Just emailed support, but wanted to put it on the forums too in case anyone has had the same problem. I know i have mentioned this elsewhere but no one is really coming up with a solution!! Hope some one can. Here is my email:

Hi


I'm having problems building a database for my mp3s, im not really sure why but i always get the "database not ready" I'm using the latest firmware.

I think it only worked on the first firmware when i was using UTF 16 tags. I'm using ISO 8859-1 tags now as these seem to work better displaying all the information (as suggested by ARNE on the forums).

The player takes a while scanning then says its scanning but not displaying specific folders. I can see " all files" playlist files, and i can use the search feature to find folders and specific tracks.

Is there any way to figure out whats wrong? a moderator on the forums thinks my hard disk is shot and i need to reformat it, but i really don't think this is the problem!

I have heard its the way i have named my mp3s? on a 2/3 CD album i label the file name as 1.01 Artist - title.mp3 meaning CD1 track 1. Why would this make a difference? there are of course single CD albums labelled 01, 02, 03 Artist - Title.mp3 etc too, so if there was a problem with the multi CDs then i would at least expect the single CD albums to work?

is it possible to copy the theater folder. and part file for someone to look at? can you get much from them? its really annoying that i can not filter by year, album and artist! i really want this to work and if its not a firmware problem (which no one has confirmed or denied) then i would like AC RYAN's assistance.


I hope you can help!!

Hi,

i assume you are using the internal HDD filled up with mp3 files. On boot the player will scan the HDD if your 'autoscan storage' function is enabled.
You can than goto 'MUSIC' directly in the main menu and press the menu button to change views and sorting. I see for example All Songs, Albums, Artists, Genres, Years, Playlists.

If you do not see those options please first try to reinstall the r3966 firmware with the safe-mode. If that doesn't help there might be an issue with the actual scanning process on your HDD. I recommend to connect the player via USB to the PC and make a chkdsk on the HDD again. Also please delete the '.THEATER' folder which contains the scan results. It can happen that the .db gets corrupted due to power cut for example.
Also please could you provide your exact HDD model since there seem to come up more and more problems with certain drives which can be fixed with a firmware upgrade. Thanks.

cheers,

Hi Arne, thanks for getting back to me. I'll check the HDD tonight but its the one it came with (do you supply different HDDs. I know its a Samsung 500GB.

I have tried flashing it serveral times, i have deleted the theater folder and the "part" file. I have done chkdisk in windows and with CDOS.

Its with the music section i have the problem like i say it just says "database not ready" if i select album, artist or year showing 0/0 whereas in all it shows 190000 mp3s in one big list!

All tags display well thanks to your suggestion.

I'll get back to you on the model but as i said in the email would it help to attach the theater folder to an email? can it be looked at?

Hi ARNE,


Quick update. I have connected to my computer and upon booting the laptop did a quick check of the disk on its own (3 stage) but have done this countless times before (0 bad sectors on 5 stage). I have deleted the .part file and the theater folder again and disconnected safely. the HD2 is now scanning. I'll leave this for an hour or so and wait for it to stop displaying specific folders (i take it its meant to do this?) - message " press stop to stop scanning storage" but no folder information displayed.

I took the HDD out and noted the model: Samsung HD503H1 500GB/R54/16M.

I'll let you know if i have any luck!

As i could have guessed no luck! here are some screen shots one that shows there are 19000 mp3 under all, the other shows the error message for an album search!

any ideas?

just to add, my file structure is music/Artist Albums/A-C/Akon Albums/ Akon - Trouble (for example)

I then Have D-F, G-J etc with the artist and then their albums in that folder (mp3 in that). that makes it 3 to 4 sub folders depending on if the artist has more than one album.

I also have "compilation albums" (under music/compilation..." using the same format A-C, D-F etc.the scan seems to pick this up OK though

Hi Arne,

Do you have any further suggestions? I have noticed today after adding a few albums via USB that the scan that has started up is scanning things its already done?

I have been trying to enter "music" for about 10 minutes all i do is push enter give it a minute, then push enter again and so on. Eventually it goes in but was astonished to note under "all music" I only had 7000 mp3s? this would imply its deleted or not reading the existing database it spend an hour doing last week?

any ideas why its started again? it still says database is not ready"???

this is very frustrating! I'm surprised no one else has had this issue?

Hi,

iam currently trying to get a bigger mp3 collection together to test this. I will copy from various sources several thousand mp3 files and test this.
As for our usual testing we do not have such huge collections. There might be a limitation of how much the player is capable of reading.
I will try to increase the amount of tracks by 1000 everytime. Will let you know when i have results but this might take a day or two again.

Sorry for any inconveniences!

Any luck with this ARNE?

I was getting the exact same message earlier today after getting my mini hd2 to index my NAS with approx 13,000 items of mp3, photos and movies. It would show me "all files" but if I tried to change to artist or album it would say "database not ready" or "no data" .

I think you'll continue to get that until it has fully indexed all the content as far as it is concerned then it will work as it should, mine did after a couple of hours of just leaving it on scanning.

thanks for your input, but mines still doing it! and it finished scanning ages ago! when i turn it on it does a bit (normally folders i have seen before. then it just says scanning (assume this means its not really doing anything?

Not sure when i first posted this but it was a while back and I turn it on a fair bit! and still get the message! I'll try leaving it on for a few hours when i get in tonight!