mgillespie

LOL, Sony are removing the downloads for Connect. Seems like they are trying to erase their embarrassing chapter in their history!!!

Had a couple of crashes, both when dragging files from my library to my portable device. dump below: Also had a few reports that tracks could not be transferred, but retrying the same tracks, they transfered OK. PLEASE Sony, consider having a public beta test for future updates, it's the only way to move forward.

For me, it all started good, until I tried to copy M3U playlists to the NW-A3000, it refused to accept them. In the end, I formatted the device (this is now the 5th reformat of the NW-A since Decemeber). The M3U playlists then imported without any issues, Seems if you have been running Connect in the past, there may be issues moving to SonicStageCP... Still we have to move forward. The King is dead, long live the king....

I think having a small public beta test, using a free resource like the tech savyy viewers of ATRACLife would have been a great plan, and would have highlighted any issues. Unfortunatly, Sony don't use logic like this, they are a very traditional company, and hence the traditional problems they suffer whenever they release software. I fully expect SonicStage CP to be chock full of bugs, as basically nothing has changed management-wise in Sony since Connect Player 1.0 and SonicStage 3, they have the same ethos, and same faulty testing labs. Please Sony, consider opening up your products (not just CP or SS) to public beta testing, it will make your software products better, and trust me YOU NEED TO MAKE YOUR SOFTWARE PRODUCTS BETTER..

I had similar problems to the ones you describe. I suggest waiting a few days, and ditching Connet Player for good, and moving to the much more robust SonicStage (v4 is due in the next couple of days). Whilst it's far from perfect, it alot better than Connect Player..

You might want to wait a few days, as a new firmware is due very soon...

Many people don't want video. I certainly dont. It's not usefull jogging or listening to. The rare occasion I want to view video on the move, i.e. a long plane journey, I use the PSP. the 99% of the rest of the time audio only is fine. What I am trying to demonstrate, is everyone has different requirements. Some who travels 2 hours on a train every day may want video, someone who has different useabe patterns may not,

Personally, I would rather have the better build and sound quality, than video. if I want mobile video, the PSP is more suited (running movies from a 2GB memory stick).

Sony UK Service and Support is a total shambles. I always used to believe that paying for a Sony product gave you a better product, and better support. In the UK I no longer believe this to be true :-( It's a shame, as there are very few premium brands left, they have all been culled by CEO's cost cutting measures.

Then why even both employing them. Close the useless callcentres, sell me cheaper gear, and let me rely on more reliable end user - end user support.

MediaMonkey without a doubt. Have used most of the ones mentioned here, and none of them them come close to the power provided by MediaMonkey. It's not just a tagger, it's a complete music management program and player. it's got scriping and plugin capabilities. I needed to sync all the ALBUM and ARTIST ALBUM tags, mediamonkey did not do it by default, but I wrote a 4 line script to do it...

They claim neither SonicStage or Connect Player support M3U playlists!!! See email below.. Sony UK support is a total shambles... I really expect more from Sony, but unfortunatly, they are not delivering. :-( My Reply

Looked at how Winamp writes it's M3U files, and it works differently, in that it uses absolute paths. Most other programs use relative paths. I have to use relative paths, as it's not just my NW-A3000 that uses these playlists, and they may appear in a different drive letter, hence the relative path information I am convinced this is a bug, as no other software I own has any problem with these M3U playlists, the only software that fails, is Connect and SonicStage. (latest versions). Not so easy, this playlist has 300 tracks scattered across about 600 albums, in my library of 1000 albums. Would take me weeks to locate an delete every single duplicate entry. Emptying my library, and starting again is the only solution, along with another 12 hour marathon download of ArtistLink information. No use to me, my playlists are not from a single artist, they are from many artists. My music is structured on disk like this: MUSIC/ARTIST/ALBUM MUSIC/PLAYLISTS hence the ../ in the M3U playlists. I really need this buy fixing, how can I report it to Sony? Anyone know??? I can conclude that absolute paths ALWAYS work in M3U files (not suprising), but relative paths ONLY work, if they are at the same level or higher that the music. Connect and SonicStage fail to understand the /../ in the playlist, which is valid notation for navigating up a directory level. This causes the duplicates. Sony, if your reading, please fix your M3U parser you are using in Connect and SonicStage...

