Just wanted to let everybody know that I still get gaps between tracks, even though I'm going about the whole thing just as it's in the FAQ (or not ?):

- I rip the tracks to wav
- I convert them to mp3 with lame, cbr160 and nogap
- I add tags (using 'MPTagger')

After uploading the songs, the first time I play them they may play back perfectly...next time I play them, I might get a 2second-gap (or even longer !) between track 3 and 4. Next time I don't get a gap there, but between track 6 and 7...

I encode all my new music using cbr160 since about half a year (before that I encoded everything vbr) - but problem persists on the newer tracks.
When the status-symbol in the upper right corner is activated, there will be a W there while I wait for the music...so isn't that a caching problem ?
I have an empeg (2x30gig, full) and a riocar (2x60gig, 90gig used), and they both do this.
They seem to do it more frequently when Hijack is installed.
Any ideas ??

I was just wondering, if 'MPTagger' could cause the problems and uploaded 12 mp3s to the empeg - 4 continuous tracks in 3 versions:

v1: just after lame - no tags at all
command for encoding was:
lame -b 160 --nogap track01.wav track02.wav track03.wav track04.wav

v2: the same mp3s after using MPTagger

v3: same mp3s after using MP3 Tag Studio instead of MPTagger

But I realized it wasn't worth to create v2+v3, because it already happened with v1 - those files that just came out of lame, with no tags in them at all. I had gaps between tracks of all 3 versions.

And it's absolutely not 'hardly noticable' pauses - they were about 1 second long when I just tested it.

It seems there's 2 types of pauses I get: 1sec without a W, and 2-5sec WITH the W (didn't see the W today, but it happens...!).

1sec without a W, and 2-5sec WITH the W

In-car or at home? What software version? Any third-party stuff (Hijack etc)? Is serial_notify on?

Peter

I'm currently using the 60gig-empeg at work.
Software installed is 2.00beta13 with Hijack v300.
Where do I check for serial_notify ?

Where do I check for serial_notify ?

In config.ini, but if you haven't heard of it then it isn't likely to be set on your player.

Peter

Yes, I just found it in the FAQ and checked my config.ini - no

[output]
notify=1

in there.

Actually, if you're running Hijack, I think he has notify on by default, but then suppresses its output on the serial port and internalizes it.

Look at this entry and see if setting the flags there gets rid of your problem. The serial notify stuff is mentioned there.

If not, I'd suspect that there's something unusual going wrong. Because I never get 2-second gaps between any tracks. Things I would worry about:

- Bugs in Hijack causing the player software caching algorithm to hiccup.
- Bugs in the player software caching algorithm.
- Disk drive trouble.
- Too big of a music database competing for cache in memory (how many tunes are on your player)?

There are 8563 tracks on this empeg right now (there are more tracks on the riocar).
I doubt it's a harddisc-problem, because it's happening on the riocar too, and I don't have any trouble with these players, except for the pauses.

I'll take a look at these flags you were talking about...

Okay, I added all those flags, but there was no change.

After adding them and retesting, I thought it might be a good idea to do a serial-log - so I disconnected the empeg from the network, connected it to a PCs serial-port and played the same two tracks about ten times, but there just wouldn't be a pause...
So I thought, maybe this just happens when the network is connected...!? At least I cannot recall having these pauses in the car...
I attached the network cable while the player was playing, and in the next few minutes, I had four lines popping through the cable:

Vcb: 1362393
Vcb: 1
Vcb: 1362393
Vcb: 1

I saw no such lines before I connected the network-cable - is this of any value ??
But still: I didn't get the pauses again, so I restarted the empeg completely, to be sure it's logged in to the network (dhcp...) correctly.
Still no pauses (but I didn't try THAT often)...
I started emplode - and on the next track-change, there was the pause again.
No further Vcb-lines, though...

Does the empeg 'know' when emplode is on ?

one more update:
just had a pause with no network attached...
so maybe the network-connection is a factor - but if so, it's not the only one.