Rockbox Technical Forums
Support and General Use => Audio Playback, Database and Playlists => Topic started by: Jackieflash on September 20, 2014, 09:41:03 AM
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I have Rockbox 3.13 installed. I put it on b/c the Sansa firmware was causing freezes, where a small bit of music would play repeatedly, almost as if it were a skipping record, and the only way to fix that was to reboot. Sometimes even a reboot didn't stop it. So once I put Rockbox on, that glitch was fixed almost 100%. Every once in a long while, it almost happened but the device was more easily rebooted and I would just erase the dynamic playlist and load the album again.
Then the device started to randomly lock up on me. It happened especially if I tried to go backward and replay a song, but eventually started to happen even in the middle of a song playback. When it freezes, there is no response to any of the buttons and I have to hold the power button down for 15-20 seconds to reboot. Sometimes, it doesn't respond to the reboot. Several times, I thought I had completely bricked the device, although I couldn't figure out exactly what I had done to cause that. But after some indeterminate amount of time, I can bring it back via the power button. I suspect that even when it is frozen like this, it is not wholly shut down, because when/if I do bring it back, the battery is depleted and I have to recharge it via USB. Perhaps the battery is draining down suddenly? I really can't figure this out.
It will recharge on USB, but the computer does not "see" it so I cannot get to the files. I did use the trick of leaving it off and pushing "select" as I mounted it, and that worked ONCE, but hasn't worked since. It almost seems as if the device and Windows are purposely thwarting my attempts to get the device to actually work properly. Are there any other approaches to get access to the firmware so I can try to upload a daily build?
Another thing I have noticed is that when I try to create a playlist, all I see on the screen is a mess of scrambled letters (screwed-up code?). I guess that would explain why my playlist file is always empty....Is that file corrupted and could that be causing the freeze-ups? Should I uninstall and reinstall 3.13, or just put a daily build on top of it? When I finish listening to an album or several cuts, and switch albums, I get the prompt "Erase dynamic playlist?" and I have to select yes in order to go on. If I don't select yes, I can't proceed to the next album, but that means I never actually create a playlist so that file is always empty.
I have been contemplating just uninstalling Rockbox and taking this thing back to BestBuy, since it was defective with the Sansa firmware, but they will not want to give me a refund since I've had it for 9 mos. (although it malfunctioned after about 6 mos.). Could you point me to the process to do that and get back to the Sansa firmware? My preference is to fix the problems and keep the device, since I really like Rockbox and also the insignificant size of the device, but this continual frustration when the device just shuts down or freezes is maddening!
I realize that's a lot of information but I wanted to be sure I gave you an adequate description of the problems I am having. My main questions are how to stop the device from hanging in the middle of a song; what is going on with the playlist file; and should I upload the dev build files on a regular basis or reinstall 3.13 entirely? Thank you very much for your time.
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Theres uninstall directions in the manual, but basically, you copy a sandisk firmware update to the device and then reboot into the Sandisk firmware and let it install.
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I have an update: The Clip Zip froze on me again this afternoon. It just quit in the first 30 seconds of a song. I could not turn it back on again, even if I hooked it up to the computer via USB. So I went away and just left it alone. I turned it back on a few minutes ago and it booted, but then turned itself back off b/c the battery was dead (when it goes off, it must keep draining the battery somehow although I hold power down for 15 secs or more.
I could view the files on the computer, so I got ready to replace the main rockbox file with the newest build. I copied the current file onto my desktop for safekeeping, then started copying the newer dev. file into the rockbox folder. But after a few minutes, I started getting error messages on the file copying so I just canceled that operation. Now I can no longer see the files on the computer, and when I tried rebooting, I got the "PANIC" message on a white screen.
What do I do now?
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It very much sounds like your filesystem is corrupt, or, there is an actual hardware error here.
The fact that the same issue(s) present in both the original firmware and Rockbox appears to confirm this.
Attempt to boot into the original firmware and perform a disk check, the procedure for which will vary wildly depending on your operating system. As Google about it, it is somewhat outside the scope of support here.
[Saint]
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Thank you very much for your reply. Once I gave the Clip enough time, it came back again. I have charged it and I think I can get back into the files through the computer. I tried everything I knew to do with the original firmware before ever installing Rockbox, all the updates I could get (although Sansa does not tell you anything about what it's doing when/if it updates).
So you think it is an actual hardware problem? I guess I might have to agree, although Rockbox did help tremendously, now it's freezing and stopping completely. I called Best Buy and asked them if I could take it back to the store since it was defective, but they were not very positive about it since I did not buy a protection plan. I tried to call Sansa for a return authorization but was disconnected. For $40, I suppose few people would fuss about with it, but I have tons of music loaded and I hate to have to start all over again. I like the size and light weight of the Clip, but if I buy another one, I will be ready to return it if something starts going wrong.
How do I boot back into the Sansa firmware? I have also done a file check through windows, when I could see the device and that prompt came up. Should I tell Windows to repair any problems? Is it safe? Can I try to uninstall and reinstall Rockbox, since it worked fairly well at first?