Media Player 11 did not fit on Zen Xtra

[Amira]

I've been searching the web and this forum for hints on my particular problem I'm having with a Creative Nomad Zen Xtra 60 G running firmware 2.10.03 with MTP Plays For Sure functionality. Sorry, I can't document the trouble I had with Creative Mediasource, but because I have several MP3 players, I have tried to "standardize" on Windows Media Player to all of them. So, here is my problem, especially when loading a freshly formatted Nomad: I have a fairly large library, with almost 40 G worth of songs (15,066 songs in 838 folders arranged as E:\MusicLib\<album>\album-track-artist-song.mp3) , all in MP3 format (ripped from my CD collection). When I sync a freshly formatted Nomad, WMP goes quite a long way (I believe at least but probably more than 1/2 way) with no problems, then suddenly I get a dozen or so songs where it says "Did not fit on device" (even though there's 18G free space still on the device). Then, the remaining songs have a status of "Error". Clicking on the "Error" icon brings me to a Microsoft Help page with error code C00D11D2, which means WMP could not access the file, which gives the standard "Make sure the file is accessible." The files are still accessible.

[Maal-Gaadi]

If I reset my Nomad and start sync again, WMP will start synchronizing again, making its way further down my song list until the same thing happens again. Sometimes it only synchronizes a dozen or fewer songs; sometimes it synchronizes about 20 or so. I'm running Windows XP, Service Pack 3, Windows Media Player 11, and I have the library set up to use only a single folder I have on a different partition (E:\MusicLib), and I keep nothing in "My Music" because I want to carefully control the WMP Library. My Nomad is running 2.10.03 firmware, which is still the latest as far as I know. I tried formatting the Nomad using WMP, but it did not help. I have more than one Nomad running 2.10.03 and the problem is the same with all of them. I have tried different USB cables and different ports. It's taking me forever (several days) of resetting my Nomad and syncing a few songs, just to get the thing loaded. I'd love to find a solution so I can sync the whole thing at once.

[Kickapoo]

First off format the player directly. NOT thru WMP. Boot the player into Rescue? Recovery mode & format >cleanup>reboot. Have the battery charged & connected to the power supply while doing that. Then go ahead & load the player but do NOT try to sync the whole library at once do it smaller doses. (Like 1/4 at a time) After each session do a Cleanup>Reboot. Then continue until you’re done. In WMP the My Music folder is the Default for your music files. You may be getting the error because if you ripped the files with WMP & moved them after that WMP may be confused as to the location of the files. So recheck your configuration. I would delete all my music files from WMP & rebuild it after checking that the files are located where I want them then open the program & from the Library Tab of WMP choose add files to library & let it rebuild it again. I MUST caution you to check in the setting for WMP options under library that when you DELETE files from the library that it DOES NOT DELETE them from the computer & when you add files that it will add the files previously deleted from the folder you have assigned it to look in.

[Maal-Gaadi]

I have formatted the player using the recovery menu as well as with WMP, because both are the recommended and "only" ways to format, depending on who you listen to. No difference; however in the way WMP behaves. When I get to the point where WMP can only sync a small few files, if I do a Cleanup (from rescue mode), let the Nomad rebuild the library, I can usually get more files in before it clogs up again. Every time I do a fresh format, I lose a couple of day’s worth of work, so I'm not doing it again. I don't have any way to control how much of the library to synchronize once it has gotten past my playlists, unless I spend time creating more playlists for this purpose. With a 60 G Nomad, and a library suitable for that storage, that's a TON of music to deal with. I'm still trying to figure out whether this is a Windows Media Player issue, a driver issue, or a Nomad firmware issue. Since I have to reset the Nomad between each sync attempt, and occasionally do a cleanup, I'm guessing it's the Nomad, and since I've seen it on more than one unit, I'm guessing it's a firmware bug. I'm hoping someone else has seen this issue and has a better idea. I hate all my choices: Notmad is frustrating because I can't get my playlists to come across. Creative Media Source is less reliable than WMP, so that leaves WMP as the least aggravating way to sync, and it works flawlessly with my smaller sized Sansa Clip from the same library.

[Amira]

I don't think it's a bad disk, because it's happened with a 100G (OK, that one was hacked), plus a 30G upgraded to 60G and a 60G full factory player. Further, if a song does not fit during one sync session, and there is a disk problem, I would expect it not to fit the next session. However, in my case, once it starts to say songs "don't fit on device", if I reset the Nomad, suddenly the do it! WMP will sync a few more songs until it starts again with the "Did not fit" and generic "Error" status. I'm toying with the idea of doing manual sync's and trying small groups (A's, then B's, etc.) to see if the size of my "All Music" playlist is possibly the problem. It's still a pretty manual process, but I'd hate to have to go buy an iPod when my Nomad should give me years of service.

