I got notice from the libmtp bug tracker that one of the developers has just acquired a Clix (1st gen) to help review the issues that apparently are exclussive to the Clix in regards of how does it work with libmtp (and associated programs).

There's already a fix in CVS so it should cascade into a release soon-ish, however the deffinitive fix will come as the developers further study the behavior of the player and libmtp. Currently, though, mtp-folders no longer crashes nor jams the communication with the Clix if a cartain amount of files are on the player, so now all files are listed correctly (there was a problem with regards the number of files, somewhere between how the player querried them and sent back the information to the computer) with both 1.11 and 2.0x firmwares.

In the mean time, if you have experienced the problem (all working just fine, until a certain file number is reached at which point neither synchronization nor list of files will work), the only work around known is to create a new recording to bump up the file count and pass this "threshold", once you finish you operations you may delete the recording from within the Clix, but there's no telling that the remaining files will not be that strange number. I hope the guys over at libmtp are able to solve this issue once and for all.

The magic file count isn't by any chance 256 is it?

Can you give me an idea of what commands mtp-folders is using?

__________________
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

To tell you the truth, I'm not all that sure, I have many more than 256 files on my Clix and the error has occured at apparently "random" file counts, but it could be that power of 8 numbers or multiples of 256 cause this.

Just to bump up this thread with some more good news. There is alerady a fix for this in libmtp CVS, it is VERY advisable for those interested to install this version of libmtp and report back to the developers so a new release could be made with these fixes in place. These fixes are known to work for Clix 1st gen with firmwares versions 1.11 and 2.01, if there are any Linux users with 4Gb Clixes, it is very important that you provide your feedback!

I have had some Amarok crashes when synchronizing my data, but these don't seem to be directly related to libmtp, for me the library alone and through Gnomad2 is working 100% better now (with the fix). It may have something to do with how my library is setup (thorugh a Samba share which is automatically mounted at boot on my system, and the lag in the network may be the underlying cause for Amarok to fail, I have yet to isolate this issue).

Well, just to announce that version 0.1.4 of libmtp is already out (and has been apparently for some time) and should be already in many of the different distros repositories for all to enjoy. This version features the fixes for Clix firmwares, so there's no longer the file number limits, there's also a workaround where Amarok would simply crash while transfering some files (apparently due to MTP syntax and lack of response). All in all, a very solid release which works like charm with the Clix.

Now I wonder how well does it work with other iriver MTP products like the U10, E10, Clix2, etc. I would assume that it would simply just work.

Brand spankin' new Clix 4GB user here, I just want to say amaroK 1.4.5 cooperates flawlessly with libmtp 1.5.0 over here . Gnomad2 fails to read/transfer Vorbis tags though.

It also seems impossible to move over filenames to the Clix containing special characters like : and / (which especially on Windows cannot be circumvented, on Linux they can get escaped). It's a bit annoying but no showstopper, and I supposed this is linked to the nice integration iRiver and Microsoft thought would be so good...

Indeed this is a known limitation of Gnomad, which was originally made for the Nomad Crative players, which only supported mp3 and wma, hence these are the only tags it reads. Apparently they'll be working on support for Vorbis tags as well.
You are correct. Some characters (and particularly ':') are problematic to sync (through Amarok, anyway), however you can still sync such files if you do it from command line, avoiding shell interpretation which seems to be cause of Amarok's failure (i.e. it doesn't escape such characters when parsed to libmtp)

Posted this on the libmtp forums too:


I've just tried using libmtp with my 8GB Clix2, and I am getting the following error when I sudo mtp-detect:

WMPInfo.xml Does not exist on this device
PTP: Closing session
inep: usb_get_endpoint_status(): Connection timed out
outep: usb_get_endpoint_status(): Connection timed out
usb_clear_halt() on IN endpoint: Connection timed out
usb_clear_halt() on OUT endpoint: Connection timed out
usb_clear_halt() on INTERRUPT endpoint: Connection timed out
OK.

Do I need the Clix to be connected to Windows Media Player at some point for this to work?

No, alas, you shouldn't run mtp-detect as root either. Try if Amarok or Gnomad2 can connect to it.

Oh OK, I tried mtp-detect as a regular user, and it didn't even get this far...

I can connect fine with Amarok, but only in UMS mode. I think I'll stick to UMS, since it's working fine.

Also gmureddu (you seem to be the Linux guru around here, but if anyone else knows the answer, feel free to comment!), what's the story with Album art and Clix2 on Linux? From reading around the forum, it seems that you need either WMP or IP3, is that really the case? do we poor penguin people get stiffed again?

So I got Album art working in Linux + UMS/MSC!!

Simply add the image in easyTAG, and resync using amarok and it should work.

This was how I did it:

I used the Cover art manager in Amarok to get all the cover art for my albums.

This should create images in a somewhere in folder ~/.kdeapps/amarok/ (sorry I don't have the full/correct path at the moment as I'm at work, but I'll edit this evening).

I then used imagemagick to convert this to 75x75 jpegs:

>cd ~/.kdeapps/amarok/albumart
>mkdir ~/albumart
>foreach f ( * )
?convert $f -resize 75x75 ~/albumart/$f:r.jpg
?end

With my folder containing my 75x75 jpegs. I then opened a Nautilus window alongside easyTAG and 'drag and dropped' from Nautilus into easyTAG.

After saving all files in easyTAG, I went back into Amarok, and removed and re-added all music back to the Clix.

Having looked around ubuntuforums.org it seems that there are a few programs that can automate this step, so I'll have a look this evening, and I'll let you all know if the process can be improved...