Apps can't sync with Rockbox

Bug #253785 reported by Kẏra
34
This bug affects 5 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Banshee
Fix Released
Wishlist
Exaile
Won't Fix
Wishlist
reacocard
Rhythmbox
Expired
Wishlist
banshee (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
Wishlist
Unassigned
Declined for Jaunty by Pedro Villavicencio
exaile (Ubuntu)
Invalid
Undecided
Unassigned
Declined for Jaunty by Pedro Villavicencio
rhythmbox (Ubuntu)
Triaged
Wishlist
Ubuntu Desktop Bugs
Declined for Jaunty by Pedro Villavicencio

Bug Description

Applications on Ubuntu that can sync to iPods with the original proprietary firmware can't sync to iPods with RockBox

Revision history for this message
seisen1 (seisen-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount) wrote :

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Unfortunately we can't fix it, because your description didn't include enough information. You may find it helpful to read "How to report bugs effectively" [WWW] http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html. We'd be grateful if you would then provide a more complete description of the problem.

We have instructions on debugging some types of problems at [WWW] http://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingProcedures

At a minimum, we need:
1. the specific steps or actions you took that caused you to encounter the problem,
2. the behavior you expected, and
3. the behavior you actually encountered (in as much detail as possible).
Thanks!

Revision history for this message
Kẏra (thekyriarchy) wrote :

When my iPod comes up in any of the music players i've tried in ubuntu, i click on it, but it can't read anything off it because i don't have the original iPod firmware. I thought it was pretty self-explanitory.

Other people have encountered this as well: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=421857

Jorge Castro (jorge)
Changed in banshee:
importance: Undecided → Unknown
status: New → Unknown
Changed in banshee:
status: Unknown → New
Revision history for this message
Johannes Mockenhaupt (mockenh-deactivatedaccount) wrote :

As far as I understand Danny he is having the same problem I had: when an iPod is attached applications like Rhythmbox or Banshee show the device and display the tracks on the device as they are listed in the iPod's database. The applications access the files on the device through the iPod's database.

When Rockbox is installed on the iPod all media files are just 'dumped' on the device and the iPod must then be treated as any old USB mass storage device with media files on it. (An iTunes/iPod database on the device is then not feasible anymore since it would require iTunes to keep it up to date, also this DB is of no use to Rockbox).

For Banshee there is a solution: disable the iPod plugin and add an empty file called '.is_audio_player' in the root directory of the iPod. Banshee will then treat the iPod like a USB mass storage device, ignoring the iPod database and directly accesing the media files. Details for the Banshee solution are here: http://wiki.banshee-project.org/Guide/DAPs/MassStorageDevices

Revision history for this message
Kẏra (thekyriarchy) wrote :

That's exactly the problem. Is there some way the media players could detect Rockbox and then treat the files there as any old USB storage device?

Revision history for this message
Johannes Mockenhaupt (mockenh-deactivatedaccount) wrote :

I don't know about Exaile (never used it) but there is the fix for Banshee I mentioned and for Rhythmbox it's sufficant to disable the iPod plugin and enable the 'Portable Players' plugin instead.

reacocard (reacocard)
Changed in exaile:
assignee: nobody → reacocard
importance: Undecided → Medium
milestone: none → 0.3.0
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
goto (gotolaunchpad) wrote :

On one hand everyone says "use free software" and if you do it you recognise that it does not work well together.
I would really like to see compatibility with Rockbox with Applications in Jaunty. Thanks. I'll be ready for testing.

goto (gotolaunchpad)
Changed in rhythmbox:
importance: Undecided → Unknown
status: New → Unknown
Changed in rhythmbox:
status: Unknown → New
Revision history for this message
Martin Mai (mrkanister-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount) wrote :

We have three packages affected so I am closing the one for "Ubuntu" because it is just confusing.

Revision history for this message
Martin Mai (mrkanister-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount) wrote :

Sorry, I have just realised that having "Ubuntu" affected was a simplification. My fault.

