Post Your Sync Issues Here

 Hordus wrote:

Hi Solar257,

Thanks for combining these threads. 

I tried all of the following suggested workarounds:

            *Snip
The problem is still there.  This time another group (62 of them) is getting synced over and over again.  As you mentioned, I was able to locate these multiple copies on the device, but not on the software.  Tagging with UTF-8 format using ID3 v2.4UTF-8 did not help.  Any other ideas how to fix this?

Hordus,
Try this:

1. Download Windows ASF Viewer
2. Open up one of the problematic songs and one of similar attributes from within ASF Viewer to see if they have the same ZuneMediaID
   
• Songs with the same ZuneMediaID may be titled similarly (as seen in my post on the previous page)
  
• Have a track number of 4 or 7 (No, really - ask lukgunner)
• Or some other common factor that hasn't been identified yet
  
3. Look for the 'PRIV: Private Frame' folder which contains the 'ZuneMediaID' field, if the circled value is the same in more than track, then you're dealing with songs with identical ZuneMediaID's
• To look at multiple windows at once in ASF viewer, hit the lower maximize (square) button in the upper righthand corner. If you don't you second window will be opened on top of the other.

Now I need some football and sleep, unfortunately I can't do both at the same time...

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Zune MVP
Contributor, http://www.insidethecircle.net

Have a track number of 4 or 7

Forget about that :-) ...that was for Zune Team to identify in the catalog database! :-D (that occured only with one album, not with other ones)

I downloaded the ASF Viewer and opened two problematic songs.  They do not have the same UniqueID.  However, they differ by only a pair of numbers, for example 8D is missing on one of them.  So, I guess we can conclude they do not have the same UniqueID. 

I will try the other one, tyring to edit those individual song tags one at a time.  I will report that.  I feel like we are dealing with problems that the programming team should have solved long ago.  I mean, we all have limited amount of time and patience.  I echo Apple's question on their promotion of Mac "How much time have you spent troubleshooting your PC?".

Thanks.

Just wanted to get this thread in My Forums so I could refer back to it.

So far, I have not tried the synching thing yet, but I will and will want to look up questions/problems.

Dale

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I never said I was smart, just pretty to look at...

I downloaded the ASF Viewer and opened two problematic songs.  They do not have the same UniqueID.  However, they differ by only a pair of numbers, for example 8D is missing on one of them.  So, I guess we can conclude they do not have the same UniqueID.

Hordus, the problem is not between problematic songs...problematic songs has the same UniqueID of some non-problematic ones.
Want to try one thing?? Close Zune Software. Open mp3tag, put a problematic file on it.
Take a look in Options menu, under TAGS-->MPEG...it should be like this (specially under the "remove" section):

Screenshot

After that click OK, select the song, and then the big red X in the toolbar (remove tag).
After that rewrite tags by hand and save. Re-open zune software and see if the file is still problematic.

I disconnected my zune while syncing because it was stuck in sync mode and now

My zune wont sync. The zune program doesnt even detect my zune when i have it connected. Also my zune doesnt play anything.

 

have you updated your zune software?

 lukgunner wrote:

I downloaded the ASF Viewer and opened two problematic songs.  They do not have the same UniqueID.  However, they differ by only a pair of numbers, for example 8D is missing on one of them.  So, I guess we can conclude they do not have the same UniqueID.

Hordus, the problem is not between problematic songs...problematic songs has the same UniqueID of some non-problematic ones.
Want to try one thing?? Close Zune Software. Open mp3tag, put a problematic file on it.
Take a look in Options menu, under TAGS-->MPEG...it should be like this (specially under the "remove" section):

Screenshot

After that click OK, select the song, and then the big red X in the toolbar (remove tag).
After that rewrite tags by hand and save. Re-open zune software and see if the file is still problematic.

I am confused all the more.  Earlier somebody else suggested that I should use UTF-8 format, but your screenshot shows UTF-16 format.  Which one should I select in Mp3tag?

