Bug reports

[MostAwesomeDude]

what's that extension? .aa? ipod only supports aac audiobooks, wrapped in .m4a or .m4p mp4 wrappers...

[k1ng]

When you download an audiobook from audible.com, they come in .aa extentions, and the ipod does play them. These files are bookmarkable and protected.

[Otto42]

"Bookmarkable" is a relative term. In theory, all files are bookmarkable. It's just that iTunes and the iPod only really act a certain way on those files. Anything with the .aa or .m4b extensions (audible and iTMS audiobooks, respectively) gets handled as an audiobook. This means that the bookmark field in the iTunesDB gets written with the starting time of the file, and the bookmark field in the Play Counts file gets written to by the iPod as the last stopping point of the file. mlipod probably won't handle those fields at the moment, as they were only figured out about a week ago and it's not widely known yet.

If you could grab a copy of the iTunesDB file on the iPod both when it does show up in the AudioBook category and when it does not show up in the audio book category and email it to me, then I can work out what the trick is. I've been hearing this issue from a number of different people for the foo_pod player and I'm convinced that iTunes is doing something tricky in one of the fields that is still unknown. Unfortunately, the "Audiobook" category seems to be a feature only on the newer than 3rd gen iPods, so I have no ability to test it myself. Also I don't want to buck up for an audiobook.

Here's how you can help me out:
1. Use iTunes to sync the iPod. This should put it safely in the AudioBook category, right? Before undocking, turn on "Disk Mode" using iTunes and grab a copy of the iTunesDB file off the iPod. Rename this to iTunesDB-audiobook or something and hang on to it. Now undock the iPod and verify that it does show up in the audiobook category.
2. Use another program to sync and thus break the audiobook thing. Grab a copy of the iTunesDB before undocking again, and rename the copy to iTunesDB-brokenAB or something. Undock and verify it's brokenness.
3. ZIP or RAR those two files up and email them to me at sam dot wood at gmail dot com. Also include what the name of the audiobook track is, so I can find it in there. I'll see what differences I can see and maybe figure this damn thing out so programs like mlipod and foo_pod can support it properly.

[Otto42]

Well, I got the iTunesDB files you sent me.. There's a lot of differences, but here's the main ones that I can see:

The non-working iTunesDB has the wrong sample rate (44,100 instead of 22,050). This might break the playback, I'm not certain. I've never tried messing with it.

The working iTunesDB has stuff in unk5, unk7, unk8, unk9, unk10, unk12, and unk14 for the *.aa file. Some of it looks kinda different, for sure. Of these, unk5 is normally all zero's as far as I have seen, however the number in there now is not anything obvious.

unk9, however, is different in a possibly meaningful way. Normally it contains 0x01 00 FF FF. As near as I have always seen anyway. In this particular case it contains 0x01 00 01 00. I'm betting this is something to do with the audiobook thingammie. Given the values I'm thinking that it's a couple of 2 byte flags with maybe -1,0,1 values there. I'll investigate this one further and maybe work it out. I've got some files I can try to see what I can get.

However, the samplerate issue is likely why the file stops playing even if you go and select it manually. To fix this, mlipod will need to change to preserve the samplerate when rebuilding the iTunesDB file instead of assuming 44100, I think. If you want to test this theory, you can use a hex editor to modify the iTunesDB file. Search for "46 00 6c 00 6f 00 6f 00 72 00 2e 00 61 00 61" (that's "Floor.aa" in UTF16 hexadecimal) and then scroll up a very small bit to find a couple of bytes that are "44 ac". Change those to "22 56" and save it. You can do this in place on the iPod. If the file plays after that, then that's definitely that problem.

[romanodog]

Hello, I am having a similar problem to something that someone else posted here. In the ML in winamp all of the songs show up on my ipod twice. And when i disconnect my ipod and try to play songs from it, only like 5 artists are shown on the ipod and i cant access anything else. I guess this has something to do with the database being broken. All of the songs are still in my ipod control/music folder, so i guess my question is, is there a way to rebuild the database withough having to format and transfer all of the files back on to the ipod?

[Wombert]

Song ratings won't update if the playcount for a song has not changed. The iPod only updates the play count AFTER a track has finished playing. Ratings are different, though. I noticed that today: didn't like the song of an album, rated it 2 stars and skipped to the next track. The rating wouldn't be updated into the Winamp ML until I played the song again, seeked to the end and let the next track begin. Then I synced ratings manually (although I have checked both "Sync Ratings, Play Counts and Last Played Times on Connect" and "Disconnect" in the config dialog ), and the playcount was updated along with the rating. As the iPod does store the rating even if the song hasn't finished playing, I guess the ratings update is triggered within the code that updates play counts, so if the play count won't change, ml_ipod doesn't even look at the rating.

