8GB Zen - Synchronization not working correctly

[ngwoo]

I seem to be having a rather serious issue here. Any songs that have been played on my device, upon synchronization, get re-encoded and copied over to the device again instead of just having the play counts updated. This wouldn't be a problem if I only played a few but when it is doing this for hundreds upon hundreds of songs, it makes each synchronization take an hour or longer. I don't know what MediaMonkey did differently under the hood, but with that I'd sync and it would quickly update the playcounts both on my device and on my PC (at about half a second per song), then move on to encoding and copying over any new songs that needed to be copied.

This is a rather showstopping issue for me, any tips on how to fix it?

EDIT: It's still syncing as I type this, and it appears to be doing this for all songs on the device, not only played ones. (Cannot confirm yet, however) Basically it now appears that synchronization is re-encoding and re-copying EVERY song over to the device, which will take 3+ hours at this rate.

EDIT2: Just confirmed it, it's attempting to copy everything over again.

[Steven]

i can give you a debug version that logs what its doing. Let me know if you are happy to do that and i will create a .exe

also could you confirm you have already fully synched the device using MB before

[ngwoo]

Before my first sync using MusicBee I formatted the device. The first synchronization went off without a hitch. After the problem occurred I formatted again so I could switch back to Mediamonkey but I would be happy to format a third time and run both the first sync and a second sync using the debug version if it'll help.

Just let me know what I have to do.

[Steven]

if you dont mind resetting the device then that would be helpful.
For this test, my suggestion is to create a new library (File/New/Library) and only add a few files (you can drag/drop into the library from windows explorer as one way)
then synch the files to the device
restart MB
and then synch again
This version will log info to the error log (help/support/view error log). I will PM my email for the results as it might be quite big
http://www.mediafire.com/?th3g2kaid21lh39

[ngwoo]

Would you like me to have these sync from a playlist (using the test library, of course) to try and replicate my original problem, or just sync the entire test library?

- Went ahead and just did the whole test library. As expected, it re-encoded and re-copied all of the tracks. I will have the log file emailed to you shortly.

[blockhead]

I am following this thread with interest.  I also have an 8MB ZEN that exhibits exactly the same symptom.
Whenever I sync to my playlist it recopies all the files to the ZEN.

[ngwoo]

I remember Mediamonkey had the exact same problem for quite some time. Hopefully you guys can fix this faster than they did.   

[Steven]

the problem is MB is not able to read the file modification time of the files on the device correctly - its returning 1/1/0001
- if you view the files using windows explorer, what is the file modification time shown as?
- and how about the file creation time?
i will need to give you another debug version on the weekend to figure out a solution

[ngwoo]

Why not just make it keep track of when it was last synced and then go by playcounts?

- If the playcount in the player and the device are the same, don't re-copy
- If the playcount in the player has changed, update playcount on device
- If the playcount in the device has changed, update playcount in the player
- If both are different than when it was synced, find the difference on both and update both

The same could be adapted for ratings and other tags, keep track of what the tag was in both the player and device at the time of sync and check for any changes later.

Could the problem be associated with the fact that the Zen does not keep track of when the song was played, only how many times it was?

---

To actually answer your question, details in Explorer are sparse, creation date and modified date don't show up in the properties dialog anywhere.

[blockhead]

I can confirm that in Windows Explorer the "Modified" date is empty/blank when viewing the media files on my ZEM.

[blockhead]

ngwoo - sorry for butting in - just trying to help provide any relavent information for Steve to analyze the issue.

[Steven]

i can come up with a different synch strategy if the device really doesnt support file modification times, but could either of you confirm that none of the files on the device (excluding ones synched by MB) have a blank create or modify date?

[blockhead]

None of the files on the ZEN have a date for Modified or Created.  Both fields are empty.
Does not matter if they are copied manually or sync'ed with MB.  This is when viewed with Windows Explorer.

[Steven]

ok thanks.
I've implemented a different synch approach if no modification date is detected. In this case it only synchs files that are updated since the last synch (and new/deleted files of course), but the assumption here is you are always using MB on the same computer so might do some extra unecessary file synchs if using other tools or done from a different computer.

Please let me know if it works for you - just unzip to where MB is installed:
http://www.mediafire.com/?6oex1q9h5cweuqu

[ngwoo]

I did a sync with that test library I set up for the earlier test and nothing was copied over. I'll format the device and do a real sync with my main library this time. Once I've done a second sync after using the device for a while I'll report back with the results.

Also, will that .exe log everything or is it not a debug version?