Excruciatingly slow sync to Sansa Clip Zip [#11068]

[rednoise]

I've found quite a few references to this and similar problems on the 'net, but few solutions and none that seem to apply to me. I've got a brand new Sansa Clip Zip 8GB mp3 player. I've got about 50 GB worth of mp3s in my collection. Since it won't all fit on the Sansa, I create a playlist of less than 8 GB of stuff and sync that.

The problem is that it takes forever to complete the sync. For example, yesterday I added about 30 more songs to the playlist and hit the Sync button. MediaMonkey displayed the message "Preparing list of files" for at least 35 minutes - the entire sync took at over an hour to finish. I'm doing another similar sync as I type this. The "Preparing..." operation took 45 minutes, and it's finally starting to copy new files to the Sansa.

This can't be normal, can it? I used my old iPod Nano + iTunes in a similar way, and a similar sync would take less than 5 minutes. Are there settings I can tweak to improve performance?

This is MM Free, ver. 4.0.7.1511, running on Windows 7 SP1 on a HP Mini 110 netbook.

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edit: just another data point - the latest sync that I mentioned above has been cranking away for an hour and a half, and it's still not finished. The actual file copy seems to have completed, and the status says simply, "Synchronizing Sansa Zip Clip."

[Lowlander]

It could be due to conversion, however preparing files shouldn't take that long. You may want to try running File > Maintain Library with complete optimization checked.

[rednoise]

There should be no conversion - I HOPE there is no conversion! I certainly don't want my mp3s to be re-compressed!

Just for the hell of it, I'm doing another sync, even though there were no new files added to the playlist. It's now 45 minutes into it, and it still hasn't finished.

I'll try the optimization. I wonder what it does?

[nohitter151]

During the "Preparing" step is when MM scans the device content. How much capacity does the device have? I suppose if you have many gigabytes of content on the device it would take a long time to finish scanning.

[rednoise]

During the "Preparing" step is when MM scans the device content. How much capacity does the device have? I suppose if you have many gigabytes of content on the device it would take a long time to finish scanning.

The advertised capacity is 8 GB, but it really holds more like 7.5. I've got about 5.5 GB of stuff on it right now.

I hope this can be resolved - the Sansa Clip Zip can be expanded with a micro SD card, so it can potentially hold close to 40 GB of music. I need something to help me manage it, but if MediaMonkey chokes on a mere 5 GB, that's not going to be a viable solution.

[nohitter151]

During the "Preparing" step is when MM scans the device content. How much capacity does the device have? I suppose if you have many gigabytes of content on the device it would take a long time to finish scanning.

The advertised capacity is 8 GB, but it really holds more like 7.5. I've got about 5.5 GB of stuff on it right now.

I hope this can be resolved - the Sansa Clip Zip can be expanded with a micro SD card, so it can potentially hold close to 40 GB of music. I need something to help me manage it, but if MediaMonkey chokes on a mere 5 GB, that's not going to be a viable solution.

That can't be it, I was thinking along the lines of hundreds of gigabytes. It only takes a few seconds for MM to scan the contents of a 16 gigs flash drive for me.

[Lowlander]

Capacity is not an issue, I've synced with a 32gb SD card in device and it wouldn't take this long. Another problem could be drivers for the device.

[res1999]

I have the exact same problem since about 2 or 3 months. I've been syncing my Creative Zen M with 60GB through MM for years, but it's becoming a real bummer lately. I have about 40'000 songs in the DB, and I sync to the Zen via auto-playlists. I have about 5 APLs (like "Best Songs", "News All", etc.) that I have marked in the sync options, and this worked perfectly so far. For the "News All"-playlist, I use the genre which is either "News CD" for new CDs or just "News" for single songs. Here's what happened today:

- I've added a new CD with about 10 new songs
- hit sync. It took about 15 minutes before MM started to copy the songs to my Zen. After that, MM showed "Synchronise with My Zen" for about 2 hours; the Zen itself showed no activity!
- when I disconnected the device, the new songs had been added to the playlist on the Zen, so everything worked.
- I reconnected the device, added 1 (!) new song through MM and started a new sync. Again, about 10 minutes before MM started copying the song, and now it hangs in the "Synchronise..."-cycle again... for over 1 1/2 hours now, still counting!!!

Something I noticed before: I cancelled during the "Synchronise..."-cycle and found that not all playlists have been synchronised, so my guess is that MM is rebuilding the playlists on the Zen from scratch with each sync. As I said before, this problem only started about 2-3 months ago.

I've already completely resetted my device, I've also used the database cleanup in MM, but nothing worked. I'm using MM 4.0.7.1511 on a Win7 computer.

I really love MM, but if this problem can't be solved, I see myself forced to try out another program. It's really annoying!

[Lowlander]

You may want to try File > Maintain Library with complete optimization first. If that fails capture the connection of the device and a complete sync in a debug log (step 4b) and send it to support: http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... ?f=12&t=69

[res1999]

I've already tried optimizing the library before, didn't help. I've now tried to create a debug log (step 4b), but wasn't successful; I guess it's because MM doesn't crash or anything. After all, the sync works, but really really slow. My latest attempt was this:

- changed one file's genre away from "News" so it will be deleted on the Zen
- started sync. It took about 5 minutes to "prepare data", then it showed the above-mentioned file ready for deleting. Clicked on OK.
- took about 2 minutes to "delete old entries", and "copy 0 of 0 files". So far so good.
- then it stuck again on "synchronising my zen" for about 75 minutes. No movement on the Zen at all. It then finished without error, all playlists where there.

Here's what I have marked in MM in the device option (using German version, so translation may not be accurate):

-Auto-Synchronisation: Remove files and playlist not on the Autosync-list / confirm delete

-Auto-Convert: nothing marked here

-Folder: nothing changed here, first entry is \Music\<Album Interpret> - <Album>\<Song#:2> <Titel>. I don't use any of the other stuff like videos or podcasts.

-File Properties: only one mark here, "use only one genre with multi-genres"

-Playlists: Marked are: synchronise Playlists / for Playlists / Artists / Albums, Target folder is \Playlists\, and the UTF8-option. Everything else isn't marked.

Is there anything else I can do? My last resort would be to completely uninstall MM and start from scratch, but I'd like to keep that open as the last option.

[Lowlander]

but wasn't successful; I guess it's because MM doesn't crash or anything. After all, the sync works, but really really slow. My latest attempt was this:

No crash is required. DBGView will capture all your MediaMonkey activity and that log is what the developers will use for analysis. If DBGView isn't logging anything you need to make sure you're running the debug version of MediaMonkey and you may need to start DBGView as administrator.

[res1999]

oh well... I didn't install the debug version of MM. So I'll give it another try!

[res1999]

so... does anyone check the helpdesk entries? It's been almost a week now, and I've heard nothing... really want to get rid of this problem.

[Lowlander]

It's both vacation/flooding season and if you added a debug log its analysis may take a while.

[res1999]

thanks for the message, Lowlander.