[tankslappa]

My problem is back!

This is what I have done in the past hour.

Exported my contacts to vcf onto memory card. Removed the card.

*#7370# - hard reset

Went through all that... Then remembered I hadn't wiped mass storage.

Wiped mass storage (Which it kept complaining it couldn't do until I removed all the default active apps on the front screen). After removing them it eventually formatted it

*#7370# - hard reset

Let it get settled...

Connected to USB, did a firmware update check. 2.00.19, no update available. Disconnected USB.

Removed all the front screen **bleep**, added shortcut 2, put my normal shortcuts onto it.

Added my wifi destination

Opened the browser, went to google.co.uk via my wifi, added that as bookmark

Put the memory card back in (there are no apps on it, I never got round to using it for anything).

Imported my contacts back from the memory card.

Went into music player, zero tracks shown. Good.

Connected USB, started Nokia Music PC application (latest version, had checked). Right clicked on one album 13 tracks.

Let it send them over to the N97.

Disconnected phone. Started N97's music player. It says music library corrupt, scanning... Says 13 tracks found.

Artists shows one artist, 13 tracks. Albums shows 1 album. All looks good.

Go into the album, pick on a track, starts playing.

Volume control does nothing. Touch volume control does nothing. Headset remote control, volume, forward and reverse do nothing. Touch screen pause/play forward and reverse do work, but there is no way to control volume.

I've screwed up this music player app before the Nokia system has even got round to sending me the Welcome text message (which I have seen too many times!).

Okay, I'm going to write the next bit line by line as I do it... So bear with me... It's step by step. You never know, it might help anyone that gives a damn (Nokia hopefully), fix it!

*#7780# - soft reset

Front screen now just shows shortcuts1 and 2, but the shortcuts themselves have switched back to Nokia's defaults.

Music player volume now works!

Connect to USB, send another mp3 album. PC app says (and shows on the %age bar) transferring 5 tracks. Album has 18. Nokia Music system tray icon says complete after 5, but the little arrows shows things are still being transferred. Waited for them to finish. Click the N97 icon and it's showing both albums, with all 18 tracks the second one really does have.

Disconnect USB

Go into Music library on N97, no auto refresh message. Showing only the original album with 13 tracks.

"Options\refresh library" nothing shows as scanning, just appear straight back at the artist,album,playlist option screen. Albums still shows just the first one.

Option\music library details says 13 tracks

Playback and volume still work.

Using the file manager, mass storage, music there's my 2nd artist, the album, and all the mp3 files. I can click them and play them. Volume still works.

Select original (found) album, select delete. Everything shows 0, even though 2nd album is there in the mass memory, file mgr shows it. First artist and albums folders are still there, but empty (Nice house keeping Nokia).

Reconnect USB, Nokia Music just shows the "invisible" 2nd album, and will play it.

Pick a 3rd album of 11 tracks... Send that to N97.. No progress bar or anything shown, just wait for the arrows to stop flashing and then confirm N97 is showing two albums (the invisible on and new one) on the PC app.

Disconnect USB.

Back on the N97... Apps, Music.. Says Music Library 11 songs (that's the 3rd album)... Go into it..

Albums (no songs)

All songs (no songs)

Artists: The artist from 3rd album is shown... 11 songs!

Click it... Shows the album name, 11 songs.

Click the album, and click the first track to play it... Long delay of a few seconds...

Starts playing... Volume not working again!

Try refresh library... again, nothing, no progress bar...

No change, no volume control.

Now here's the really weird bit... If I go and find the mp3 file on the mass storage, and play it from there, volume control works! Come back through the music play app, play the same track, volume won't work.

*#7780# - soft reset

Welcome message, yeah yeah... Ooooh, very fast confirmation text message...

Apps, Music, Music Library (11 songs), go into that, click Albums.... "Cannot perform whilst USB connected" **bleep**?I disconnected that ages ago when i said I did. After that every attempt to go into Albums dumps me back to the Music app showing "Last player - blank" "Music Library 11" etc etc...

Exit all the way out and try to go back in...Artists does the "USB connected" error. Albums just dumps me out. Playlists says "File corrupt". All songs say "(no songs)". Podcasts and Genres say "USB connected", composers "General system error" and after that I get a couple of other system errors from other options and then it just dumps me back out.

*#7780# - soft reset

Ovi welcome... blah blah...

