U3 and MediaMonkey "instability."

elayes · Post by **elayes** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 2:10 pm

Before I tell my tale of woe, let me say first that the woe is over now and that I have been totally enjoying the new 2008 MediaMonkey release for a couple of days or so now. :-) There have been some subtle but important changes to the way the System Tray button works, and I particularly enjoy those. (I tried the neat little taskbar player for awhile, but I've decided that even though it's tiny it just takes too much real estate on my 17" monitor.)

The bug: The "instability" mentioned in the readme file in connection with "certain portable devices (U3 keys)" is really terrible. There was a lot of having to do a hard reboot with the computer's physical power switch. Not good. If the problem cannot be solved or is deemed not worth the trouble of solving then there should at least be more than a cryptic one line note in the readme.txt file in the application folder. I even did a search on "u3" here in this forum and found nothing.

Finding that cryptic note in the readme.txt file is actually critical in tracking down and fixing that "instability" problem without having to cease using MediaMonkey altogether. I do not believe there are many technicians who would think to check for interference from a program that was not even supposed to be running. To all appearances I had turned the U3 system on my Sandisk Cruzer flash drive off. In actuality it was still active in the background.

Not only should there be something here about it, which is why I am writing this, there should also be more added to the readme.txt file about getting help with the alternative of uninstalling the U3 system from the "portable device" (along with a reinforcement to the warning in the U3 uninstall program to back up the data first as the flash drive is actually reformatted in the process).

Sandisk Cruiser flash drives come with the U3 system already installed. I wasn't interested in it and had just turned it off rather than bothering with figuring out how to get rid of it altogether. I am sure there are others who buy the popular Sandisk Cruiser flash drives just as a flashdrive, especially when the popularity of the U3 system is said to be fading. The advice in the MediaMonkey readme.txt file was to "remove the portable device." Me working at my computer without that flash drive plugged in is not an option.

Thanks for a wonderful program. I am actually pushing it with my family and friends. :-)

elayes · Post by **elayes** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 2:20 pm

P.S. For anyone who might be interested in the application portability function that the U3 system serves, see the preferred alternatives in the article "How to Put the Power of a PC on a ThumbDrive" on page 112 of the May 2008 issue of PCWorld. I can attest that MediaMonkey and the PortableApps system run just fine together.

P.P.S. For the sake of completeness, the little blue and grey flag that comes up briefly in the lower right corner to give information on each new track as it starts is another new MediaMonkey feature that I am particularly enjoying. These little things might seem minor, but last year's MediaMonkey was already an awesome program, hard to improve on. :-)

nohitter151 · Post by **nohitter151** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 6:22 pm

elayes wrote:...

I even did a search on "u3" here in this forum and found nothing.

...

http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23028

I do think there should be an FAQ entry for this.

elayes · Post by **elayes** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 7:40 pm

Thanks for that link, nohitter151. I thought there must have been some discussion somewhere, but for whatever reason the search engine here still does not turn up anything on "u3." Odd.

I think my solution of using the U3 uninstall program is better than the solutions Ludek gave at http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... 863#123863
You do have to back up the data from the flash drive, but, not having tried it without administrative privileges, having administrative privileges may not be necessary to run the special U3 uninstall program. And there is no problem with finding my audio CD player.

Jamo · Post by **Jamo** » Wed Aug 27, 2008 10:16 am

I searched for "U3" and found nothing... and then searched for "Cruzer" and found this page... with the word "U3" in it. The search function must ignore words with less than 3-4 characters.
http://mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic. ... cd#p161004

Fix by editing INI file · Wed Aug 27, 2008 10:28 am

The problem has to do with MediaMonkey's Virtual CD usurping the U3 CD drive. The only way it can be updated is by manually updated the INI file. I would be nice if this feature was exposed in the user interface as it could possibly cause problems with other virtual CD programs.

I've had this problem happen before and I do not want to disable the password protection that U3 offers. I produced a lot of free/open-source-loaded U3 drives for last Christmas as gifts. A pastor-friend of mine told me that his was stolen during a break-in as was glad that it was password protected as you don't want personal/private counseling notes to get into the wrong hands.

xhepera · Post by **xhepera** » Sat Aug 30, 2008 4:27 pm

Glad to have found this thread. I've been wondering what the devil was going on and finally realized that there seemed to be a conflict between my Cruzer and MM. I wish there was an actual, decent fix for this. Like some others, there's no way I'm giving up the U3 functionality. Say what you will about U3, it is useful for many people. The cavalier instruction to "ditch U3" is not an option. I use both U3 and PortableApps for different reasons. And I also wish that this had been documented much more clearly.

nohitter151 · Post by **nohitter151** » Sat Aug 30, 2008 4:43 pm

See http://www.mediamonkey.com/support/inde ... ticleid=33

xhepera · Post by **xhepera** » Sat Aug 30, 2008 8:40 pm

nohitter151 wrote:See http://www.mediamonkey.com/support/inde ... ticleid=33

Thanks so much for that pointer. I'll edit the .ini and see how it works. I appreciate the info!

xhepera · Post by **xhepera** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 3:59 pm

nohitter151 wrote:See http://www.mediamonkey.com/support/inde ... ticleid=33

I followed the instructions for changing the .ini but that was a no-go. Everything became unstable. Is that normal? I disabled the CD function of the thumb drive and that seems to be working okay, so far. I'll be relatively content as long as I can access my Thunderbird and Open Office apps which are, fortunately, on the Portable Apps section of the drive.

nohitter151 · Post by **nohitter151** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 6:44 pm

xhepera wrote:
nohitter151 wrote:See http://www.mediamonkey.com/support/inde ... ticleid=33
I followed the instructions for changing the .ini but that was a no-go. Everything became unstable. Is that normal? I disabled the CD function of the thumb drive and that seems to be working okay, so far. I'll be relatively content as long as I can access my Thunderbird and Open Office apps which are, fortunately, on the Portable Apps section of the drive.

You're sure you edited the correct .ini file?

xhepera · Post by **xhepera** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 1:30 am

nohitter151 wrote: You're sure you edited the correct .ini file?

Hmm. . .well, it was the one that resides at C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Application Data\MediaMonkey\mediamonkey.ini

U3 and MediaMonkey "instability."

U3 and MediaMonkey "instability."

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