I have come up with a very simple way of demonstrating this bug. I am confident it can be reproduced in both Connect 1.04 and SonicStage 3.4 1/ Download the attached ZIP file, it's got 3x blank MP3's with ID3 tag info (so as not to infringe any copyright). 2/ Extract it somewhere with the folder structure intact. 3/ You should have 2 directories (Playlists and Test with a Test subfolder) 3/ Open Connect or SonicStage and drop in the 3 Test.Mp3 tracks, obverserve the 3 tracks in the library (Artist Test, Album Test). 4/ Import the M3U file in the playlist folder, which references these 3 MP3, and then look at your library again You should now have 6 tracks, 3 the original tracks, plus the 3 M3U tracks, whic reference the exact same tracks!! Please can someone confirm this is also a problem at their end, as it's driving me nuts, and it means I cannot use Playlists on my NWA-3000, and without being able to reproduce it, Sony will unlkely ever fix it. Thanks...

I have a problem, in both sonictage AND connect, where importing a M3U playlist creates duplicate entries in my library, instead of refrerencing the already existing track. I can't believe other people are not suffering this problem. Anyone have any idea what the problem is? See thumbnails below, which shows the duplicates. The biggest problem, is that one of my plalist has over 300 tracks, scattered across all my albums, deleting the playlist does not remove the duplicates, I have to completely erase my library and re-import, as finding all the duplcates is almost impossible. If I have transferred the duplicates to my NW-A walkan, I have to re-format to get rid of the duplicate tracks... HELP....

Sony arn't in any position to challenge Apple, ther software division is in such a mess.

Because the hardware is SOO good. I really want to like the NW-A3000, it sounds fantastic, looks good, it's just the cr@ppy software that lets it down so badly (although 1.04 Connect actually makes the unit finally useable).

I didn't. It was actually a mistake on my part. The petition signup forced me to enter a URL, I did not know it was going to be displayed, so I entered ATRACLife. I have now changed it to ipeitition website! Apologies ATRACLife...

Sign it Here: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/NWACompensation/ View Signatures And Comments Here: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/NWAComp...signatures.html Even if you don't believe that compensation will be forthcoming, please consider adding your name anyway, as it shows Sony we will NOT accept them releasing such shoddy products before they are ready, and treating their European end users as unofficial beta testers.

Then perhaps it's time to consider a class action lawsuit... As starters, I am going to start a online peition to compensate owners of NW-A series. I think 1 album download for every month of painfull ownership is quite fair. It may also encourage users to download more from Connect, now the sofware is actually working... Will post details once the petition is set up. Hopefully the site admin may post it in the news section.

It seems with the 1.04 release of Connect, we have something that almost works, and allows the device to funtion as originally advertised. So now the big question, what in the way of compensation do the long suffering NW-A series get? How about a free album download from Connect for every month of ownership uptil the 1.04 release, as a gesture of goodwill from Sony, for all the grief we have had to put up with, and choices between non-working Connect or partial functionality SonicStage...

Sony have already destroyed their reputation for mobile devices in Europe and Asia, they can't afford to destory it in other regions also, hence why the NW-A series has not been launched elsewhere. A side note, I reformatted my NW-A3000 (for the 5th time now), removed SonicStage, installed Connect 1.04, reloaded my library, transferred songs, and things seem to be working the best they ever have. Whilst it's not safe to say Connect is a joy to use, and has serious design flaws like lack of muplitple track editing, and other major "GUI Bloopers", it does at least seem to function. Unless it all goes badly wrong, I should be able to cope, until a Connect/SonicStage hybrid software arrives, which has the best of both worlds. Personally, I would have preferred to see a NW-A series update to SonicStage rather than a fixed Connect, but hey, I have a unit that finally works, 5 months after I purchased it!!

Whilst it may perform slightly better than previous Connect versions, it's stil considerably slower than SonicStage 3.4, and it's still very buggy. I have to format my device (again), just to get the tracks to show correct. (click thumbnail below to see the problem)

Connect caused me many more problems that SonicStage did. Although looking at the comments for 1.04, I am tempted to try it again. I am pretty sure I will end up formatting the device after Connect has done it's stuff.