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Topic: iPod manager (Read 2220628 times) previous topic - next topic
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Re: iPod manager

Reply #4125
So... the embedded covers in all the files on the iPod are completely superfluous and can be removed to free up quite a lot of space?
Yes (but if you modify the files on the iPod directly rather than the originals, and then use the Sync command, it may resync the files).

(A bit out of topic I admit, but what's your take on this: instead of going through the process of removing the embedded artwork from the files on the iPod, should I just go ahead and do a full factory reset and readd my music? Just wondering if such removal of embedded covers would introduce quite a bit of fragmentation to files added after that process, with the embedded art now being gone.)
iTunes and this component take certain measures to avoid specific cases of both FAT32 and fragmentation performance problems, so it is a valid concern in general. However, I'm not sure fragmented music files would cause huge problems in itself. Typically, you'll see problems if e.g. opening a file in a large directory takes a long time, or finding an artwork image in the database takes a long time. Nonetheless, if free space gets fragmented, it could cause other things to become fragmented over time. (That's my take from the top of my head and not being able to remember the last time I defragmented a hard drive...)

P.s. So with foo_dop handling the transfer, resizing and iPod database operations for the artwork, I understand there is no way to change the artwork manually, and the process always works from what art there is on the album in Foobar's media library?
Yes, that's roughly right.

Also, Foobar doesn't seem to display the artwork as on the iPod itself in its album art panel, instead only showing embedde or in-folder art. I presume this is totally normal?
That's correct, it doesn't know anything about the images in the iPod's database and the component doesn't tell it anything about them either. I think there is a debugging tool hidden in the source code for viewing the images, but it was pretty basic and I don't think it was included in any public release.
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Re: iPod manager

Reply #4126
Alright, thanks! :)

That potential fragmentation of free space that you mentioned was what I had in mind: have music with embedded artwork - used space is nice and non-fragmented -> remove said embedded artwork -> lots of small pockets of free space, over which newly transferred files would be spread out.

I ended up deciding on a clean factory reset and readding my music to get it all nice and neatly in there. It wasn't that big of a chore after all, and as a bonus I got to go over my music library and leave out stuff I knew I wouldn't be listening to that much on the iPod, so I ended up with more free space than just removing the unnecesary artwork would have release. Win-win.  8)

Re: iPod manager

Reply #4127
Hey Guys,  New to Foobar-ipod manager,  Trying to get it set up to load a ipod and getting the "Failed to load DLL: foo_dop.dll
Reason: This component is missing a required dependency, or was made for different version of foobar2000."  Only fix i found was the "https://f.losno.co/vgmstream-win32-deps.zip""  back on a 2016 post and the "Visual C++ 2015" both which seem really old issues.               Tried doing some searches on here but couldn't find anything new or different.  any help would be much appreciated. 



Re: iPod manager

Reply #4128
vgmstream-win32-deps has no bearing on foo_dop, or any other component. In fact, my foobar2000 distribution of VGMStream does not require it, as it bundles its own dependencies.

Re: iPod manager

Reply #4129
@bsimpson Which version did you install, how did you install it and what version of Windows are you using?
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Re: iPod manager

Reply #4130
I have a question regarding how foo_dop determines gapless playback. Sometimes, depending on the number of files being copied, this process can take several minutes. However, there are other times when the process takes virtually no time at all. I’m wondering is this normal?

Re: iPod manager

Reply #4131
Probably. Exactly what it does depends on the file format and the encoder used.

For MP4, it will look in the file header for gapless data.
For MP3, if foobar2000 has detected gapless info, it will end up reading most of the file. If foobar2000 did not detect gapless info, it will skip reading the file (unless you have the dummy info option enabled).
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Re: iPod manager

Reply #4132
@musicmusic I am going to install Foobar with this plug-in on a new PC. When I do my first sync with my iPod, will the plug-in detect that nothing has changed [as far as the MP3s are concerned]? Or, will it replace everything on the iPod with everything in my music folder [which will probably take a long time]?  I am just curious.

Re: iPod manager

Reply #4133
If the files weren't transcoded by the component, and they haven't been modified, I wouldn't expect it to want to recopy them.
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Re: iPod manager

Reply #4134
foo_dop doesn't appear to detect my iPod Touch anymore as of early December and I cannot figure out why.

foobar2000 console only shows this message relevant to foo_dop: "iPod manager: Listening for Apple mobile devices.". It does not show any new messages when I plug in my iPod Touch. I do see it show up on Windows Device Manager under "Portable Devices" and "Universal Serial Bus devices" subcategories, and it shows in Windows Explorer. Every option I try under File > iPod in foobar2000 just gives me the message "No iPod found".

Relevant program versions used:
  • Windows 10 x64 v1903
  • iPod Touch 3G, model MC008C (32GB), iOS v4.1
  • foobar2000 v1.5.1
  • foo_dop v0.7.1
  • Apple Application Support v4.3.2 (from iTunes 12.4.3 x64 installer)
  • Apple Mobile Device Support x64 v9.3.0.15 (from iTunes 12.4.3 x64 installer)
  • Neither iTunes, Quicktime or iPhoneCalc library installed

I've tried uninstalling both AAS and AMDS and re-installing, upgrading from foobar2000 v1.4.1 to v1.5.1, and upgrading foo_dop from v0.6.9.7 to v0.7.1 but no difference was seen. The only thing I can think of is that some Windows 10 updates changed something. How can I debug this further and find out where the issue is?

Re: iPod manager

Reply #4135
Strange. If you see the 'iPod manager: Listening for Apple mobile devices.' message, it suggests the Apple libraries are loading correctly.

