Satan has snuck into my Sansa
March 4, 2009 11:57 AM Subscribe
Is my MP3 player dead meat?
My husband and I been downloading MP3 files (mostly radio shows) from a nameless site for 2 months now and everything is great. Then Sunday night a gardening show that I had downloaded that day played back in a very weird, garbled manner (Dave thinks it sounds like the demons of Hell.) A game show that I downloaded on the same day and then uploaded to my player on the same playlist was just fine. The next day it was another file. Last night it was 2 more files, however 3 other files were fine.
The files not only sound strange they freeze my player (a Sansa Clip) and the player will even skip right over the file and play the next file in the playlist. However the files playback ok on both the PC and my husband's MP3 player. As far as I can tell about half the new stuff plays fine on my player and all of the old stuff.
Should I start shopping for a new player?
My husband and I been downloading MP3 files (mostly radio shows) from a nameless site for 2 months now and everything is great. Then Sunday night a gardening show that I had downloaded that day played back in a very weird, garbled manner (Dave thinks it sounds like the demons of Hell.) A game show that I downloaded on the same day and then uploaded to my player on the same playlist was just fine. The next day it was another file. Last night it was 2 more files, however 3 other files were fine.
The files not only sound strange they freeze my player (a Sansa Clip) and the player will even skip right over the file and play the next file in the playlist. However the files playback ok on both the PC and my husband's MP3 player. As far as I can tell about half the new stuff plays fine on my player and all of the old stuff.
Should I start shopping for a new player?
If it's only having issues on certain files, and always at the same point in those files, I'd say the issue isn't your player, so much as the mp3s. That doesn't mean a different mp3 player might not be more forgiving of whatever quirk is in your troublesome files. When I went shopping for an mp3-capable car stereo, I put together a cd full of files that played fine in some players, but not others, and never found a deck that could play 100% of the 'difficult' files.
posted by nomisxid at 12:17 PM on March 4, 2009
posted by nomisxid at 12:17 PM on March 4, 2009
Have you tried flashing the firmware?
posted by torquemaniac at 12:18 PM on March 4, 2009
posted by torquemaniac at 12:18 PM on March 4, 2009
Response by poster: If it's only having issues on certain files, and always at the same point in those files
Actually it is the whole file.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 12:28 PM on March 4, 2009
Actually it is the whole file.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 12:28 PM on March 4, 2009
I've had issues with talk radio show MP3s from a nameless website not playing correctly on certain devices. As an example - on the PC or on my iPhone, the 3 hour show would play just fine. On my iPod Shuffle, the same exact file would suddenly skip to the next track at any point in the show where the commercials were previously removed. It seemed to be an issue with the way one uploader was creating the files, and it was such a specific problem that I just ran the file through MP3DirectCut and made it into a new file (or use the auto split feature to make several XX minute MP3 files of the same show - much easier to skip around on a portable MP3 player rather than holding down fast forward for 10 minutes).
posted by shinynewnick at 12:47 PM on March 4, 2009
posted by shinynewnick at 12:47 PM on March 4, 2009
My Sansa Clip did something like this once and after trying all the usual troubleshooting tricks, I reformatted it. Once I loaded everything back onto it, it worked fine and I haven't had any other problems with it.
May be sort of a last restort tactic, but it's worth a try before you go out and buy another MP3 player.
posted by darksong at 1:31 PM on March 4, 2009
May be sort of a last restort tactic, but it's worth a try before you go out and buy another MP3 player.
posted by darksong at 1:31 PM on March 4, 2009
Response by poster: I downloaded and installed the latest firmware. Reloaded the bad files and nothing had changed.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 1:40 PM on March 4, 2009
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 1:40 PM on March 4, 2009
Response by poster: On my iPod Shuffle, the same exact file would suddenly skip to the next track at any point in the show where the commercials were previously removed.
These are half hour shows from commercial-free radio.
My Sansa Clip did something like this once and after trying all the usual troubleshooting tricks, I reformatted it. Once I loaded everything back onto it, it worked fine and I haven't had any other problems with it.
When I have some more time later today, I'll try that. It is worth the effort.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 1:43 PM on March 4, 2009
These are half hour shows from commercial-free radio.
My Sansa Clip did something like this once and after trying all the usual troubleshooting tricks, I reformatted it. Once I loaded everything back onto it, it worked fine and I haven't had any other problems with it.
When I have some more time later today, I'll try that. It is worth the effort.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 1:43 PM on March 4, 2009
I had the same problem with my ipod 5g as well and it's wasn't the mp3 player but the mp3 itself. Luckily it was from a popular podcast and a lot of people apparently suvrierd the same issue. Apparently it wasn't encoded somewhere correctly (like otheres have pointed out). MP3 is just the wrapper around the file but the encode could varition of one you might fine. the file could be encode using LAME or some proity codec that apple or another company made that the player doesn't like. bit rate could also be an issues. some player don't like VBR (varible bit rate) because it gets confused or surprised by a drastic change in the bit rate. I also had some problems like that with audio dramas, and just used RockBox to play them. Unfoturenly i don't see the clip on the rockbox site.
The best bet is to either 1)re-encode the file that's giving u that problem to a CBR (constant bit rite) and see if that helps 2) get in touch with the people making the audio and tell them the problems your having. you might not be alone and they might be able to correct the issue in future shows.
posted by erifneerg at 4:08 PM on March 4, 2009
The best bet is to either 1)re-encode the file that's giving u that problem to a CBR (constant bit rite) and see if that helps 2) get in touch with the people making the audio and tell them the problems your having. you might not be alone and they might be able to correct the issue in future shows.
posted by erifneerg at 4:08 PM on March 4, 2009
From time to time I get problems like this on my flash storage card. Reformatting makes it better.
I'd reformat the mp3 player and see if that fixes things. Attach Sansa via USB, copy your music off, format the Sansa drive (probably an option in one of the mp3 player menus) and reinstall music.
posted by zippy at 4:38 PM on March 4, 2009
I'd reformat the mp3 player and see if that fixes things. Attach Sansa via USB, copy your music off, format the Sansa drive (probably an option in one of the mp3 player menus) and reinstall music.
posted by zippy at 4:38 PM on March 4, 2009
Response by poster: In the end, I not only reformatted my player I even bought a new player (just as an emergency back-up) but still had trouble with some files. Running them through a free MP3 converter did the job.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 3:24 PM on April 3, 2009
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 3:24 PM on April 3, 2009
This thread is closed to new comments.
Check that you've got the latest firmware. If that doesn't help, try converting the MP3 with the aid of some software. I find that running the MP3 through a converter (such as dBpoweramp), even if i convert the file to an MP3 with the same bitrate, usually makes it playable.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 12:17 PM on March 4, 2009