Apps, music, music library (11 songs), go into it, option\refresh... Ooooh, something happens, a progress bar! 18 files added! That's 3rd album...

Albums show both... Artists show both

Pick one for playback... Volume control is back!

Right... Time to try a different tack...

Connect USB, mass storage mode this time (all previous attempts have been PC suite mode).

Create a now folder in music for the artist name (as stored in ID3 tag), create subfolder in that for the Album name (as stored in ID3). Copy mp3 files.

Eject USB device, wait for windows to confirm... It does.

Disconnect USB cable.

App\music\Music Library (29 songs - Thats the two previous albums). Go into it, previous tracks shown, playback/volume okay.

Refresh library works again... Now 3 albums, volume works.

Back to USB (mass storage mode).

This time deliberately doing the storage structure wrong... \music\albumname\mp3s (normally \music\artist\albumname\mp3s).

Music library still showing the 48 tracks from the first 3 albums... Seems to open a bit slower... Still works though.

Refresh library... 13 files added...

4 albums... All working...

Looking with file mgr from badly arranged folder is still as I made it... I guess the Nokia Music PC app creates the tree format, and the N97 doesn't actually need it.

Okay, proof of pudding test...

Connect via USB (mass storage).

Delete the album I created with the mangled folder structure.

Copy 20 folders of mp3 albums across using just windows file manager to the mass storage drive's music folder.

Eject USB storage device from windows....

Oh... Up until now I was almost certain I would be able to use N97 as an MP3 player as long as I avoided the Nokia Music PC app...

Apps\Music\music library shows 61 songs, which is what it had...

Go into it, click albums and I'm getting the USB device connected message. It's not, and the icon isn't even showing on the phone, so I can't go into the player to see if volume works.

Refresh isn't displaying anything, or doing anything I can see. Playlists say the file is corrupt...

*#7780# - Soft reset

Apps\Music\music library (61 songs).. go in, "Repairing corrupted library. Searching for music and podcasts"

After a little while... 2 hundred and something found...

Yup, all there...

Guess what...

Volume control is screwed again!

Manually telling it to scan for new tracks doesn't do anything.

*#7780# - Soft reset

Apps\Music\music library (276 songs)... Go in "Repairing corrupted library....."

2 seconds later "Search complete 0 file(s) added"

All albums there, still no volume control.

Okay, that enough... No more...

Hopefully that is enough to give Nokia a clue as to what is wrong, and may I just make a slight suggestion.

TEST WITH MORE THAN HALF A DOZEN TRACKS YOU **^(*&)(*)(*(*£$%^*(#!

I'm off to buy a 7lb club hammer.

[j1mmyg88]

yeah i had the volume control bug, it either just happens and is a case of taking the battery out with the phone turned on and then putting it back together turning it on, or ith appened when i had opened up mobbler before the music player.

hope that lil bit of information helps

[tankslappa]

Nice! (That's very sarcastic by the way)... I'd rather not just go pulling the battery, it's good enough at corrupting it's own files without me helping! lol!

Does anyone out there know where it hide this mystical music library database so I can just delete that and let it try and rebuild it again from scratch?

[tankslappa]

Right, had a little dig about...

I installed Y-Browser on the phone to let me look in places Nokia's built in file mgr doesn't let you.

I remembered c:\system\cache from the V11/V12 web browser eats all the C drive days, and I had a thought... I wonder if that is where the mysterious music library database thing might live...

I also remembered I used to delete this folder all the time with V11/V12 and it never seemed to cause me any problems...

So I deleted it.

Tried to go into the music play, it threw a bit of a mental at me.

Turned phone off, turned it back on again...

It stuttered back into life, but a bit reluctantly.

Went into apps\music and music library showed nothing... Hmmmm... promising. Curiously it had a last track played shown though :-/

Went into the music library and said "refresh library"... Off it went...

A few minutes later and it had finished, all tracks found, picked one, played, volume works! Yay!

Try the web browser... Seems to have an issue...

Phone isn't happy though.

Seems a bit slow, and trying to go into the music player again produces a memory error.

Turn off, restart...

Comes back up... Then on it's own it seems to hop round a few screens like contacts and messages (like it does when you do a soft reset) and then reboots... Ooops...

It did that a couple of times.

Eventually it settled down again (I left it for a few minutes!).

c:\system\cache is now full of folders, but it all looks to be browser related stuff... :-/

apps\Music says 276 songs, but clicking Music library won't play any of them, various errors like "USB connected" or just dumping me back to the Music app or all the way out.

