FiiO X7 MediaMonkey Sync

[Peke]

Hi,
thank for update, this is really great news.

If you do not mind can you please share on a way how you installed MMA on FiiO X7?

[joepet]

Hello,

First let me say that while I am extremely familiar with PCs which I have worked with for many, many years (I am a retired engineer), I am neither a mobile device nor App expert. I have an iPhone 4 that spends 99% of its life in my desk drawer and turned off.

To answer your question, I used the Google Play Store to install the MediaMonkey App 1.3.1.0732 on my X7.* This App is free and it allows you to hard wire and WiFi sync to MediaMonkey on my PC, but you are limited to like 15 days of WiFi sync. After my difficulty with the hard wire sync and my success with the WiFi sync, I installed (again using the Google Play Store) the MediaMonkey Pro App 1.1.0008. This cost about 4 dollars US. This allows me to always sync using WiFi. It has some other features which I don't care about.

Why I have to go to the Google Play Store to get both free and not free MediaMonkey Apps is a big mystery to me. Logically I would think that such software would be distributed by MediaMonkey on the MediaMonkey site. I am sure there is a reason for this but I don't know what it is. The world of PCs and PC software and mobile devices with their "Apps" sure are different, and, as I said, I am not a mobile device expert.

Finally, let me say that I was surprised to find that FiiO X7 was not listed as a compatible device on the MediaMonkey website when last I checked....there is no doubt that it is.

Hope This Helps,

Joe

* Be careful when you do this....there are "MediaMonkey" Apps on that site that are NOT what they seem.....also you have to fight your way thru tons of Apps that have nothing to do with MediaMonkey ....I really don't know why they make this so difficult....my guess is they are trying to make money.

[joepet]

One More Thing,

I manage what gets added or is removed from my FiiO X7 by using ONLY playlists....I do not deal with individual songs in a 'Library" .
I have a playlist folder on MediaMonkey on my PC named "On FiiO". In this folder are all the hundreds of playlists in playlist folders like "Jazz" "Rock" etc that I want on my X7.
When I sync, I sync only that folder named "On FiiO" and all its subfolders. Here is the important part: that selection of what folders to sync and what not to sync is made using the MediaMonkey App on the X7, NOT the Portable Device Sync in Options on the PC which you have to use when you sync using the hard wired method, and which I found very confusing and difficult and ambiguous....and I am an engineer.

Using the MediaMonkey App on the X7 to control the sync in WiFi mode could not be easier or more straightforward.

Joe

[joepet]

I am going to attempt to answer the question I posed 2 posts ago: .....I suppose the reason I have to go to the Google Play Store to get MediaMonkey apps is that they are Android apps and Google owns the Android OS. The only problem I have with that is the comparison with PCs: Microsoft owns Windows OS, but I don't have to go to Microsoft to buy all the programs that run on the Windows OS. Sooo once again the world of PCs makes more sense to me than the world of mobile devices. I am sure there are reasons for why things work like this but I bet one reason is to increase Google's profit margin.

Joe

[Lowlander]

Actually Windows Apps go through the Windows Store as well, but Windows Software doesn't. Also Android Apps don't necessarily have to go through the Google Play store, however this is the method made available for most Apps. You can install manually through APK (if the developer makes it available) or through other App stores (some device manufacturers have their own).

By default most Android devices don't allow APK installs (easy setting change) and the idea is that you can trust the App stores (proven wrong again this week), whereas with APK installs you don't know if the installer is trustworthy.

[joepet]

Re Windows, my point exactly....apps for mobile devices are marketed differently than most software for a PC.

BTW I searched on APKPure for MediaMonkey app...it is there, but MediaMonkey Pro which is required for non-demo WiFi sync is not.

Joe

[joepet]

They say confession is good for the soul...

In a previous post, I happily stated that the installation of the latest MediaMonkey program 4,1.19.1859 on my PC resolved the vexing sync message "Sync is waiting for background operations to complete".

Well, you can put the cork back in the champagne bottle.

While it is true that I had that message problem up to the point that I installed the above upgrade, and that I synced 3 times after the update without getting that message......the ugly problem has reappeared!!

I reinstalled the update hoping that that would resolve the problem...nope! Shutting down and restarting everything did not help either.

Sooo I just synced, got the message and waited.......and waited....it was a lot more than a minute or two....like 20 minutes and then the message disappeared and the sync finally began.....I have 140 gigs of music on my X7 so perhaps that is why my wait was so long.....of course that does not explain why on the 3 previous syncs there was no message/wait at all.

So the bug or whatever it is still exists, but at least there is a way around it....fortunately I don't sync that often....I feel sorry for those that do.

Joe

[Snofru]

This is not unusual if you have a large music collection, I observe the same thing once in a while. I don´t think that MediaMonkey for Android is to blame as Android itself is organizing the music library and sometimes there is some sorting of files or whatever going on in the background for which MMA (and you!) has to wait.
A future version of MMA will organize the library itself so hopefully will avoid these waiting times.
At least this is my non-professional view of the situation, maybe an expert can clarify this.

[Peke]

HI,
I split the topic to make it cleaner. Also to be easier to answer your questions.