Changed in rhythmbox (Ubuntu):
assignee: nobody → desktop-bugs
importance: Undecided → Wishlist
status: New → Triaged
Changed in banshee:
status: New → Unknown
Changed in banshee (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → Wishlist
status: New → Triaged
Changed in banshee:
status: Unknown → New
Adam Olsen (arolsen)
Changed in exaile:
importance: Medium → Wishlist
milestone: 0.3.0 → 0.3.x
Revision history for this message
Jack Deslippe (jdeslip) wrote :

I have been spending some time patching Banshee for Android to work - so, I got to know the code a bit. I had an old ipod, I put rockbox on, as well, and was able to get it to work marvelously with Banshee by including the file .is_audio_player on the iPod root directory. You CANNOT leave it empty though as was suggested above. The file should contain:

audio_folders=Music/,Videos/
video_folders=Videos/
folder_depth=2
output_formats=application/ogg,audio/x-ms-wma,audio/mpeg,audio/mp4,audio/x-wav
playlist_format=audio/x-mpegurl
playlist_path=Playlists/
cover_art_file_name=cover.jpg
cover_art_file_type=jpeg
cover_art_size=320

It works great - it syncs music, podcasts, video, coverart (you need rockbox 3.0) and playlists (to Music/Playlists directory) perfectly.

I could easily write a patch for Banshee to have it look for .rockbox and then automatically use these settings. But, I don't think it is a good idea because a lot of rockbox users dual boot with the original iPod firmware and still want to sync the iPod db with banshee. If you want to sync to Rockbox instead, add that file.

Revision history for this message
Jack Deslippe (jdeslip) wrote :

Ok, I talked to the Banshee Dev. on IRC on if we can incorporate those settings from the above .is_audio_player file into Banshee. He agreed it was a bad idea to do it by default if a .rockbox folder is found due to the dual booting issue. But, I am going to try to create an option for the user that if .rockbox is found on an ipod it asks the user whether they want to treat the device an iPod or as Rockbox device with the above settings. I will try to work on it this weekend.

There is already some effort upstream for this http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=561712

ndrw (andrewnonumbers)
Changed in banshee (Ubuntu):
status: Triaged → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
ndrw (andrewnonumbers) wrote :

Syncing Banshee 1.5.1 with Rockbox 3.4 (both the latest stable version) is like a dream. Banshee displays the device as "Rockbox Device" and syncs all the music, videos (you have to preconvert them), and podcasts you could want, giving you options to sync automatically and whatnot. It even syncs album art! The other cool trick is that your Rockbox device acts as a remote for Banshee, meaning pressing pause on your device pauses the music in Banshee!

Changed in banshee:
importance: Unknown → Wishlist
status: New → Fix Released
Changed in rhythmbox:
importance: Unknown → Wishlist
Revision history for this message
shclim (shclim) wrote :

Following comment #9, I added the file .is_audio_player to my Rockbox device (ipod 60Gb v5.5) so that I could specify the location of Playlists directory when syncing with Banshee (1.8.0).

I've tried setting/adding the line "playlist_path=Playlists/" to the file, the default for Rockbox, but Banshee still added my playlists to the path Music/Playlists. Thus, it seems Banshee isn't reading my .is_audio_player file.

Revision history for this message
shclim (shclim) wrote :

Following on from my last comment (#12), I've created a script which rsync's my playlists to the path Playlists/ (on the Rockbox device) and then converts from the format .m3u to .m3u8 (smaller files + seems to be preferred by Rockbox... can an option to use m3u8 be added to Banshee?)

This needs to be used after syncing with Banshee (i.e., shut Banshee down) with the Rockbox device still plugged in.

Revision history for this message
shclim (shclim) wrote :

To change the location of the Playlists folder on your rockbox device you need to create a text file with the extention ".cfg" and then add this line inside that file:

playlist catalog directory: /Music/Playlists

Then load the .cfg file on your device via Settings--> Manage Settings --> Browse .cfg Files

See link below for more useful options
http://download.rockbox.org/daily/manual/rockbox-sansaclipplus/rockbox-buildap4.html#x20-382000D

Changed in exaile:
status: Confirmed → Won't Fix
Changed in rhythmbox:
status: New → Expired
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