Trouble with the Recording Feature
 

Hello all,

I'm new and Junk. I purchased a 1GB mp4 player from a Hong Kong place on ebay (Looks like a NANO). for my wife a couple months ago, and everything worked great so just yesterday I got my very own 4GB version from an ebayer in New Jersey.

Everything seems to function except the record feature.
when I scroll to the record option and hit the "M" button to select record the MP4 player resets, (Hour Glass screen back to main menu)

Firmware screen says
SC85051f
2006/04/25
ACI_V3.5.35

I've read on here about the hacked 4GB players. So I did this to test it.

1)I loaded as much as I could on to it (still haven't burnt all my CD's)
2)I went to windows explorer and hit properties on the flashdrive E:
It said there were 302MB on the player
3)I loaded 152 MB worth of pictures to the player
4)Rechecked the E: and it said it had 454MB on it.

I'm hoping that is enough to verify it's 4GB's without downloading any programs.

So does anyone know about the Recorder??
Also is there an english manual, Mine is translated so poorly it's not funny

Thanks

Re: Trouble with the Recording Feature
 

FourJacks, try extracting, repairing and re-flashing your existing firmware back into your player. See if the problem still persists.
It could be that might be some hardware issues with the processor thingy.

You have 2 ways of testing your player's real memory capacity, either by filling it up with mp3s & movie files to the maximum and make sure the last few files being copied in plays correctly. Or the faster way would be to format the player using the Disk Tool or HP Format Tool.

But seems like there is no evidence of 4GB players in the market currently, be prepared if you end up with much lesser memory capacity originally. Either way, contact your seller if either problem occurs.

FourJacks,
It could be a hardware problem, but if you bought the player as a 4GB it is most likely a hack problem as the ATJ2085 chip that powers 90% of these players will only support a maximum of 2GB memory.

Unfortunatly loading 500MB of files to it is not going to tell because it could be a 1 or 2GB hacked chip. Problems only generally start showing once you start loading over the chips true size.

If you remove all the files from your player then go to the settings menu on your player and select Memory Info how much space is used with no files on the player?

You are going to need to verify the chips true size before you can find where the problem lies.

Umm... all that is kinda forgein to me..
So I need to download a program?
to fix the firmware?

Well to be honest, I would be okay with a partial refund and a 2GB nano.

makes me wonder if my wifes is really 1GB .. =(

FourJacks, I would not worry about your firmware at present. I suggest you download MP3 Player Utilities HERE You are going to need it to convert video etc.
When you have installed it connect your player to your PC, then open the MP3 Player Disk Tool which is part of the MP3 Player Utilities. Go to the Partition Encrypt tab and move the slider all the way right and apply which will format your player. Once that is done move the slider all the way back left and then format again. Your chip should now be recognised as it's true size.
Then try the record function again.

Cool, thanks for the detailed explanation!

I will have to wait till tonight to do that, unfortunetly I don't have any install priviledges at work >=( (darn that IT guy)

Should I back up my system or anything?
this format is a pretty safe thing to do??

sorry for the newbie questions.

FourJacks, Formating is quite safe as your firmware is written to disk in a locked area. But if you want any of the files on the player remove them first otherwise they will be erased. What does the Settings>Memory Info read on your player?

Re: Trouble with the Recording Feature
 

The Settings >> Memory Info does not really tell if a chip's been hacked or not. My previous player which was a hacked 2GB to show 4GB, shows the exact amount of data that was copied into the player (ie copied 100MB of files, Memory Info tells me 100MB is occupied).

But if the memory is hacked, usually the Memory Info would take an extremely long time to show. Before i removed the hack, it hanged about almost 10 secs before it showed. After i removed the hack, the Memory Info appears almost instantly. i think some others experienced hanging whilst accessing the Memory Info.

lattesurf, Thanks for the verification, I had read a past post that suggested that the bogus memory showed as used space.
Cheers :)

Hmmm...
According to windows the E:/ has 513MB on it and 3.48GB of free space.

the little screen I get when I hit memory info on it only says
4087M 87%

I'm confused.

FourJacks,
Ok so it is saying that the player has 4087MB of storage and is 87% used. Which gives you about 532MB free plus the 500MB or so in files and firmware, I would guess your chip is a 1GB true capacity. Keep us informed I would be curious to know. If you get brave and want to know for sure take the back off your player and check the largest chip number against this list HERE.

K9WAG08U1A (16GigaBit) = 2GB

Well 2GB isn't too BAD !!

Apperantly 2GB is the largest I'll get on a Chipod, so it will have to work for me, cuase i'm not spending 8 gabillion dollars on an iPod with less features.

I'm going to contact the seller now, I'm sure he had no clue it was hacked. Just going to ask for a partial refund.

Plus my right earphone stoped working... piece of garbage...

I did get a free skin with it though! I really like that!

Well, The seller contacted me back, He said he is just now learning about it also, and he will refund me half of my money back. which is cool by me, since the 4GB just don't exist.

I formatted my drive like tadad suggested. with that program. And it is indeed a 2GB harddrive. says i have 1.9 GB left after format.

However the the Record Feature still acts as a Reset button?!?! Any suggestions?

Well I figured Something out, while formating my wife's mkp4 player..