1. Waiting for background tasks is things like rescanning libray that on large number of tracks can take some time and is dependent on device speed SDcard Speed, number of tracks
2. Not sure what is so different from MMA settings that is not as easy accessible in MMW Device profile. I use it in the same manner eg. I sync only playlists and each device have own Static playlist that contains single tracks I want to have on it and is not covered by number of Auto playlists that are also synced.
3. USB Sync (OR MTP/Play for sure sync) is known to be buggy as it in many cases not covered by generic USB driver so it makes various problems.

and finally Yes these issues are addressed in MMA 2.0 and should improve overall user experience.

[joepet]

Understood about splitting the topic and thank you.

Yes, FiiO X7 should be listed as one of the devices that sync with MediaMonkey.....not obvious how that gets done.

When my iPod Classic died, I surveyed the available music players and bought the FiiO X7 before I checked to see if it was on the MediaMonkey list of devices. After I had initial problems syncing, I discovered the device list. Not seeing it on the list was discouraging to me since I have been using MediaMonkey on my PC for years and I LOVE it!

Joe

[joepet]

This is in response to 3 points in post by Peke on 11/22/17:

1. Now that I know that the app is engaged in some process that may take quite a while, I am a happy camper. My problem was that I got frustrated thinking that it could be in an endless and useless do-loop in which waiting longer does nothing but waste time and electricity.

2. In MMA, all I do is check the playlists and I want where on my X7 I want everything stored, that is as easy as it gets..but in MMW, Options, Portable Devise Sync I am confronted with a many more of choices....Once I select SD card on the X7 (OK, so far same decision required for MMA) and the Auto -sync>Device lets you pick the playlists you want to sync....also the same as MMA, so, so far MMA and MMW require the same choices. My problem comes with the Options menu which has a massive array of sometimes complex choices. I am sure these all make sense to a more experienced user, but I got discouraged not only from the sheer number of choices but the permutations and combinations of choices. In other words if I don't get every choice exactly right the darn thing might not work. Add to all this that fact that USB sync is buggy (see point 3) and I finally just gave up and tried WiFi sync which worked great the first time!!


3. I wrongly assumed USB sync is better than WiFi sync (that is why I attempted USB sync first), but looks like this is not the case.

Joe

[Peke]

Hi,
re 2. I couldn't agree more, but if we didn't made it that way then MMW would not be MMW and not let user decide what and how to sync with full freedom. I personally like wizard type of new sync settings in MMA, but again MMW approach gives you that fine detail to make things perfectly set. Both MM5 and MMA 2.0 are worked more consistently with each other tweaking the process. http://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=14101

re 3. Unfortunately that is the truth. On the good side it gets less and less non known issues without workarounds. It took "Plug and Play" almost 10 years to work as designed and not to be called anymore "Plug and Pray". It is normal with Generic Type of hardware implementations.

[joepet]

Hi,

Re 2: I agree and appreciate "fine detail" in a design to best adapt to all situations. I would never want MMW to change from the wonderful program it is. You guys have a right to be proud of what you have created....I love it! Makes iTunes look like a child's toy. I just got frustrated with the USB sync method and when I found out how easy the WiFi method was in MMA, I incorrectly blamed the Options choices in MMW. My bad.

BTW when this topic was split my original post on my X7 experience was left on the previous topic.....shouldn't it be moved/copied to the first post on this topic?

Thanks for all this support,

Joe

[Peke]

Hi,
THX for kind words. On previous thread you pointed your experience with Sync and that can sing with FiiO X7 so it is classified as non off topic (by me ) but when we got in more details and off topic it needed to be split.

[joepet]

My FiiO X7 had FiiO firmware 2.0 which uses Android 4.4.4. While everything worked perfectly, including WiFi sync to MMW using only playlists, I recently upgraded to FiiO firmware 3.3.3 which uses Android 5.1. This resulted in a serious problem: While my songs in MP3 and FLAC all played perfectly, short files (MP3) 5 to 30 seconds long (I have thousands of them) would play only once, and after they did all other files would play (bar would show progress) but with no sound. If I restarted the X7, then the problem would repeat itself but only after I played a short file. I even updated to FiiO firmware 3.3.4 (just released days ago) which uses Android 5.1 and the problem still was there.

Soooo I finally downgraded back to FiiO firmware 2.0 which uses Android 4.4.4 and everything works perfectly again!

I have discussed this at length with FiiO and even sent them my sound files which they requested and it appears their final solution is to not answer my emails any more. One problem might be that any testing they do is with their FiiO Music Program and not with MMW and MMA.

Finally, in a previous post I wrote that I use WIFi sync to transfer my extremely long (thousands of files) playlists and songs because I (mistakenly) thought the device sync in MMW (tools, options,portable device sync) was too complicated. I have discovered that the WiFi sync is very greatly facilitated by configuring the playlists I want synced
on MMW as opposed to MMA. By only checking the playlists I want synced in MMA, I have to do it many times before it finally works....I get messages that connection to server failed or timed out or request was refused by the server (MMW). All this frustration is avoided by configuring the playlists I want synced on MMW as opposed to MMA.

Hope This Helps,
Joe