Hi all,

My saga is nearing completion as I now have all of the mp3 files transferred from my 40 to my 60. All went well and now I am trying to bring up emplode with my new 60. There is no playlist, only the files. Nothing at all in the Playlist folder.

I haven't synced yet, as I don't want this config to remain the norm. I want my playlist back!

Since both should be identical, can I just copy my playlist file from my 40 and put it on my 60?

- Jon

Anyone know if I can do this? Can I copy the database and/or the playlists file from my old to my new empeg safely? The units SHOULD be identical, with the exception of the hard drive sizes...

- Jon

Yes, you can I did just such a transfer recently using Roger's (a Empeg employee) Lazy Bastards Guide from his website.

It worked a treat, and bought all, songs,playlist everything across within about 6-8 hours (i.e. overnight).

You have to remember to transfer all files in the /driveX/fids directory and then remove all the files in the directory where config.ini lives - except config.ini! itself.

then reboot and resync with Emplode - voila, everything cloned.
[except EQ settings, play counts etc].

Have search i nthe General forum for "Lazy Bastards guide" to find my original post a week or so ago on the subject which includes a link to Rogers page.

I did exactly what you describe, but there ended up being no playlist created.

I just tried to copy the playlist and database from my old empeg to my new one, and it seems to be working, but it told me that many of the files were incorrect. Emplode is now going through and making some kind of modification to the files? on the empeg...

It is displaying all of the encoding stuff like fs128 and vs128 and stuff... We'll see how it looks when it's done...

- Thanx
- Jon

you could always try Symantec's ghost.. theoritically this should work fine since Ghost gets the entire filesystem and will resize linux partitions.

Using Ghost is not recommended.

Argh. I've run into problems again. Emplode has renamed all of my files to their encoded method. So now my whole 60 gig empeg has songs named "fs112" and "fm192" and stuff.

What a colossal waste of time. 4 days now trying to get my 40 gig files onto my 60 gig files and still don't have it done.

Grrrrrrr.....

- Jon

Ok, so I'm wiping the 60 out again and starting again...

So what if I do this... Can I just copy and paste the fids directories for each drive from the ftp session of one empeg into the fids directory of the other using Windows copy and paste and Hijack FTP sessions?

Secondly, how does the empeg build the playlist? How does it know how to assemble it in the correct structure that you had on the old player?

- Jon

Hm. Guess I have everyone stumped? Ok, maybe this is my problem...?

When I switch to /empeg/var and delete the playlist, database, and tags, the directory shows /drive0/var even though I switched to /empeg/var. Do I need to delete the tags on /drive1/var as well?

I'm going to start another transfer using the Lazy Bastard method and in a few days try recreating my playlist again.

Any help would be greatly apprecaited!

- Jon

/empeg/var/ is actually a symbolic link to /drive0/var
so its quite normal that you 'ended up there' even though you went cd /empeg/var

When you mentioned about copying all the files using the LB (Lazy Bastard) method did you rename any of the files in the fids directories on your source empeg?
If so, then the playlists etc wouldn't work anymore as the files in the /driveX/fids are all named in a particular way and the files should not be renamed.

You also must ensure that both the *0 and *1 files are moved together as the *0 file holds the mp3 files (and playlist) (i.e. what you play), but the *1 file holds the tag information which the database rebuilt from.

I assume you have empetied out the /driveX/fids directories on your destination empeg of all files now right?

Thanks for the note. I am copying all of the files in the fids directories. All *0 and *1 are being copied. I didn't change or rename any of those files either.

Question: Do I want my empeg to be in rw or rwm mode when I start this process? I don't know the difference...

Yes, both /drivex/fids subdirectories are totally empty when I begin.

- Thanx
- Jon

You want the destination empeg to be in 'rwm' mode. The source empeg doesn't matter.

I've updated the instructions on my web page to make this clearer (I hope).

Did you delete the files from /empeg/var on the destination empeg? Don't forget to 'rwm' before you try this.

