Songs and playlists with german umlauts

[heze]

Hello all,

I have my Iriver H140 and use Rockbox since September 2005. Everything worked fine so far.

Now I thought, it's time to try an actual build of Rockbox. The first time after about a year.

But with this version, MP3s and playlists with german umlauts like "ä,ö,ü" are no longer played. I tried different fonts. But nothing helps. What can I do? Unfortunately, I removed the old version of September 2005!

[Genre9mp3]

Have you tried to change the Default Codepage? (General Settings > Display > Default Codepage) I think “ISO-8859-1” should work for you but OTOH I'm not sure why your files no longer play. Maybe someone else has a better idea...

[bluebrother]

Playlists have to be encoded in utf-8. Sometime during the summer of 2005 Rockbox got utf-8 support which means that all playlists generated before need to be converted into utf-8 (unless you don't use any extended characters like umlauts).

There is also a task in the tracker describing this. It has been discussed how to handle this better but hasn't been addressed yet. Simply open the playlists with a good text editor and re-save them as utf-8.

[heze]

Thank you for your replys!

Changing the default codepage unfortunately does not help...

I have hundreds of m3u-playlist files, all created with Winamp's playlist editor. Partly before summer 2005 and partly last weeks...

Why worked that fine with a version of September 2005 and no longer with an actual version of Rockbox? Is there a chance, to get such an old version again? Thanks.

[heze]

Just to say, it's not just an issue with the playlists, but also with the mp3 files themselves.

All file names (.mp3 and .m3u) are displayed correctly with the browser. They are opened, but not played...

[bluebrother]

Why worked that fine with a version of September 2005 and no longer with an actual version of Rockbox? Is there a chance, to get such an old version again? Thanks.

As I said before: because Rockbox now uses utf-8 as default. The codepage setting is only used for id3 tags (as id3v1 doesn't have any encoding hints). It has been discussed to use this also for playlists.

You can convert those playlists batch-like on linux using iconv -- should be possible using the vmware devel image also or using cygwin. Don't know of a generic method for windows though.

To get an old version of Rockbox you need to pull the sources from cvs. And, of course, compile it yourself. Most probably it's easier to just convert the files ... (hint: you could try using Knoppix or any other live linux system, fixing should be doable with a single line on the command prompt)

[bluebrother]

All file names (.mp3 and .m3u) are displayed correctly with the browser. They are opened, but not played...

Can you explain this in detail? I'm not sure if I understand you correctly. Does opening the files from the file browser work? Or is it only when playing the files by selecting them from the playlist viewer?

[heze]

Hi, opening single files from the file browser works - and not. They are opened, but the progress bar does not move, the bit rate has got a question mark, and there is no sound. Instead of the tag, the file name is displayed, e. g. "Motörhead - xyz.mp3", where the "ö" is replaced by a blank.

That's definitely not only an issue with playlist files!

[bluebrother]

strange -- does it work when you rename the files to something without umlauts? Am I right assuming opening of files only fails when they have umlauts in the filename? Also, have you tried clearing your settings after the update? (press Rec when the bootloader comes up)
Also, depending on the type of id3 tags of your files the not shown umlauts can result from a wrongly set encoding type or from using a font without umlauts -- try a different font (I use nedora-8 which works fine with umlauts).

[heze]

Yes, strange...

Yes, it only happens with files with umlauts in their name. It worked with older versions of Rockbox! What has changed? Any hint by the Rockbox developers? Is there any "regression" with Rockbox?

Pressing Rec does not help!

Nedora-8 does not help. With the old version of September 2005, almost every font worked fine!

Thank you for your effort so far, bluebrother!

[bluebrother]

Yes, it only happens with files with umlauts in their name. It worked with older versions of Rockbox! What has changed? Any hint by the Rockbox developers? Is there any "regression" with Rockbox?

None that I know of -- I have files with umlauts on my player (h120) and it works fine with the actual cvs version.

Pressing Rec does not help!

But it clears the settings (displays "Cleared" when booting)? You should then have the default settings, i.e. default font, wps etc. Alternatively go to the menu, Manage Settings / Reset Settings.

Nedora-8 does not help. With the old version of September 2005, almost every font worked fine!

Then I assume something else is wrong here. As I said, I don't have any such problems -- my files containing umlauts even show up correctly when using the default font. I also assume the files show up correctly in windows explorer? Maybe there is something weird with the filesystem -- running chkdsk /f may help.

[Rincewind]

I have files with german umlauts (Die Ärzte, etc..) and they play fine with the current version.

Are you shure that you made a fresh install?
with fresh I mean deleting the .rockbox folder, copiing a new one on the device, clearing the settings at boot.

You can clear settings manually by pressing REC just after the bootloader (when the ROCKbox logo is on screen.

[heze]

Thanks to all!

I will try a fresh install again, when I'm at home.

Just an idea: I used the old fonts folder, instead of downloading the newest one. Perhaps this is the reason?

[LinusN]

I don't think it has anything to do with the fonts.

Could you supply us with a file from your collection, so we can try ourselves?

[heze]

Thank you, Linus!

Yes, I can. Please tell me, how to perform that! Can I upload files anywhere in this forum?