[kaatinthehaat]

Originally posted by Wombert
The iPod only updates the play count AFTER a track has finished playing.

I have noticed this also. I had mentioned it some time ago in a post in this forum.

[Wombert]

I recently removed the genre "Rock" from some MP3s (a complete album), but the genre and the album still shows up on the iPod, regardless of how often I sync (only this one album had the genre "Rock"). I believe the only way would be to remove the album from the iPod and then add it again... but I figured I'd rather file a bug report here

[MostAwesomeDude]

Well, as it stands, ID3 changes are never reflected in the ML. If you want the ML (and your iPod) to reload the ID3 info from that MP3, you have to somehow remove and then readd that file...

[Carno]

You don't have to delete them from the ml but you will have to delete them from the ipod. A lastupd >= smartlist is useful for that. Or you can find & update the ID3 on the ipod.

[Wombert]

Originally posted by MostAwesomeDude
Well, as it stands, ID3 changes are never reflected in the ML. If you want the ML (and your iPod) to reload the ID3 info from that MP3, you have to somehow remove and then readd that file...

I have, of course, triggered a "Rescan Watch Folders (in background)" before syncing. The changes to the ID3 tags have well been reflected in the ML, they just won't sync.

[kaatinthehaat]

I'm not sure if this has been covered yet but there is a bug in ratings syncing. Yesterday I rated quite a few of my previously unrated songs in my winamp ml. Today I connected my ipod (configured to sync ratings etc on connect and also on disconnect) and unfortunately all the ratings I had changed were reset to "unrated". I guess it is because the ipod overwrites winamp ml ratings on connect and vice versa on disconnect. It would be nice if a smart sync occured taking into account the most recent change instead. Is it possible to do this or would it cause syncing to take too long?

For now, the solution is to unselect the "sync on connect / disconnect" in the config menu and manually sync ratings etc using the choices in the "sync ratings" button.

[kaatinthehaat]

Originally posted by kaatinthehaat
I'm not sure if this has been covered yet but there is a bug in ratings syncing. Yesterday I rated quite a few of my previously unrated songs in my winamp ml. Today I connected my ipod (configured to sync ratings etc on connect and also on disconnect) and unfortunately all the ratings I had changed were reset to "unrated". I guess it is because the ipod overwrites winamp ml ratings on connect and vice versa on disconnect.

Actually I just read the other string which answered my question.

[ohm]

Hi.
At first - ml_ipod is one of a few packages for iPod working with Windows 98 - even the first edition.
Thanks for that.

Here's the bug: Eject button in ml_ipod doesn't work for Windows 98.

I have found that ejecting device is not that hard under Windows 98 - there is an example source code provided:
http://support.microsoft.com/support.../Q168/1/80.ASP

Could you integrate that source into ml_ipod?

I can work as a betatester of that patch. I own both Windows 98 and 98 SE machines.

[TimS432]

Hey, I am going to try and use an ipod with win 98 first edition, i got the driver that is available and downloaded the ipod thing for winamp, i dont wanna spend 300 on a ipod and have this not work, anyone here actually done this and have it work good, sorry i am a newb to these forums

[will]

I'd hope that the guy who posted the drivers tested it somewhat, and so i must assume that he did get it working. Otherwise he would not say so.

But anyway, even if it doesn't, you can always upgrade to windows 2000 or xp. Its worth it, the ipod rocks.

[ohm]

Originally posted by TimS432
Hey, I am going to try and use an ipod with win 98 first edition, i got the driver that is available and downloaded the ipod thing for winamp, i dont wanna spend 300 on a ipod and have this not work, anyone here actually done this and have it work good, sorry i am a newb to these forums

I think it's NTG, but I'll respond shortly:

1. My Windows 98 USB driver works stable because it is in fact Microsoft reference mass storage driver. More info on http://www.mhobot.w.pl/ipod

2. You can use iPod with Windows 98 but it is quite hard to initialize it under Windows 98 first time. You know, iPod gets reformatted and reflashed when first connected and this operation should be done with original Apple Updater software. I strongly recommend installing original iPod software on somebody else XP/2000. After reformatting ("updating") you can uninstall software and proceed to Windows 98.

3. iPodlounge seems to be an optimal place for your questions - look here: http://www.ipodlounge.com/forums/

[muckster]

My ratings synch stopped working again. I had this problem before, started over with a clean install, and now somehow, it stopped working again, either automatically, with smart synch, or with the "from ipod to winamp/from winamp to ipod" options. It doesn't matter if I play the songs all the way through.

