[johnlatessa]

The Phone:

BlackBerry 8330 Curve Titanium
OS Version 4.5.0.97
Media Card 16gb

The Music

62 Artists
212 Albums
2398 Songs
Total File Size 11.21gb

Same BS as when I used my 8gb card with 4.3 OS version. Media Player will not recognize everything. Songs/Artists/Albums not recognized have to be accessed from the Explore menu.

I would have thought that with the 4.5 OS version, and the "new and improved" media player, this type of BS would be fixed.

RIM's own FAQ states that the 4.5 OS version higher than .81 can handle a 16gb card.

But obviously, it appears that there is indeed an internal "limit" to what the media player can index - and I have exceeded it.

Any ideas?

[ScooterG]

If you're using Media Sync, it reserves a user determined amount of free space on the media card. I don't recall what the default setting is. Also, I believe that your 16 gig card is only going to be recognized as 14.9 gigs.

[Jacob8330]

Wirelessly posted

I do belive you can get a 32 gb card for your blackberry

[ScooterG]

Originally Posted by Jacob8330

Wirelessly posted

I do belive you can get a 32 gb card for your blackberry

To use 32 gigs, you need OS 4.6+. Even if 4.5 allowed 32 gig, I have the feeling he would have the same issue.

[daphne]

I have read here, somewhere on ths forum, that if you format the media card on your PC to fat32, all the space on the card is usable.

Found it... here.

http://www.blackberryforums.com/gene...ml#post1206870

[johnlatessa]

I don't use MediaSync, I simply copy and paste to the media card, via mass storage mode.

I also never format the media card using the PC. Formatting was done by the phone itself.

All of the song files can be accessed by going to media --> explore. It's not a card problem. The files are all there. The media player itself simply won't index that much music.

The 4.3 OS would not index more than 999 files. I have not done any experimentation to determine what the apparent limit with the 4.5 media player is yet, but I suppose that would be a good thing for me to do - to find out.

I think today I'm going to pop my media card into my buddy's Storm, and see if his device will access all those tunes. If it does, I'm going to just say "screw it," pay the $$$ to get out of my USCC contract, and get a Storm.

[johnlatessa]

Here's something that you all might find interesting.

I just took my 16gb media card with all that music on it, and put it into my buddy's Storm.

During the scan, you can watch the device "count up" all the music as it is building the indexes. The Storm stalled at 99 albums and would not go any further.

So on the Storm, well over half of my music won't get indexed.

Am I right in thinking this is a pretty big issue?

Or do I want just too friggin' much music to be available to me at all times? LOL



Maybe I'll take my media card to an AT&T store and see how the Bold deals with it.

[johnlatessa]

There is one thing I have not yet tried - but it may or may not work. We'll find out.

Currently, my songs are arranged like this example:

BlackBerry\Music\Demi Lovato\Don't Forget\01 Demi Lovato - La La Land.mp3


I have not tried getting rid of the multiple subdirectories and putting all the files under the Music directory, like this:

BlackBerry\Music\M00001.mp3

(I have a re-naming utility that will rename 2500 files in a couple of minutes)

I'll post my results.

[johnlatessa]

UPDATE:

Renaming the files to something short, like 0001.mp3 and eliminating the multiple artist and album subdirectories has made a HUGE difference.

There's still a limit, but all of my music is showing (as far as I can tell), all of my vids are showing, all of my pics are showing. All that isn't showing are my 2 custom ring tones.

Not perfect, but it's better than it was before.

I'm amazed that it's still an issue, and it is a huge issue. Yes, this is a lot of music for a BlackBerry, but if you compare it to the amount of music that people keep on their iPods, or iPhones, it's nothing.

The solution to this problem cannot be "Go buy an iPhone." Come on, RIM!

Fix this!

[devnull]

Do you have any idea whether the filename or the multiple subdirectories is the fix?

the new names you reference are much like the old DOS 8.3 filenames. How did you format your media card?

EDIT: sorry, just noticed that you format using the BB.

[Kamau]

Originally Posted by johnlatessa

UPDATE:

Renaming the files to something short, like 0001.mp3 and eliminating the multiple artist and album subdirectories has made a HUGE difference.

