On the "cloned" unit, many of the songs transferred during the cloning will not play. They come up and the player shows an on-screen message of "invalid file format". Any ideas what went wrong?

My guess would be that when FTPing the files either the transfer was set as text, or the auto mode guessed at text, so it did CR/LF modifications in your song files, and corrupted the data. The easiest way to fix would be to do the clone again, but this time make sure all FTP connections are forced to BINARY transfer.

(Note I said easiest not quickest )

"Note I said easiest not quickest"

Yeah, I noticed.....

Not all files that were transferred are messed-up. Could it still be possible that some files would have gotten corrupted if they were interpreted as text and others were sent ok without being modified to text? Or, would all the transferred files have been corrupted equally?

I'm new to FTP, so could someone tell me how to force a binary transfer and I'll give that a try? Is that just something in the settings?

Could it still be possible that some files would have gotten corrupted if they were interpreted as text and others were sent ok without being modified to text?

Yes, but it's unlikely. The difference between ascii and binary modes are that text mode will translate any CR/LF combinations to LFs only. So if a file had no CR/LFs in it, then it wouldn't have gotten corrupted, but that means that a mulitmegabyte file would have to never have those two characters together, which is unlikely.

could someone tell me how to force a binary transfer

It will depend on your client. It should be reasonably obvious if it's a GUI client. If it's a text client, try typing ``bin'' and see what it says.

Yeah, I noticed.....

Sorry about that, it should be possible for you to examine a file from your original player, and the same file from the cloned player with a hex editor, and try to work out what changes have taken place, write some sort of quick program to fix it, then run that on the cloned Empeg. If you know exactly what you are doing, already have a build env set up then this would be quicker.

Not all files that were transferred are messed-up. Could it still be possible that some files would have gotten corrupted if they were interpreted as text and others were sent ok without being modified to text? Or, would all the transferred files have been corrupted equally?

I think all files are probaly messed up in some way, the differance may be that the ones that won't play have corrupted data in the frame header, while the others just have extra or missing samples depending on where the data occurs.

I'm new to FTP, so could someone tell me how to force a binary transfer and I'll give that a try? Is that just something in the settings?

If you are using a text mode FTP program then typing 'bin' normally works. If it is a GUI tool then there is probably a button with ones and zeros on, or something like that, or an option hiden somewhere in the preferances.

I'm using WS_FTP Pro 6.0, where would the command for Binary be used in this program, in FTP Commands?

My guess would be that when FTPing the files either the transfer was set as text, or the auto mode guessed at text

I was about to go update this FAQ entry to say "make sure to use binary mode", but now I see that it already says that.

Hi,

Looking at the screenshot here as I don't have it installed.

Just below the 2 file lists there is a radio button that can be "ASCII, Binary, Auto", you want to make sure it is on Binary, the same as is shown in that picture.

Underneath the two directory listings, there should be a pair of radio buttons, ASCII and Binary, and a checkbox, Auto. Uncheck Auto and click on Binary. That's it.

Should I assume that the files on my PC are also corrupt since it's a strong possibilty that I did the initial sync from my "Master" Empeg with the setting on auto? Also, if I run another "synchronization" with the right setting (binary), would that correct the corrupt files or would I have to completely copy the drive(s) to my PC again?

Oh, and BTW, sorry for not checking the FAQ on this first

I would assume that the files on your PC are also corrupt, and getting the working files onto the PC from the master is the way to go.

If you are going to run another sync with the master, make sure ALL of your settings are OK (especially Sync direction) as you wouldn't want to copy all of those broken files back onto your working master.

If the problem occurred at all, then it would have occurred the first time, most likely.

Here's how to check.

First, find one of the corrupted files on your empeg and retransfer it to the empeg from the copy on your computer, this time with the correct settings. If it works, then you know that the copies on your computer are correct. If not, then the copies on your computer are not correct, and you'll have to retrieve them from the initial empeg again.

With the CRLF -> LF corruption, you'll be able to spot where it happened because the file size will be different. If the ones on your PC are the same size (check to the last byte, not just KB) as the known good copy, then you're safe.