Sync Random Subset to Device Capacity Not Working

[jaybea179943]

I have been successfully synchronising a collection to a Sony Walkman NWZ-S765 under MediaMonkey4. Having upgraded to 4.1, this has stopped working. Although it reports the capacity of the device correctly (14.1gb), it then lists all 47Gb of the collection for syncing, and does not prompt to remove any files. It then merrily transfers files until the device runs out of space.

I had this problem on the move to MM4, which I eventually solved by completely uninstalling all traces to MM and reinstalling. This did not work this time. I tired reformatting the Walkman, but again this did not work. I have temporarily solved the problem by creating a 13.5 GB random playlist and wiping the device manually before syncing, but that is not very convenient!

Any ideas, anyone? Is this a Walkman issue?

[nohitter151]

Are you certain that you haven't checked something for sync that you didn't intend to in the "Auto-sync list" tab? Maybe a playlist that contains the whole library or something?>

[jaybea179943]

When I first ran it, it was using exactly the same settings as before I upgraded to MM4.1, and what used to happen is that MM4 would prompt for the deletion of most of the tracks before filling the device again randomly from the items in the Collection.

I will play with it some more at the weekend and maybe try rolling back to the previous version of MM.

[Lowlander]

I believe all reports of wrong content being synced have been user error so far. Make sure that in the Device Profile (Tools > Options > Portable Device Sync) you've selected only the content you want synced. If you believe this is the case and the results aren't you should capture the sync in a debug log (step 4b) and send the log to support so the developers can see why: http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... ?f=12&t=69

[jleedsjr]

I'm seeing the exact same behavior - a very small subset of tracks is being deleted, perhaps just the ones that have been played since the last sync? This is not consistent with the behavior for auto-sync in previous versions - I've been using MM since 2.x. The auto-sync is also flaky about removing (at least) podcasts that have been listened to, although the setting is that only "unplayed" episodes should be synced. I think writing these claims off as "user error" is shortsighted; we're reporting errors and being TOLD that it's user error.

I'm also experiencing difficulty having MM allow my iPod Nano 6g to be ejected. If I exit MM and then connect via iTunes, iTunes will eject the iPod. I've got iTunes 11.0.2 right now; I'm looking in the forums for verification that MM 4.1.0 will work properly with the latest iTunes (11.1.5) before I upgrade that to see if it helps.

I'll look into doing a debug capture as well, but since I just synced the iPod an hour ago, I'll probably want to play some music before trying again. (Since the 4.1 upgrade, if I try to resync without playing anything, nothing updates at all, which is where my guess that only tracks that have been played on the iPod are being deleted.)

The sync is using a collection, and is currently set to "Sync random subset of selected files up to device capacity", "Delete all other media files", and "Confirm deletion".

[Lowlander]

I merely stated that so far it has been user error when users see more files synced then they think they have selected and said that if you don't believe this to be the case to capture a debug log as that will show what is happening during sync.

As for eject, had MediaMonkey finished the sync? If that's the case a debug log would help troubleshoot this.

As for Podcasts, is it removing to many episodes or not enough episodes?

[jleedsjr]

I should be able to set up to capture a debug log tonight. To answer the other questions:
1) Yes, the sync is finished. If I launch iTunes, iTunes can successfully eject the iPod, even while MediaMonkey is still running.
2) Not enough podcasts are being removed. Only unplayed episodes of podcasts should be synced, and any that have been played should therefore be removed. Podcasts that have already been played are being left on the iPod.

All of this worked perfectly under 4.0.7.

[Lowlander]

2) Are they full played (play count of 1) or partially (play count of 0.x)?

[jleedsjr]

It appears that the problem I have had ejecting my iPod nano is related to Remote Desktop. I'm using an older laptop as my media server, and often connect to it through RDP just to limit the number of screens on my desk. Somehow, MM finds that as the iPod being in use, but iTunes does not. Anyway, that's answered.

The sync continues to act differently in MM 4.1.1 than it did in previous versions. This applies to any sync I do (I have a total of four iPods for the family that all get synced to a single MM system), using a collection with the option to "Sync random subset of selected files up to device capacity" and then both sub-options selected, along with automatic deletion (with confirmation) of "All other media files".

In previous versions, the logic appeared to be like this:
1) MM would generate the list of files to be synced, using those criteria.
2) MM would prompt to remove any files not in the list.
3) MM would remove the files, then sync all the new files.

Here's what it appears to do now:
1) MM determines what files on the iPod are no longer in the collection.
2) MM generates a list of files, which always includes all those files on the iPod that were not identified in step 1.
3) MM prompt for deletion of files not in the list, which is really just the files identified in step 1.
4) MM syncs the new files.

The reason I believe this is because, if I sync an iPod, and then sync it again, no changes are ever made. This was not the case in previous versions of MM. If I remove some files from the iPod, and then sync, files are synced over to fill that space, but no files are removed by the sync.

This is annoying, because I use my iPod to listen to both podcasts and music files. And basically, once I've listened to the podcasts, I like to reload them. I'd just as soon the music changes then too, whether I've listened to it or not.