Who knows, but I feel another hard reset, and maybe a complete firmware reload coming on... Especially if I can find a way to install V12 again!

I'm off to work on my cranium/baked clay vertical barrier interface.

Message Edited by tankslappa on 05-Nov-2009 04:48 PM

[tankslappa]

Last night I had a thought...

I wondered if the N97's Music player was getting upset when scanning my music because I had the jpg of the album cover in the folder with it (I tend to do that). As I hadn't bothered reloading any music since my last hard reset I thought I would give it a try.

I removed all non-mp3 files from my music folders.

Connected N97 in PC Suite mode

Started Nokia Music PC app and transferred one album. Let it finish, closed the PC Nokia Music app, gave it a few seconds to settle, disconnected the N97 and had a look.

It appeared in the music player and worked.

Ooooh, right, in for a penny, in for a pound as they say... I connected it back up and sent over another 6 albums. Again closed the Nokia Music app... Waited a few seconds and disconnected the N97.

Went and had a look... "Library corrupt, scanning.... blah blah"... Oh dear, here we go again. But no, a progress bar actually appeared, and after a minute it said "0 file(s) added", but they were all there. All the album art appeared (I'd already embedded that in the mp3 files days ago). All the albums, all the music.

They played, and the volume worked!

Yay! Thinks me... Solved... And goes to bed a happy man.

I set my alarm (on the phone) for the morning and turn the phone off so nobody can phone me before my alarm (which really screws up my sleep!).

This morning the alarm goes off.

I hit stop. It asks if I want to turn the phone on, I say yes.

It asks for my lock code (which I have enabled). I enter it. It says code correct.

Flash of white on the screen... and it asks for my lock code again, which I enter... It says correct again.

This time I get the Nokia tune.

It comes up to the normal front screen, jumps itself onto the application screen, throws up a system error and reboots.

It comes back up (without asking for a pin) and this time settles at the front screen looking for all the world like a working phone... A text message arrives to prove at least that's working.

Hmmm... I wonder about my music...

Well it's all there... But guess what... Volume control doesn't work again!

Oh and clicking "Podcasts", of which I have zero, still produces, and has always produced (even straight after a hard reset), the message "Out of memory, please remove something"... Pressing it again produces "System Error". After that nothing in the Music Library menu works, all produce "System Error". You have to close it and restart to get anything in Music Library to "work".

I wouldn't say I am short of memory. DeviceInfo (from moubail.com) Shows

C: 32.68 MB free

E: 30116.46 MB free

F: (8Gig card) 7120.86 MB free

RAM: 48.83 MB free.

I keep my C: drive clear of everything. Even my text message storage has been switched to E: (not that I have may since all the hard/soft reboots. Most of them are the "Welcome to nokia" message. Anything that gives me the option to install to another "drive" gets put onto E:

I haven't installed any of the 3 files offered in since the hard reset "SW Update", N-Gage, Nokia Messaging or Ovi Contacts.

[elon65]

While we're talking about/critiquing the N97's default music player, why no folder play with the v2.0 firmware? They must realise that people have listened to compilations of their own music collection since the humble compact cassette . . .

[j1mmyg88]

thats where the playlist feature comes into play

[elon65]

The thing with the playlist functionality (because of the lack of folder play) is you have to re-do all your compilation folders AGAIN, which you don't have to do for any half-decent MP3 player . . .

[tankslappa]

The N97's music arrangement is all based on the ID3 tags in the MP3 files.

If you get all your tracks together in one folder, in windows select them all, then right click, properties, summary and then give it an Album title of "My fave tracks 1" you should be able to find them together like that. You might need to individually change their track numbers to get them in the order you need.

You don't need to use windows to do this, you can use anything that edits ID3 tags. Even Nokia Music. There are some really good free ones out there that can sort out the track number you need for you.

[tankslappa]

May I recommend http://www.mp3tag.de/en/ for ID3 tag editing.

About halfway across the toolbar is "File - Tag" which extracts the tag information and puts it into the ID3 tag, its really very good.

[tankslappa]

Ahhh... I might have worked out a method of adding music to the N97 and having a working volume control! Although this is by no way a solution, it's a work around!

Connect USB in PC Suite mode.

Import the music you want, I used the Nokia Music PC app.

