It's 3am and my empeg has got me mad....time to go to bed and let you have a think about it.

I'm synch'ing over Ethernet and my dear 18 month old son decided to unplug the CAT5 cable whilst the empeg
was in the middle of the synch. Loads of errors on emplode about TCP/IP-related problems - surprise surprise!

The result is that the 4 folders I was uploading at the time appeared incomplete and the playlist icon has a horrible little red arrow pointing to the right....which I have discovered means trouble.

I tried to remove it all and then sync. again but the results were the same. Indeed, I could drag and drop one
of the missing tracks onto emplode, sync. and it would disappear.

So, I installed the V1.0 developer image and got command line access and had a rummage around. First I moved the database, playlists and tags files out of /drive0/var and let player recreate the database - no joy. The new database was exactly the same size as the old, the playlists file was identical and the tags file contained all the same tags just in a different order..

Then I grep'ed all the ???1 files in /drive0/fids directory to find all the files relating to the affected folders and moved them to another directory. I then recreated the database again and ran emplode to upload the same folders again. To my complete surprise exactly the same problem has recurred even though the sync. completed OK.

I now have all 80+ tunes uploaded and can see them all in the /drive0/fids directory, but the playlists only show 35 of them and still have the red arrows on their icons. Going through the playlists using the front panel controls on the empeg itself only show the 35 tunes.

Any ideas what is messed up here that's causing this phenomenon? I would welcome any clues / suggestions whatsoever.

Thanks, Roderick

Your problem may not be related to the plug-pulling at all.

Version 1.0 of Emplode/Empeg has a bug with V2 tags that contain long comment fields. Do your MP3 files fit that description?

If so, try deleting the 35 visible files, stripping the V2 tags off the files, and re-uploading them. What'll happen is that the Empeg will simply re-use those orphaned FIDs as you upload the new tunes and all will be well.

1.01 (coming soon) will fix this known bug with the V2 tag length.

Let us know if this fixes your problem.

___________
Tony Fabris

Thank you Tony - it pointed me in the right direction.

The problem was not long comment fields but was long tune names. Specifically it is the Ministry of Sound compilation CDs which combine artist, tune name and mix name to create a very long tune name.

Judicious pruning of the names (which could not display on the front panel of the empeg anyway) resolved the problem.

I then went on a hunting spree and found another instance of the problem on another compilation CD which I had previously not noticed.

Thanks for your help on this - I really was barking up the wrong tree, however I do have the developer image now and can start to do some interesting things. I'd be keen to get it to play an MP3 of my name, address and phone number and perhaps an offer of a reward when it boots to make it 'too hot to handle' if stolen. I'd better go and see if it has been done before :-)

Thanks again

Roderick

The problem was not long comment fields but was long tune names.

Interesting. I thought it was only long comment fields. Good to know. (Guys@empeg... that's taken care of in 1.01 as well, right?)

I'd be keen to get it to play an MP3 of my name, address and phone number and perhaps an offer of a reward when it boots to make it 'too hot to handle' if stolen. I'd better go and see if it has been done before.

I think some others have been playing with bootup sounds, yes. But another, simpler option is to make a startup logo with your name, phone number, and reward offer. You don't need the developer kernel or any programming skill to do that. Instructions are in the FAQ section of this BBS.

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Tony Fabris