SB Touch Question

[GeorgeO]

I have been using my Touch for listening to internet radio, and today for the first time I connected a 500GB portable USB (Seagate GoFlex)drive with about 300GB of audio files. After recognizing the drive the software started scanning the files, for just under 2 hours-and then displayed an error message.

Any thoughts on trouble shooting?

 

[ajay124]

George

Did you format the drive before use?
What format did you use?
Did you create one partition or more?
Does the Seagate have a separate power adaptor, or does it draw power from the Touch?
Is the 300 GB only audio files, or are there any other kind of files also present?
Which audio format did you use?

 

[ajay124]

A portable drive will probably not have a separate power adaptor. It will draw power through the USB connection. It is mentioned on the Squeezebox site that the USB HDD should have a power adaptor. This is the most likely cause of the problem encountered by you.

Scanning of files/artwork should have barely taken 10 minutes or less. Even that is required only when you connect it for the first time.

If the Touch was earlier connected to the server on your computer, you need to switch libraries and connect it to the USB library.

 

[TaureanBull]

Ajay has cleared most of the doubts.

I must say that larger size HDDs may be difficult to play on touch at times. The touch software is very sensitive to the large size disks, files other than audios, formatting etc.

While it may show error,if you go to Squeezebox Server option it would show you that scanning is in progress. Secondly, you may opt to go for "Wipe and Rescan" option. Or alternatively just start playing files and over the period of time the files would be scanned and form part of the library.

Avoid using folder with long addresses. Best option is to have a folder containing songs rather than several subfolders.

Just hope that it helps.

 

[ajay124]

Since the scan was not completed, wipe and rescan is essential. I have done it on the Squeezebox server downloaded on my Mac OS. The steps to be followed were:

Delete preference files
Clean cache folders, including music data bases and art work
Run cleaner
Rescan (without interruption or any other activity on the computer)

I have never done it on the Squeezebox server built into the Touch because the need never arose. The Touch was smooth sailing from the word go. But we (most of the time my wife, because the Squeezebox is more her interest) did spend several days on the Squeezebox and Slim Devices forum. Posting links to some of the stuff we had read before getting the Touch and the HDD.

Re: [SlimDevices: Touch] External HDD > Squeezebox Touch > Amplifier > L
Best external hard drive configuration for squeezebox touch with 20k+ flacs - Squeezebox : Community : Forums
Squeezebox Touch, USB, Windows - Squeezebox : Community : Forums
Playlists on Squeezebox Touch with USB hard drive? - Squeezebox : Community : Forums
External HDD > Squeezebox Touch > Amplifier > Listen to my music? - Squeezebox : Community : Forums
I give up! SB Touch & External HD Nightmare - Logitech Forums
Squeezebox Touch - USB Compatibility - SqueezeboxWiki

 

[GeorgeO]

Thanks Ajay

I will do some more research. I suspect the power supply issue may have derailed it.

I had a single folder named "Audio", didnt format the drive before starting-it was brand new in box, and came without a power supply. Almost all files were flac, with a few MP3, and nothing apart from audio. Yes,I did the wipe and rescan, no luck..

 

[ajay124]

Quote from the first link (John Swenson)

"WD drives can be some of the worst to use with a Touch. Many of them
> contain special partitions which contain windows code, designed to be
> run on a windows computer when plugged in. The Touch does not run
> windows, it run linux. Thus all that extra windows stuff doesn't get
> run which can cause all kinds of problems. A few people have managed to
> get rid of the extra stuff or reformat these WD drives, but its a pain
> in the neck to deal with."

I bought WD My Book Essentials 1 TB (desk top model with power adaptor)
Reformatted it to MS DOS using the disc utilities application on the Mac. Selected "single partition"
Ignored the bundled softwares provided by WD
Ripped music into ALAC files at 2x speed on iTunes
Kept a uniform size of 300x300 for album art

The subsequent actions on a Mac ('apple' smooth ) were
Open Finder
Open Macintosh HDD
Open user
Open music
Drag and drop individual folders (one per cd) into the WD HDD.

iTunes does a fairly decent job while accessing the album information from the Grace Notes data base. But the Mahler box set I began with had different conductors, musicians and orchestras. Individual tracks on his 'lieder' song cycles were attributed to different artists. The 16 Mahler CD's were broken up into 25+ folders by iTunes. I spent many hours digging up and rewriting all the information, in order to bring the folders back to 16.

I remember reading an interesting article, that the information stored on many CD's may be wrong. The writer had given several examples of mislabeled works. If the person entering the data on a Beethoven CD attributes it to Bach by a mistake, then that data will become 'enshrined' on lossless files. The CD cover will correctly identify it as Beethoven, but when it is transferred to a file it will metamorphose into Bach. Over a period of time data entry operators could 'rewrite' the history of music. How many newcomers to western classical music in the digital age, may go around with a lifelong conviction that the Ninth symphony was written by Bach or that the Brandenburg concertos were written by Brahms?

The 'dark' side of digital music

 

[ajay124]

Thanks Ajay

I will do some more research. I suspect the power supply issue may have derailed it.

I had a single folder named "Audio", didnt format the drive before starting-it was brand new in box, and came without a power supply. Almost all files were flac, with a few MP3, and nothing apart from audio. Yes,I did the wipe and rescan, no luck..

George

You can give it one more shot. Reformat drive to MS DOS/Fat 32. All the data on the drive will automatically get erased. Choose the single partition option. Don't add any bundled software provided by Seagate. Copy paste a single CD into a single folder. Album artwork should not be bigger than 500x500. Wipe out the earlier cache and files on the Touch server. Connect the Seagate. There is a 50/50 chance that the Touch server will quickly read the folder and start streaming

 

[GeorgeO]

Ajay

Before doing that I am going to update the Slim server software on my NAS-that is easier for me than having two separate repositaries for my audio. The Touch is not able to access the audio on my NAS-it says a new version of software is needed. I dont want to dedicate one of my powered 1.5TB external drives for this purpose if I can avoid it-unless my audio collection crosses 750GB!

 

[ajay124]

Ajay

Before doing that I am going to update the Slim server software on my NAS-that is easier for me than having two separate repositaries for my audio. The Touch is not able to access the audio on my NAS-it says a new version of software is needed. I dont want to dedicate one of my powered 1.5TB external drives for this purpose if I can avoid it-unless my audio collection crosses 750GB!

Connecting to the NAS may be the best option in your case. However if you are willing to make the effort you could try copy/pasting every sub folder into an individual folder. It is quite likely that putting all the files into a single folder may have caused the problem. Delete the original folder when it is done.

The SB Touch may be able to handle the modest amount of power which the portable drive demands. There is no 100% certainty on the Squeezebox forums that a drive without a power adaptor will not work with the Touch. Repair the folders, clean out the deadwood, and you may find that a new rescan lasting 15-20 minutes will sort out your problem.