Once this has finished, close the Nokia Music application. Make sure it's completely closed. Leave it a few seconds at least.

Disconnect the USB cable from the phone, again, give it a few seconds to settle.

Go into the N97's Music app. You may, or may not see your new tracks at this point. If you do, try and play one. If you have a working volume you are better off than me... Mine wasn't working.

Exit out to the front screen. Soft reset *#7780#

Once it comes back up go back into Music... You will be told the library is corrupt... It scans and in my case found my previous music, but not the new stuff I had just sent over. Plus the volume wasn't control wasn't working.

Exit back to the front again.

Turn the phone off

Turn it back on again.

Go back into music, and select option / refresh library... And leave it alone... I got no progress bar, no indication it was doing anything, but I think if it had a hard drive light it would be going crazy.

Leave it alone, don't touch it!

After a little while (depending on how many new tracks you had added) it will beep and say "xx file(s) found", click OK.

Go into the music player and all the tracks are shown, and the volume works!

It is possible there is a shorter route than this, I hope to discover it as I'm fed up with having to change the shortcut and shortcut2 assignments back to my choices after the soft reset resets them all the Nokia's defaults, having to turn off the breathing standby light, sort out the default connection and set my wallpaper picture, but at least it's better than a hard reset!

I think the crucial step it the "library refresh" that doesn't show any progress bar or indication it's doing anything. In the past when I have tried this step and had no visual confirmation that is was doing anything I have assumed it was broken and closed the music app.

Someone else can test this theory for me if they like, right now I have all the music I want on the N97, and the volume control is working, so I'm not going to touch it!

Message Edited by tankslappa on 07-Nov-2009 04:08 AM

[tankslappa]

Silly me.. Not it wasn't going to be that simple...

Once night it was working, all tracks shown, volume and all remote controls working...

Go to bed.

Next morning try it...

Shows zero tracks!

Refresh library didn't do anything, and after leaving it for several hours nothing appeared.

Later the same day open the music player, "library corrupt, scanning...", and everything appears again and the volume control works!

All that without actually doing anything like resets or adding more tracks... It just randomly looses/finds stuff!

[alienraider]

hi i have been reading your posts with great interest!! you must have a hell of a lotta patience!! what version of f/w are you running? i havent encountered this problem with the music player, but i do get annoyed that i have to do a refresh when i add new music... shouldnt the device just know there is more music available? keep us informed and good luck

[tankslappa]

I'm running 2.00.19... The latest (as far as I know).

I have opened a big report with Nokia, and they have replied (initially to say they system truncated my report!)... Nice to know their support site is as reliable as the music player!

As for patience, I'm a programer by profession, so I like to try to understand a problem, and also not give Nokia any reason not to be able to fix it!

Having said that, if I shipped code live with this many bugs I would be shot and out of business.

When yours does the refresh after new tracks are added, does it say "Library corrupt"? Because that is usually what mine does.

Next question, what happens if you select podcasts, on my phone is either throws up "USB Connected" or "Out of memory"... After that it generally just throws "system error" to any selection in the music player.

[tankslappa]

I think I've solved it!

The fact I was suffering this and nobody else was got me thinking, I wondered what I had that was different to everyone else (that's the programmers logic kicking in).

I have a MicroSD card with a password on it...

Now I have other issues with that as I unlock it, can access stuff, and then the phone locks it again at some point for no reason. I seem to forever be entering the password, even though the phone doesn't ever get turned off.

The card shouldn't have any music tracks on it, but it might have an old mp3 ring tone, I'm not sure, I'll have to check.

I removed the card... Went into the Music player, it automatically started scanning for music... Added 0... But they start up and play faster, and the volume works.

Selecting "refresh library" instantly brings up the progress bar andit scans... Added 0 again.

Selecting Podcasts actually brings up the next screen showing I don't have any.

It works!

I'll leave this thread marked as unsolved for a bit as

1) I've had moments I thought I has worked it out before

2) Having to remove the MicroSD card is not a solution!

[Diamond72]

Hi tankslappa

I've got the exact same problem (also password on MicroSD card) and wondered if removing the card solved the problem? 

[drshoaib]

Hi, I had all the same problems which you had, and just yesterday I added password to my memory card, I started reading your thread and when I see you 11 Nov post, immediately removed the password and it worked

Thanks a lot for your post as it saved me from formatting and reformatting and re loading all data to the phone again, hope Nokia does something about this as well