I have the following installed:

Winamp 5.05
ml_iPod 1.12b0
Flac Decoder 1.1.1
ShnAmp for Winamp 2.02
Enhancer 0.17
DoSomething
Toaster 0.5b4
AudioScrobbler 1.1.8

[synmoo]

After installing the new beta and removing my ipod from the dock for the first time this morning I noticed my playlists are messed up on the ipod. I am missing a few playlists and there are 2 playlists that have no name and no files contained within them.. just placeholders of where the playlists used to be). I did delete a couple of old playlists last night.. maybe it got confused and deleted the wrong index or something?

It definitely wasn't a simple case of me picking the wrong one to delete since it affected 3 of my playlists and now ones with no name, etc.

[t0ast!]

I, too am experiencing an issue with my iPod after adding a playlist and adding some tracks to it. Now all i see are two playlists on the iPod: On-the-go, and a playlist with no name. iTunes reports that it cannot read the database. ml_ipod can still read it, thankfully, but my iPod is pretty useless unless it can actually play the music itself.

Does anyone know _why_ this happens? And furthermore, is there a fix where i don;t have to format the iPod?

I'd be glad to give the developers any information (files, etc) that they'd like to track this down and create a fix. I'll even help develop it if required. ml_ipod is an excellent alternative to iTunes, tho! I've been happy thus far.

thanks in advance!

[wuuut]

I'm having playlist issues too. After syncing, all my playlists showed up but some of them were empty or missing files (my 704 file playlist is missing over 600 MP3s!!!). In winamp my playlists were still normal and resyncing didn't work. I found that I can add the missing files back to the playlist but if I sync again, those files dissappear from the playlists again. This is really annoying because if I want my playlists to be identical to my playlists in my Media Library, I'll have to manually put each file in the playlists on my ipod which would take a very very long time and the changed playlists would go back to being empty or missing files after the next sync. Most of the files not appearing in the playlists were ripped by me but are normal 256kb 44100 mp3s and some dowloaded MP3s dont appear in the playlists either. All the files that are missing from the playlists are on my iPod. Also, in itunes, the files are missing from the local playlists as well as the ipod list so this may be an issue with winamp but how can some winamp-made playlists work in itunes and others not? Can you help me??

[t0ast!]

I'm still able to view my playlists in their entirely using ml_ipod. I can even delete the duplicates. But i'm assuming since everything (tracks and playlists) are duplicated, i'd have to remove all of that to make it work again. This is just speculation, of course.

I assume this could be the cause of some extra bytes being written (or not written) to the iTunesDB and that a simple tool could be created to fix it. If i knew more about the db format, i'd go exploring myself and create something. Maybe i'll go searching for some source

[synmoo]

like wuuut, I can see the playlists okay in winamp but they just dont show up in the ipod. I have never connected my ipod to itunes so (at least my problem) has nothing to do with itunes

[gil716]

Add me to the list. Same issue, transferred a bunch of mp3s to the ipod but I dont see them on the ipod. They only appear in Winamp. When I search through the ipod removable disk through windows explorer, I see the files that I can't access via the ipod.

I've noticed that the only songs available on my ipod begin with the letters a-d. Wonder if that means anything.

[justchillin]

i'm having what appears to be the exact opposite problem from the previous post.

just got an ipod today (4th gen, HP version but that shouldn't make a difference) and I was psyched to use ml_ipod cause i love winamp, but....

winamp (ml_ipod that is) detects the ipod just fine, and ml_ipod lets me copy music onto it. but then i can't see anything on it in winamp. it's like winamp copies the music onto it but then doesn't scan it for the newly updated list. itunes sees it and the ipod sees it (and can play it), but winamp doesn't see what it has just copied. just says 0 items, playtime 0:00, no matter what. tried installing and uninstalling everything several times, no luck.

any suggestions? I've got the latest version of everything, so that's not the problem...

thanks in advance.

[blupics]

HI

first, thx for the great job u did on this plugin!

my problem is a small one, but when it is easy to resolve i would be just perfekt for me, using the plugin for winamp!

after i'd used the plugin to transfer music etc.. and i try to select a playlist or on the go list, as signal for my alarm, it does't work! i can see all the playlist and when i click on them an the screen goes back on the other window, there is once again the "beep" choosen.
the way to resolve this for me was to connect the ipod with iTunes once and till the next time i use winamp to do smth. on the ipod the alarm function works.

cause i never installed itunes ist a little bit bad... ; (

would really appreciate if this bug resolving will find the way in the new update of this plugin!

greetz blu


using:
win xp sp2
winamp 5.05 (x86)
ipodplugin 1.11a
ipod 4g 40gb

[synmoo]

Any word on whether a fix will be available in the next version for the missing playlist problem?

