Could someone tell me what the song/file limit is on our players? I've been having some issues with my player and I can't figure out if it's got too many songs or not enough hard drive space left. I know there is a limit to how many songs can be on it, but is there also a minimum you should maintain of hard drive free space? I've only got about 200mb free space left on my player with a total of 20196 songs.

What kind of issues?

Edit: current count 34060 decimal

Stops playing like it's paused, but it's not. Nothing will make it play except a reboot. On screen it looks normal. You can skip to the next song/previous song, fast forward, rewind, etc... It just acts like it's paused. Also, cuts out to silence briefly while playing on a regular basis.

Hmmm... No, that is a bit strange. I would suspect a disk error or memory error at that point. Does it only happen in the car, or will it also happen on AC power. If it does happen on AC power, try to capture any error messages with hyperterm.

The only issues I have seen with lots of files are that the temporary storage partition and playlists are a bit strange / can get too big.

What version of the player, software, etc.? Can you also turn on the disk access icon, so you can see if the disk is spun down or if the audio thread is waiting for data?

Funny, now that I'm thinking about it, the pausing problem has ONLY happened when on AC power? However the cutting out thing has only happend in the car. All my players have version 2.0 with Hijack v3.89, and I don't run any 3rd party apps.

Hmmm...

Well, try the hyperterm capture on the pausing. I am wondering if you are using a docking station or connecting to a serial port. Perhaps your player thinks it is seeing commands... Do you actually see the pause icon, or just the music stops? Does the song counter advance, or move to the next song if left for a while?

As for car glitches, when you have these drops does the audio resume where it left off, or is there a time difference (as though the song was playing for the appropriate period of time, but you could not hear it)?

Do you see this on all of your players, or just one? Are all of your players in sync?

No dock station, just AC adapter and RCA jacks. No pause icon and player never resumes playing song counter stops too. You can skip to next or previous song but the player just stays "paused". If you hit the top button on the player the pause ico does show then, but hitting the button again does not resume playing.

As far as car glitches, the counter keeps going and the music resumes where the counter is not where it left off.

This player gets the majority of home and in-car use, so I couldn't say wheter or not the other players are having problems too. I have 3 players in sync and at least one of them has a fir amount of use. Maybe I'll start using that one more and see if I run into the same things with it. If not, I could have a HD going bad or something.

Just to be absolutely clear on this:

YES, there are certain problems that can happen with too many songs, but the problems you've just described are NOT caused by having too many songs as far as we know. Your problems are caused by something other than the number of songs.

Things to check right off the bat are here, here, and here.

The car-cutting out thing could just be a loose wire on the amplifier remote activator. The lockups and pauses on AC power could just be a bad AC power supply.

I would recommend trying one of the other players - that will eliminate hardware or player software as an issue.

The continuing playback and pickup of the music makes me think you might have a loose connection on the audio lines going to the amp in your car. You might want to try another empeg here as well - if you have the same issue, it is somewhere from the wiring loom on the sled out.

As for the pausing, any luck with hyperterm? Another thing to try would be to diagnose for a disk error (fsck, visual inspection of the cables, etc.). Given that the menus are still working, I do not think the player application crashed. But I do think that you are hitting some kind of disk errors.

Ha... nevermind... one of the hard drives in this player just took a dump. Tried to clear some space by deleting some old stuff I never listen too and it had numerous errors when Emplode finished. Playlists are all wacky now and a reboot of the player has the "NO HARD DRIVE FOUND" message about every third reboot.

Oh well, I was thinking of adding more drive space anyway. Anyone know where the best deals are on 80gb or larger drives right now?

That could be the drive cable and not the drive... Might want to check that out before getting as new drive (only to find the same thing happen).

Bruno

What version player software?

Could also be a bad IDE drive cable.