I have no idea how fix this using ASF Viewer.

@ Ibanezrg

    Yeah, first make sure your software is up to date. Second I'd recommend trying to reboot the Zune (Hold 'Back Button' + 'Up D-pad'), maybe that'll sort things out.

@Hordus

    lukgunner is right, I made a mistake in my original description. You have to find a song on your problematic list and one that is potentially similar (using the above criteria) that is already in your library and does not sync every time you connect your device. The ZuneMediaID is binary data so its not editable by you. Also, ASF Viewer is only a tag viewing utility, no editing is possible with this program.

The screenshot looks to be an example of where you can change the format of your ID3 tags in Mp3Tag. Since both Vista and Zune write ID3v2.3ISO-8859-1, I'd recommend using that format in rewriting your tags. You can use UTF-8 if you want, but I think the software will only see the ID3v1 tag (if that) that is written to it. Alternatively to lukgammers method of rewriting your tags by hand, and assuming you've already chosen your preferred format of writing tags. you can:

• Right click on the song
• Select "Tag copy"
• Select "Remove tag "
• Select "Tag paste"

This process works for a single file as well as selecting a list of files.

With regards to the deletion of ZuneMediaID tags, I still don't know if this works as I haven't had time to really understand the process, so far I've only been able to delete the tag from two songs (for lack of time not ability), one of which was not seen by the software before. I still haven't seen what happens if the software rebuilds the library using (will those tags be rewritten?) or if by reformatting my device and I able to bypass the problem of songs syncing repeatedly (hopefully the tags aren't rewritten upon the sync or resync process). If anyone else is experiencing these problems, by all means experiment (backup your songs and data...just in case) and post your syncing results.

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Zune MVP
Contributor, http://www.insidethecircle.net

Update: utter catastrophe! my graphics card died (I'm using on-board right now) and then an hour after that my computer froze while I was working on my A's I had to restart and every artist that started with 'A' was without tag info of any kind. I spent most of last night getting back to where I started Sunday afternoon.
MusicBrainz was a big help.

If there's anyone else who's willing to try to fix the multiple sync problem by playing around with their ZuneMedisID's, I'd love the company. Even better would be a response from the Zune Team (progress?, recommendations?, team findings?). Having your music on your device is all well and good, even it it is all mixed up, but having your music on your device, again, again, and again would seem like more of a show stopper because you're running out of space (quickly) with every sync.

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Zune MVP
Contributor, http://www.insidethecircle.net

Hi Solar157 and lukgunner,

I just wanted to update you on the tagging issue.  I have manually changed two of the problematic songs' tags to ID3v2.3ISO-8859-1 after removing their existing tags.  I launched the software, and no, it still syncs.

I noticed one other thing.  During each sync process of these same songs, my storage classifications interchange.  In other words, sometimes the software reports that the "Reserved space" is 73 GB and "Music" to be 2GB.  But other times, it reports these the other way around.  What the heck is going on?

I am running out of space on the device because of these repeated syncs.  My music is usually around 55 GB total.  The rest is filled up because of the repeated sync.  After one more sync, the player will become useless and there will be no purpose to keep it.  I do not want to return the product, but do I have any other option?

Hordus I've run into the same problm as you. First, I think the software displaying your entire collection as reserved space is a bug, I've seen it too. Second, the issue of 'sync creep' (each sync eats into your free space) is real and its annoying. I've cleared my device more times than I can count. After reading about the issue with identical ZuneMediaID's being given to the same song I got suspicious. If I could remove the ZuneMediaID and make sure it didn't come back, I might have a fighting chance in stopping a file from duplicating.

I think I have a temporary solution and it involves reformatting your tags to get rid of the ZuneMediaID. Here are my parameters.