I restored my ipod and it was working for a while but has since exhibited the same problem. (Some playlists go blank with no files. just placeholders for where the playlists were. They show up in winamp however but not on the ipod itself.

[sjbale]

Hi,

I've noticed two possible bugs:

1. If I drag and drop music from the desktop after playing a track from the ipod then winamp will crash. Details below:

The application, H:\Winamp\winamp.exe, generated an application error The error occurred on 11/26/2004 @ 12:34:57.461 The exception generated was c0000005 at address 01E559B0 (ml_ipod)

Faulting application winamp.exe, version 5.0.0.6, faulting module ml_ipod.dll, version 0.0.0.0, fault address 0x000159b0.

2. I find that the occasional transferred file will not play or ends prematurely. This only seems to occur when I drag and drop an entire album. A transfer of 13 albums resulted in two tracks which would not play. The file size of the first track was half of the original file and the second file was actually slightly larger than the original.

PS: I'm using a 20GB 4th Gen ipod.

Best Regards, Simon Bale.

[jeffer1972]

I also have issues where my playlists as well as some random albums do not appear when using the ipod directly.

When I use Winamp I am able to see and play my music.

This is frustrating. Is there any help out there when it cones to this problem?

Thanks,

- Jeff

[lacitpo]

I've had the same sort of problem as someone mentioned above. I can't pinpoint exaclty when it happened, but winamp started showning there being 2 versions of everything on my ipod, but wouldn't play any of them. Itunes said it couldn't read the stuff on my ipod and that I had to re-format it. And, my ipod showed that it had no music on it what-so-ever. However, all the music was still present when I looked in the actuall folders on the ipod from a computer.

hope this helps.

[ocrow]

I'm experiencing a repeatable crash in Winamp when using ml_ipod. It crashes when transfering a specific song - a malformed .mp3 file created by an aborted CD rip. The crash occurs always at the beginning of transfering the corrupt file. It took me many hours of trial and error searching to discover which song was the problem, because ml_ipod doesn't report the song it was about to start when syncing, and I can't find a way to get a list of the songs that 'sync' will transfer.

The crash message is: 'Instruction at "0x4d859b0" referenced memory at 0x00000000. The memory could not be "read".' I'm using ml_ip v.1.11a. I have a 40GB 4G iPod. If it would be helpful I can send a copy of the problematic file.

[ignifercarnifex]

Hello all,

This regards the alarm bug I posted about on page 3 of this forum.

I've just updated my 4G 20GB iPod to firmware version 3.0.2 (dated 2004-11-15) and I can't really tell yet if the alarm bug is gone.

When choosing a "Sound" (either "Beep" or a playlist) the selection would appear to the right of "Sound" on the "Alarm Clock" screen. They've changed it so that one of those submenu-indicating-arrows appears to the right instead of the actual selection.

When I do go into that "Sound" submenu, it always starts with the selection on "Beep", even if I click on a playlist. I'm assuming this means it isn't fixed, just a less obvious that it's not working.

I don't know what iTunes does that iPodPlugin doesn't, and it's not a really important bug, but it's functionality I wouldn't mind having.

I set an alarm and try it out and let you know.

[Swil]

I have a new 4G 40Gb iPod with latest firmware and am also having the Alarm playlist problem. Playlists created in iTunes work fine, Winamp created ones don't. From what I've read around the place this seems to be a problem with pretty much every non-iTunes iPod app.

Am keen to see this one fixed, but until it is (and given it's not ml_ipod specific it mite not be an easy one), might be an idea to mention the bug & workaround (ie using iTunes to create playlists u want as an alarm) in the documentation or something (if it isn't already, I may well be blind).

edit: Forgot to mention I'm using the latest beta (1.12b0) of ml_ipod

[Able12]

I have also encountered a problem that other people seem to have - all my song and playlist entries on the iPod were doubled after using mlipod. But perhaps I can add some information about the problem which may help with debugging. In the connection session before this happened, I noticed an anomaly: "iPod" appeared twice in the WinAmp device list. Trying hard to remember the sequence, I think this may have happened because I launched WinAmp while the iPod was connecting, rather than before or after as usual. I figured it was just a display glitch and ignored it. I was experimenting with acceptable file names (e.g. are .aa and .m4b allowed?), so I dragged a couple of test song files onto the iPod and then disconnected. Then I noticed the doubled entries. Checking the iPod contents, I noted that the files themselves were not doubled, only the index entries. And the About screen on the iPod still reported the correct total number of songs (half the number of index entries, and half the total reported by mlipod when connected). I wasn't able to find an easy way to fix it, so I ended up erasing the iPod and reloading it. Woult it have worked to erase the iPod's hidden index files, and then let mlipod rebuild it by looking for "lost" files?