If you follow the instructions on my webpage to the letter, you'd have done this earlier in the process, but it doesn't hurt to enter the command again.

The difference is that 'rwm' mounts the music partitions read-write. 'rw' only mounts the root partition read-write. Analogously, 'rom' and 'ro' mount the music and root partitions respectively read-only.

Thank you Roger! I think that perhaps the reason that my first try at this didn't work is that I may have had it in rw mode instead of rwm mode...

I'm about to start this whole thing again. I've wiped my 60 completely (with the test builder image to be sure), reinstalled 2.0b7, and am starting drive0 with the following commands on the destination:

empeg:/empeg/bin# cd /
empeg:/# cd drive0
empeg:/drive0# rwm
empeg:/drive0# nc -l -p 2999 | tar xvf -

I then run the following on my source:

empeg:/drive0# tar cvf - fids foo | nc 10.251.6.25 2999
fids/
fids/6f1
fids/33d0
fids/bea1
fids/64c1
fids/33d1

You can see that the process begins properly...

When it's done, I'll do the same for drive1.

Then I delete the tags, database, and playlist files in /empeg/var, then reboot.

Exactly as you describe...

Wish me luck!

- Thanx
- Jon

Should I be doing this with 1.03 instead of 2.0b7???

- Jon

Secondly, how does the empeg build the playlist? How does it know how to assemble it in the correct structure that you had on the old player?

The playlists keep their child FIDs listed in their *0 file. There's some more information about this here.

Short and simple solution:

Just clone all of the *1 files along with the *0 files from /drive?/fids/* from one player to the other. Then DELETE /drive?/var/database, /drive?/var/playlists, and reboot.

The player will reconstruct a database from the *1 and *0 files.

-ml

I'm not sure I'm getting what your problem is. I transferred everything but radio station presents and eq settings from my old empeg (42Gb) to my new empeg (60Gb) by just:
1 - ftping ALL
from drv0 to g:\empeg-temporary-backup\drv0
and
from drv1 to g:\empeg-temporary-backup\drv1
(being G: one hdd in my PC)
2 - ftping ALL from
g:\empeg-temporary-backup\drv0 to drv0 on empeg
and
g:\empeg-temporary-backup\drv1 to drv1 on my empeg.

Used WindowsXP and SmartFTP.

That's all. Worked perfectly.

Hope this helps.

I did it in a similar way, but the playlist didn't get built properly when I finished...

I'm in the middle of doing it again. I'll post the results later today.

- Jon

Ok. Just to be more precise, here are few more details of what I did (as a non-linux expert) in case you may need them.

I was rinning 2.0b7. And besides what i told you in my previous post, I also did this:

I issued a "site rw" command on the destination (new, 60gb) player before the entire transfer from my hdd to the destination empeg started (obvious, I know ). This is done via ftp ("site rw" is as you know a command mlord put in the ftp server in hijack); Also, I issued a "site ro" command after the transfer completed, few hours later. No reboot of the new empeg yet. Then i tried to check if the playlists where still empty, and they were obviously. I had to unplug the empeg and restrart it. When it restarted everything was there correctly, without any need to resync. However, I started emplode, browsed the tree structure, uploaded and downloaded few files, renamed and moved here and there to make sure everything was "real" and working fine (and it was) and resynchronized few times just to "stress test" the new empeg, and, most important, to convince myself that everything was there before giving my old empeg to a friend of mine. When my subconscious was really really sure I was not forgetting anything, I called my friend and together we cleaned the old empeg, formatted, reinstalled latest version of empeg sw and hijack, uploaded his tracks etc. Obviously I forgot the raw partition and I lost play counts, eq settings, radio presets, etc, but don't tell my subconscious.

That's really it.

Oh my god! Did you guys just hear that?

The angels just sang and the gods just clapped their hands!!!

The files on my 40 have been successfully moved to my 60 and the playlist was rebuilt properly! Just as v11 comes out!

Thank the freakin lord!!!!!

Thank you all for the help!

I can die in peace now.

- Jon