There's still a limit, but all of my music is showing (as far as I can tell), all of my vids are showing, all of my pics are showing. All that isn't showing are my 2 custom ring tones.

Not perfect, but it's better than it was before.

I'm amazed that it's still an issue, and it is a huge issue. Yes, this is a lot of music for a BlackBerry, but if you compare it to the amount of music that people keep on their iPods, or iPhones, it's nothing.

The solution to this problem cannot be "Go buy an iPhone." Come on, RIM!

Fix this!

Or just get yourself an iPod Touch like I have. I have a lot of music & stuff on my BB, but my Touch has everything I have on my cd & picture shelves at home. And since there are those who carry 2 BB's, I'm still good to go.

[johnlatessa]

Originally Posted by devnull

Do you have any idea whether the filename or the multiple subdirectories is the fix?

the new names you reference are much like the old DOS 8.3 filenames. How did you format your media card?

EDIT: sorry, just noticed that you format using the BB.

My guess is that getting rid of the tons of un-needed subdirectories probably "fixed" it. Although I didn't see how shortening the file names could possibly hurt.

One drawback of having this much music on your Berry is that any time you make a change, beginning the re-indexing process again, it takes FOREVER lol

[devnull]

Mine is only 4 gig and I cant get it to fail by putting lots of music / folders on it. If I had a 16Gig card to play with, I would try formatting different ways to see if that fixes the issue.

I do know that my 4gig is formated fat32. Can you do a properties on your 16gig and see what it says?

[johnlatessa]

Originally Posted by devnull

Mine is only 4 gig and I cant get it to fail by putting lots of music / folders on it. If I had a 16Gig card to play with, I would try formatting different ways to see if that fixes the issue.

I do know that my 4gig is formated fat32. Can you do a properties on your 16gig and see what it says?

I don't even know how it's formatted. I always format my media cards from the device itself, so it must be doing it correctly.

I'm now convinced I've solved the problem. Now if I could just turn off the "Auto-Indexing" every single time I disconnect it from the PC, as it's at least a half an hour, while the phone is re-scanning the card - looking for any changes.

[daphne]

I recall another user who solved a similar problem by removing all the songs from the folders and subfolders, now that you mention that. All my songs are in folders and subfolders, though, and I have no problems.

If you formatted the card with the BB, it's probably NFTS. Regarding the re-scanning everytime you disconnect -- do you have Desktop Manager set to automatically sync when you connect? I would uncheck that option and see if the re-scanning stops. It should re-scan only when you've added or removed something from the card.

[rambo47]

I think you're running up against the fact that RIM's multimedia apps are not their focus/priority. The Blackberry was never intended to be a multimedia powerhouse. Those apps are more for casual use and so that RIM can say, "Yeah, you can play mp3's on our devices too." It's just not what the Blackberry is all about.

[johnlatessa]

Originally Posted by rambo47

I think you're running up against the fact that RIM's multimedia apps are not their focus/priority. The Blackberry was never intended to be a multimedia powerhouse. Those apps are more for casual use and so that RIM can say, "Yeah, you can play mp3's on our devices too." It's just not what the Blackberry is all about.

I think you're probably correct, there.

I was just thinking to myself that even though this is a decent amount of music, it's nothing compared to what people load onto their iPods and such.

With that much music, the first indexing scan lasts well over 2 hours. Completely painful and unbearable.

As for connecting to the desktop software, I never even use it unless I'm backing up my contact, calendar, messenger, etc.

I mainly connect via mass storage.

[arej00dazed]

now this is a problem for me. Ive been trying to find a large capacity (larger than 8gb) mp3 player that has bluetooth. well other than the touch (which dont mention, I dont want an ipod for one), you cant get a player with BT. So I thought bout upgrading my OS, get a 16gb card and put all of my cd's on it so I can have my entire music collection in the palm of my hand (I listen to music alot at work and such). but if I cant have it broken down by artist/album/track, then I dont want to bother with it and if it does take a long time to index (what exactly is that by the way, I have an idea, but not sure). so I guess I'll just have to wait some more and keep looking for a solution. but Im glad I saw this post before I went out and drop a chunk of change on a card and have these problems. have enough hardware/tech problems as it is..........