[in-casino-out]

This has been posted in another thread, but i figure it should be here so everyone can see it (because it seems tons of people have this problem, including me).

THIS IS A SOLUTION FOR THE DOUBLE FILES/WONT SHOW UP ON THE IPOD PROBLEM.


First ,download Ephpodand open'er up. Go to tools, and use the following features in this order, from top to bottom.

Check iPod for duplicates
Verify iPod Database
Probe iPod for lost music

This should let you play your music again, if it doesn't, don't panic quite yet. Restart your computer and giv'er again. If you STILL can't get it to work, I pity you.

[container]

I think the Winamp iPod plugin sometimes changes my Smart Playlists into regular ones. I am not sure if is something that I am doing. I noticed a Samrt list was not updating on my iPod. When I looked at the playslist in Winamp or iTunes, it was turned into a regular playlist.

[KillTheGibson]

Originally posted by MostAwesomeDude
why does a normal playlist (not a view or a smart playlist) sometimes not want to sync? i have a 20-song playlist, but after it syncs, i have to add all the other songs onto it manually because winamp only adds like 3 into the playlist. even worse, unless i turn off playlist syncs, winamp will erase my playlist and overwrite it with the bad one! all the songs are on there, i know it, 'cause they get added on after a sync

I have a similar issue, a non-smart playlist that has been on my ipod since before i started using the smart playlist shows up in the playlist view as a blank space with no songs in it.

System specs should be in profile
20gb U2 iPod winamp 5.05 and ml_ipod 1.12

[cloak42]

Here's what I think is a new bug for you:

When you go to "iPod" in the ML and choose an album that's currently in your ML, will it play from the ML's location rather than off the iPod? When I select an album listed under "iPod" that happens to also be in my Audio Files section, then select the Playlist entry and hit Alt-3, it shows the location of the file being played as the one from my media library.

Does that make sense?

Well, here's the bug: All of my media library files are located on a network share. I didn't notice when I logged in this morning, but my share had gone down (the server had rebooted and for whatever reason hadn't mounted that shared folder, so my share was empty). When I selected the album in the iPod entry in the ML, I guess it tried to load the file on the network share, but since the share wasn't loaded, it didn't play. And no matter how many times I tried to play the entry listed under iPod, it wouldn't load. However, albums that were NOT listed in my ML played fine. As soon as I mounted the directory on my server and reconnected the network share, I could select the iPod album entry again (though, of course, it's still playing from the media library location--my Z: drive in this case, not my K: drive, which is my iPod).

If you need clarification, just let me know.

[marvinj920]

Whenever I Try to sync my pod, Winamp Crashes. Maybe this is discussed elsewhere. The plugin did not crash in v1.11a. v1.12b and v1.12 seem to crash winamp.

I am using a 4G 40gig pod, and Winamp Pro v5.08d. Any Ideas??

[toshix]

hey .. i hard alot about this plug for ipod ..so i though give it a try

there alothing in there i like about this plug in mostly "copy to hard drive " and right click send to ipod very use full feature. here are the few bug i came a cross


1) i d/l the ipod softwear from apple site and format my ipod then open up my winamp where ml_ip 1.2 did not detect my ipod. then i use the format fuction within ml_ip 1.2 reset my winamp, then it detected.

2) now i have alot play list on my ML , i right click on the play list and send it to ipod. the playlist gets copy to the ipod just fine (great job on that part )but about 3 to 7 song from the playlist the ID3 tag does not show up, i had to go back and re input missing tag again.
so i thought its the song but i have TEST this few time and ever time its a different song from the play list.

3) now THIS bug is one reason i am thinking going back to iTunes

as i said it in #2 bug that some tag dont get copy over
so i have to input it my salf now after doing that
i usre the ipod tool in ml_ip 1.2 "prob ipod for lost music" ever time i do that the song i just change the tag show up twice i am sending a jpg file u will notice the song show up 2 time now and notice leghth size is 2881:18

this only happnes ever time i change the TAG then look for lost song in ipod looks the ID3 tag dont work it just makes a new file with removed TAG