[Shikamaru Nara]

One of the complaints from people was the inability to fill their player to capacity. I have 3 Xtras 30GB/ 40GB / 60GB with the PFS firmware & have filled them to within a few mb of full. It may be that the drive has some bad sectors which could explain not being able to load beyond a certain point. As for formatting I think doing thru the player itself is best. Auto sync in my opinion is never a good idea. I have always had the settings for manual so I control what goes on a device. I have never run into the "not enough space on device" unless it truly did not have enough room.

[Kakashi Hatake]

OK, I reformatted my Nomad once again, from the rescue menu, not from WMP. I started manually syncing, starting with my custom play lists, and then taking groups of artists and syncing all their songs at once. I've made it up to the T's, and the problem has started again. Certain tracks will get "Did not fit on device", but later down, other tracks still synchronize. Once a track gets "Did not fit", it will have that status until I disconnect the Nomad and reconnect it (sometimes), power cycle the unit (sometimes), and sometimes I have to do a full reset before the problem tracks will get synchronized. Then the problem crops up later down the line. It seems when the Nomad is mostly empty I don't have the problem, but once it gets past the 1/2 way point, I start to have problems. All of my music is in MP3's, and it does not appear that any conversion is taking place. So, now I would like to hear from anyone who has possibly seen this problem, or anyone at Creative who has a good understanding of what goes on inside the unit who can shed some light on this problem. I work in IT on large servers and storage, so I have some idea of how things "should" work, but I'm sure there is a lot of mystery between the Plays For Sure interface and how the music actually gets stored on the Nomad's hard drive.

[Sn0w-Le0p@rD]

I think I have a handle on the issue now, so I'm going to give my advice to anyone out there who has a Nomad with a large drive and MTP software. I know this works with the Nomad Xtra, but your mileage may vary.
Problem:
The new MTP Plays For Sure firmware cannot handle a large number of music tracks, either because it doesn't have the space for the ID tags, or it's the folder structure, or simply the number of files. However, people seem to have problems with different numbers of files. In my case, it seems to stop around 9,000 or so songs. It is not a problem with Windows, Media Player, or the Creative software; it's a problem with Windows Explorer. In my case, I have close to 40G of music that won't fit on a 60G or 100G Nomad running 2.10.03, even after stripping tags such as album art and genre from the songs. So, what do you do with that 60G or 100G Nomad?
1: Go on eBay and find a Nomad Xtra that someone hasn't upgraded, or made brain dead. Be sure to ask what firmware is on the device, and make sure it's 1.xx.xx, and NOT 2.10.03.
2: Once you receive your new Nomad, find a Windows XP system that has NEVER had WMP 11 installed. (I spent several days trying different ways to remove WMP 11 and all its traces from one PC before I realized I had one that had never seen WMP 11.) Check the firmware, and if it's not 1.20.08, then download THAT version of the firmware from Creative and update it. (Go to Helen Hunt for it, the links change, so I'm not going to post a link here.)
WARNING: The following steps will result in LOSS OF ALL MUSIC ON BOTH NOMADS! If you care about this (like, if you want to sample the music that came on your eBay Nomad), use Creative Mediasource to copy the music to a folder of your choice.
3: Take apart your 2.xx and 1.xx Nomads and swap the hard drives. So, if you have a 30G and a 60G disk, make sure the MTP player gets the 30G disk, and the 1.20.08 gets the 60G.
4: Each player will now get a firmware error when you power it on, because it doesn't recognize the firmware on the current hard drive. You'll be put in Rescue Mode. Select Format All, and when that's done, select Reload firmware via USB. Launch the appropriate firmware update program. (Don't mix them up, or you'll end up with two MTP Nomads! 1.xx can be updated to 2.xx but not the other way around!)
5: Go into Rescue Mode again, run Disk Cleanup, then reboot and let it rebuild the library (a short process since its empty.)
6: Use Creative Mediasource, Gnomad2, MediaPrimate, or your choice of software to load songs on your Nomads. Note that WMP11 will NOT recognize your 1.xx Nomad, but Mediasource still will work and all your songs will fit!
I did this with a 30 and a 60G and it worked fine. Amazingly, all my music fit on the same 60G drive that didn't have enough room when it was in an MTP Nomad! I will now do the same with a 40 and 100G and see if I run into any problems with the 100G at 1.20.08.
Bottom Line:
If you have a 60G or larger Nomad, and haven't yet updated it to 2.10.03, DON'T! That's worth its weight in gold to Nomad users who've made that mistake! By the way, if your music collection fits on a 30 or 40G Nomad, and you're willing to deal with MTP, knowing you might still not be able to fill up the 40G, you can probably get some good deals on eBay looking for Nomads that have been made brain dead by a botched firmware upgrade. (All those WMP 11 users, you know!) If you get one of those, follow step 4 above, and you should be golden!