• Zune software open, and set not to "automatically update album information"
• Device cleared of all songs, using the reboot/device clear method of 'back'+'up' to reboot and then 'back'+'center'+'right' pressed immediately afterward, making sure not to connect it to the computer (just yet)
  

First, to remove the ZuneMediaID from all my music:

I retagged my entire library (v2.3ISO), using the Mp3Tag solution above of "copy," "remove tag" and "paste." As I did this, the software would continually update itself, adding 'Unknown Album,' 'Unknown Artist' for each song that had its tag stripped, and then re recognize the song after Mp3Tag would add back all the information.

Second, to make double sure the software didn't rewrite the tag afterwards:

I set my the properties of my entire library to 'Read-Only' after I was finished reformatting all my tags.

Finally, I connected my device to my computer and synced all the songs to my device.

After disconnecting the devince, exiting the program and reconnecting the device, nothing was synced.

A few notes, thoughts, and questions (skip this if you want to):

• By no means is this a final solution, it's too early to consider it that.
  
• I reformatted the tags of my whole library, because I noticed that some songs had the PRIV tag frame (it's the tag description where the ZuneMediaID lives) and some didn't.
  
• Half way through the retag process, I noticed that even after a complete removal and rewrite of their tag information, some songs still showed up as being on the device even though they weren't (remember I had reformated my device), I don't have an exact list of which songs were in this category, but two were off of Justin Timberlake's Futuresex/Lovesounds CD (Track 5 &6). I don't remember them exhibiting the behavior of continually resyncing to the device.
• I didn't remove the ZuneAlbumArt from the folders
• I didn't rebuild my library database by deleting 'ZuneStore.sdf'
• My total software collection total of 3823 is still off from my Mp3Tag collection of 3839. I would expect the software total to be within 1 of the Mp3Tag total. I have one .ogg file.
• In looking up these totals, I realized that I forgot to retag my 'Comedy' folder. I'm thinking the 'read-only' did the trick, as I had two songs in that folder that would resync and the software still reads one of them incorrectly, even though the tags are correct (as verified by ASF Viewer) - its similar to this thread
• Does the Zune read the UFID tag frame?
• There should be a way to automatically delete albums from the software collection that do not have tracks in them. From this process I have 3429 albums in my collection yet I have 1711 albums on my device.
• Since Mp3Tag has the ability to delete the PRIV tag frame, I think the two programs I posted previously aren't necessary. ASF Viewer still is, because it lets you see what tags are in the file.
  
• If some of the album art I extract from Mp3Tag is in .bmp & .png form (both are formats that are acceptable to store album art in byt the ID3tag format recommendations) and the Zune device is able to display that abum art while the file itself is read-only, does the Zune theoretically support .bmps and .pngs?
• During the process of my initial resync back to my device, I canceled and resumed the sync process twice. I was trying to catch a bus, and missed one... then my friend missed the next one, we both caught the third(!). However, the sync progress resumed right where it left off each time I reconnected the device and finished in its entirety the third time without any difficulty.
• I wonder which process actually worked, the read-only or decision to not let the software auto update missing information.
• What happens if I rebuild the library with read only mp3's?
• I've disconnected and reconnected the device about 4 times throughout writing this post.
• How long will this solution last, will the software re-write the tags?
• Could a Zune Team member tell me if I'm going in the right or leading myself in circles as a temporary fix?
• Even without an image tag frame, the software is still displaying some songs with album art, some of which I added personally, others which are in folders where the ZuneAlbumArt file does not match up to the picture or there is no folder picture at all.
• This method is similar to what lukgunner tried in his thread after seeing the songs come back, what I added was the step of making the files read only.
  

Well thats it, I removed the ZuneMediaID and the made double sure the software couldn't put it back, I realize my plays in my tag will not update, but thats a feature I can live without. Over the next couple of days I'll try to pare it down and see what happens in different situations, right now I'm happy I can plug in the device and have it tell me it's 100% up to date without adding a number of new songs each time.

Edit: Added pictures

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Zune MVP
Contributor, http://www.insidethecircle.net