She had a folder in hers called "RECORD" and a folder in that called "VOICE"

So i guessed, maybe it's looking for those folders and not finding them, so I created those folders on my MP4 Player...

Now it will go to the record screen instead of resetting and I can hit the M button to look at the menus, but when i hit the Play/pause button to record, it still resets...

HELP.

FourJacks, There is another way to record that you could try. While in the music feature press and hold down the VOL button and the player should go to record and automatically start recording. To finish press and hold the menu button and the file will save and then exit to the menu.
You could also try the suggestion by "lattesurf" and extract and repair your firmware with s1fwx then load it back to your player with the MP3 Upgrade Tool.

Re: Trouble with the Recording Feature
 

FourJacks, I am having the exact same problem. My "4GB" turned out to be 2GB. I have had lots of trouble getting the machine back into a functioning state after the "forced" format that I had to make.

Like you I could not enter the record Menu until I added the Record Folder. Now that the Folder is there I can enter it but like you when I hit teh Record (Play) button it shows the Hourglass.

I think my Folder structure is wrong as all my Mucic files are in the Music Folder inside the Record folder and the Music folder has an AMV file I created. Music and Video play fine though

Apart from this unresolved issue it is a really good 2GB MP3 player - just wish it wouldn't reset when I try to record.

If I find the solution I'll be sure to post it.

Mark

Mark, please do, same here if I can fix it.

Tadad,

I downloaded the s1fwx program and did all the steps described in this page
http://www.mympxplayer.org/viewtopic.php?p=207

now instead of resetting it freezes when I hit record, lol ... same when holding down the Vol button in music.

hmmm... i'm confused..

Can anyone verify the file stucture for my firmware???

thanks guys.

FourJacks, It may be a hardware issue and not related to the firmware at all. We recently had a post from another member who's seller received a batch of faulty players with this problem and replaced them at his own cost. If you absolutely need the record feature I would suggest a replacement from your seller the problem then being if he has a faulty batch your replacement could be the same so get him to test before he ships.

Re: Trouble with the Recording Feature
 

FourJacks, generally i don't think it is necessary to create folders for your recorded files. As when you hit the record button and after that when it saves, the player should automatically create a folder for storing your recorded files.
For my player, it auto creates E:\RECORD\VOICE\ to save the files there.
But seems like you are experiencing problems without manually creating the folder, and even after creating your player still hangs. Which could be some hardware issue.

As for the earphone problem you mentioned, try another set of earphones. And if you pull the plug partially out, do you still get sound on both sides? It could be some soldering that broke off, i've experienced that before.
Either way, get a replacement set, to save yourself the trouble of soldering it back and as well for a functioning record feature.

Re: Trouble with the Recording Feature
 

FourJacks, my Recording function now works. It took me by surprise this morning. I tried it again after reading the recent Posts. Particularly about not needing a Folder structure.

Last night, very late, I had a Folder corrupt on me on the player. So I formatted it. This time though I used Windows to do it. No problems. I copied one album in a folder across to it. I played it no problem and had no Folder structure at all. I then went to sleep.

I read the posts this morning and read the one by lattesurf. I hit record and much to my surprise the Folderless structure worked - I recorded from Mic and Radio just to be sure - and it created the folders as necessary to store the recording. Wow! It works. So far...

Previously I had used Media Manager which came with the Player to copy files across and it had created the odd folder structure which I had to modify to even get into the Recording feature; as you have experienced too.

So, no Folders and used Windows to Format - all seems happy now. Hope this helps.

Mark

Re: Trouble with the Recording Feature
 

i don't even think the Media Manager that came with the player even works. i tried it the 1st few times and the stuff that it creates doesn't make sense. i won't recommend anyone using it to sync or copy stuff to their players. It's much easier and stress-free to copy files directly using Windows, just treat it as a USB thumbdrive.

Cool Deal Mark!!!

Dumb question... how do i format using Windows??

I'm saving everything now as a back up,but do i just right click and hit format in windows explorer??

Thanks

lattesurf,

I agree with you. I perfer to have more control over what is copied etc and I know where the files are. Alias, there are still iTunes lovers out there that can't do without iTunes transferring the music across for them. However, they don't know where their music is save and computer takes ages to load because their profile has about 5 gigs of data to load and they wonder why it's taking so long???? :)

FourJacks

The two folders you mentioned get created automatically when there is a voice or recording done on the player. Otherwise it won't create it.

You could try creating the folder, but in the past, it creates it automatically.

One of my player does, while another just saves it as RECORD.WAV in the root folder.

Here's what you can try:

1. Create those two folders.

2. FORMAT your player again. This time also try the HP format tool as well as the Disk Tool as part of the MP3 Player Utilities.

3. Run a chkdsk on the removal drive. Just open the command prompt and type in chkdsk e: /f /r (assuming your drive is the "E:" drive).


If you try to record and it resets, it might be a faulty memory block on the memory card. Scandisk might fix it or mark it as 'unusable' and formatting it a few times might get it working.

Try that and let me know.

Re: Trouble with the Recording Feature
 

PROBLEM SOLVED


Well I got the Record feature to work!!!

Like Mark did, a format in through Windows explorer did the trick and now it records!!! yeah!


Thanks Guys

Re: Trouble with the Recording Feature
 

Good to hear it. Using Media Player now to sync the files too. It all seems to be working well now.

Mark