Have a look in Device Manager and check what driver is installed for the iPod. Switching to the 'Devices by connection' view gives a bit of a better view of things – see the attached screenshot for what I'd roughly expect.
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Re: iPod manager

Reply #4136
Yes, it is using the Apple driver for the Apple USB composite device. This too makes me think that the drivers are fine, and that the problem may lie either within foobar or between the OS and foobar. How can I get more debug info out of this?

Re: iPod manager

Reply #4137
I going to install Foobar and this plugin on a 64-bit Windows 10 Pro. [At the moment, I am still using a 32-bit version of Foobar on a 32-bit version of Windows]. I had to put this, "iPhoneCalc.dll" , in "C:\Program Files\foobar2000" in order for the plugin to access my iPod Classic 7th Gen. This worked on a 32-bit version of Foobar and this plugin. Will I have any trouble doing the same on a 64-bit?

Re: iPod manager

Reply #4138
Wait, you think there's a 64bit version of Foobar2000 or are you only talking about 64bit OS?

 

Re: iPod manager

Reply #4139
Yes, it is using the Apple driver for the Apple USB composite device. This too makes me think that the drivers are fine, and that the problem may lie either within foobar or between the OS and foobar. How can I get more debug info out of this?
That driver is much newer than the one that comes with AMDS version 9.3.0.15. I'd:

- check in Windows Update history if it installed a new version of the driver
- remove that driver and try reverting to the driver that comes with AMDS version 9.3.0.15

I going to install Foobar and this plugin on a 64-bit Windows 10 Pro. [At the moment, I am still using a 32-bit version of Foobar on a 32-bit version of Windows]. I had to put this, "iPhoneCalc.dll" , in "C:\Program Files\foobar2000" in order for the plugin to access my iPod Classic 7th Gen. This worked on a 32-bit version of Foobar and this plugin. Will I have any trouble doing the same on a 64-bit?
No, there should be no change with 64-bit Windows. Also, iPhoneCalc.dll is bundled with the component now, so you shouldn't need to manually install it.
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Re: iPod manager

Reply #4140
Yes, it is using the Apple driver for the Apple USB composite device. This too makes me think that the drivers are fine, and that the problem may lie either within foobar or between the OS and foobar. How can I get more debug info out of this?
That driver is much newer than the one that comes with AMDS version 9.3.0.15. I'd:

- check in Windows Update history if it installed a new version of the driver
- remove that driver and try reverting to the driver that comes with AMDS version 9.3.0.15

I uninstalled and deleted the existing drivers, then plugged in my iPod again and now it is using Apple drivers v6.0.9999.67 without me having to install any drivers manually.

foo_dop now detects my iPod and I can read the device properties and view the filesystem. However, if I try to do anything else I get an error saying "Unsupported file format".

Re: iPod manager

Reply #4141
Could you post a screenshot of the error and console output too?
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Re: iPod manager

Reply #4142
Console output and the error message.

What's strange is after a brief search I did not find this string anywhere within the codebase for ipod_manager, is this error actually generated by something else?

Re: iPod manager

Reply #4143
It's most probably coming from an exception_io_unsupported_format exception (the exception text itself is in the foobar2000 SDK).

My best guess for the cause would be here (one of the changes in 0.7.1): https://github.com/reupen/ipod_manager/pull/7/files#diff-09fcadce66101f13b26c2d17981cd277R17

The implication would be that there is file named Playlist_<something>.plist in /iTunes_Control/iTunes/ on the device, and that plist file doesn't contain any useful data.

I'm not sure exactly why that would be – one possibility is that a playlist was deleted on the device.

Are you able to see any files named like that? If so, I should be able to investigate further with a copy of any such files and your iTunesCDB (or iTunesDB) file.
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Re: iPod manager

Reply #4144
I took a look at the playlist plist files but from what I can tell they do contain valid xml and none appear to be "empty". Interestingly, I only see 12 Playlist_*.plist files in the filesystem but I know that I have more that are viewable on my iPod.

Sent PM with copy of iTunesCDB file. iTunesDB file is zero bytes.

If I just delete all of the playlists on my iPod and then sync it again, would that be likely to get past this error?

Re: iPod manager

Reply #4145
Good that they aren't empty – nonetheless, iPod manager is probably having a problem understanding one of them (which is a bug, of course).

These files are generally only created when you modify a playlist on the device. What's meant to happen is that iTunes will read them and merge the changes into iTunesCDB. I'd expect deleting a playlist on the device to create (or update) one of these files, so I don't expect that to help.

(Downgrading to an older version of iPod manager should work around it though. Nonetheless, this should be easy to fix in some form.)
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Re: iPod manager

Reply #4146
Do you have a page of previous releases? I cannot seem to find a download link for older versions of foo_dop. The releases page on your repo doesn't include compiled binaries.

Re: iPod manager

Reply #4147
I have been using this for years. It's great. Thank you. But, I wanted to try synchronizing my music to my new phone: Samsung Galaxy A51. It has 128GB of storage. Can you recommend a strategy to do this? Software on my PC? App on my phone? etc.

Re: iPod manager

Reply #4148
Quick (and potentially silly) question: does the music library database on the iPod include contents of the 'Comment' tags? i.e. should I remove said tags from files on the iPod to avoid clogging up the library database with unnecessary stuff?

Judging from the 'comment' tag information not seeming to be used anywhere by the iPod itself, I would assume no, but I thought I'd ask and confirm this anyway.

Thanks

Re: iPod manager

Reply #4149
It does include comments (though on older iPod models it will only be the first ~500 characters). One reason is that you should be able to create smart playlists based on values of that field. Another possible reason is that iTunesDB is used by iTunes when viewing the iPod's content.

However, you can define a remapping for the field in iPod manager preferences, so you shouldn't need to retag your files to stop it being written to the iPod's database.
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