can't upload songs to ipod through amarok
 

hello everyone,
there seems to be some problem with the ipod shuffle i have , and amarok.
im just trying to connect it to slack11, through amarok. i downloaded libgpod and it seems to connect fine.
i mount it manually for the time being. and on the first connect i loaded the files from the iShuffle , they appeared nicely onto the amarok windows - im not very familiar with the amarok interface as of yet... nevertheless the songs were there. and i deleted them fine .

then i tried loading a few songs into the iShuffle:

-i went to the files tab.. navigated to my mp3 folder in the filesystem, doubled clicked on a few songs , and these appeared on the right pane of the amarok window.
-then i switched to tab 'devices' where i had the ipod connected, and selected all and dragged the songs i had recently put up on the right pane of amarok.
-as soon as i released the button on the bottom left a pane appeared titled 'queue to device'.. so i reselected all the tracks from in it, right clicked and chose the option 'start transfer'...

but then i get messages that the songs have failed to be transfered...
to make things even more difficult, one son actually made it through and got copied! weird...

smth that might be of interest: all my life i dont update ID3tags of mp3s... i stick to only using the filenames... so some mp3s may have no information in their ID3tags - i dunno i have never been checking them. now, i know that ipods only use id3tags... grrrr.. could it be that amarok also only 'sees' these tags too? - and if it finds nothings it chooses to not upload a song into ipod?

any ideas why?

thank you for your help
nass

I doubt if it's about ID tags, but you can try; add ID tags for some tracks that didn't transfer and re-try. If they work all right, all you have to do is get a nice tool that more or less automates the process of adding ID tags to all of your tracks without them.

Amarok is quite nice with iPods (I use Shuffle too). Though, to use it correctly, you must the first time mount the device manually, search it with Amarok, connect to it, after (this is important) that use the "configure connections" window to set pre- and post-mount commands ("mount %d" and "eject %d" or "umount %d", respectively) to make Amarok handle mounting&umounting of the iPod so you don't have to do it manually first; after this disconnect and umount the iPod, remove and re-insert it to your machine. Sounds difficult? It might, but it's the only "sure" way I've met with Amarok.

Note that without the Transcode script of Amarok you can only transfer .mp3 files to your iPod (or if it supports some other formats). With Transcode you can recode files on-the-fly and send (with some loss of quality) any audio files to your Shuffle and Amarok automatically recodes them, if needed, to mp3.

EDIT: sometimes I also notice that the database or some configs on my Shuffle don't match the contents, and that causes malfunctions (songs not transferring, removal of all songs when trying to add something etc.) This is caused every time I plug the thing into iTunes (I never got it working on Windows..) and sometimes with Amarok, if the transfer is suddenly stopped, or the program crashes. A good fix is to run GTKpod (yes, install it) and from the menu choose the option to fix the files on iPod (or whatever it says). It has helped every time (GTKpod tells you if some of the iPod stuff isn't right).

i have downloaded gtkpod too, but on one side the problem with id3tags is far more apparent through gtkpod (from my 4k mp3 songs only about a half appear on the tabs of gtkpod) and for another, the gtkpod seems far behind than amarok when it comes to playlist handling and the sort...

I had the same problem with my Shuffle.

The problem -- it seems -- is "Orphaned files" taking up nearly all the space on the device.

To resolve the issue, connect the device in Amarok as usual. Go to the iPod's pane in Amarok, right-click, and select 'Repair iPod' ->
Scan for Orphaned and Missing Files'. A folder called 'Orphaned' will appear after a short while.

Simply remove that folder and its contents (right-click it and select delete) to free up your Shuffle again.

You can then transfer new sets of files over .. and start the process all over again :)

hey, cliffix.
im, a little fuzzy. what version of amarok are you using?
cause i'm not sure which one is the ipod pane your are taling about and where is the functionality "Orphaned files" found at.

the only thing i found thats close to what you suggest is a ">>" button next to 'transfer' button, on which i can navigate to iPod->(submenu)"Stale and Orphaned".
when i click on that button it tells that amarok is searchong for orphaned files on the status bar botton left, but then the msg dissappears and nothing happens...

and no orphaned folder shows up anywhere in the ipod file system.

nass

Hi Nass,

I am using Amarok-1.4.4 (Debian Etch).

The pane I meant is the one showing the files on the iPod when it is mounted and 'connected' in Amarok.

With your Shuffle connected to your machine, 'Media Device' tab -> 'Connect' button.

Once the iPod is correctly mounted, right-click anywhere in that iPod pane (i.e. the 'Media Device' pane) and you'll get the context menu with the 'Repair iPod' option.

This worked for me -- and it listed quite literally dozens of files.

I suppose you could also manually remove 'Orphaned' files (UNTESTED).

First remove/ deregister all tracks via Amarok and then "disconnect".

Then from a terminal look for files using:

find /media/IPOD/iPod_Control/Music -type f -name "*.mp3"

If you are happy about removing the listed files:

rm `find /media/IPOD/iPod_Control/Music -type f -name "*.mp3"`

HTH

i don't know about all the stuff cliffix said but i was having a problem with ipod nano and it was because i tried to put to many songs on it... it doesn't stop you itunes does... so i just deleted files until it said there was more then 0 space left... disconnected and it worked!

hope that made sense... and helped

I had the root user owning all the files in my ipod so I have to run amarok as root to transfer files for it. As the iPod uses FAT filesystem it doesn't even allow to change the permissions :(

Zmyrgel - http://slackwiki.org/Windows_Partitions

hello everyone,
i recently managed to 'fix' it...
the thing is i had the ipod shuffle formatted by itunes. so i had been adding songs that the linux system WOULD delete, but somehow the df always returned the same space for the ipod device; meaning that i would manually go to the ipod filesystem, and delete all the music files , and du would return 0 for the music folder size, but df would still return usage of about 98%. it seems that the table wouldn't be updated for the device.. its possible amarok is using some sort of df call to identify when there is no more space in the device and so it would tell me its not able to add the songs into the device...

having said that amarok development team should pay a little more attention when programming the error messages, since the generic 'i can not add songs to the device' is not really helpful.

so i reformatted the device from linux.. and now it works like a charm...i can add and delete songs properly without the problem of df.

of course no itunes will 'accept' to see my ipod anymore, but oh well...
small price to pay, but since i have my mp3s on the slackware file server, i can simply connect the ipod there directly and move some music in my ipod through that...:)