something else is the case. Loaded up with lossless ALAC files on the stock OS, I was getting 20 something hours of playback; on Rockbox with a roughly 70/30 split of FLACs and those same ALACs, it's dying in just a few hours, even when not actively in use. Could just be the high res files, but it would be wild to me if the stock OS is _that_ much better at handling them!

Thanks again for the help, let me know what you think.