Angry First Post Rant

[randomlyred]

Hi everyone,

I FUCKING HATE SONICSTAGE AND WISH I NEVER PURCHASED MY NW-A3000 WALKMAN.

Wow that feels better.

Sorry to post a first-post rant, but had to get it off my chest.

If anyone knows any way to make the whole sony experience less infuriating, please reply.

Otherwise I think I have purchased a 200 dollar paperweight... I'm so incredibly disappointed with this damn MP3 player.

Sonicstage crashes. Everything.

The screen is hard to read

The menu system in the device is awkward

IT DOESN'T WORK IN LINUX

Gaaaaaah. Right now I'm feeling that *anything* (even an Ipod... shudder...) would be an improvement on this (admittedly good looking) purple piece of shit.

Sorry about the naughty words

[aznbro85]

looks like somebody didn't do their homework before buying an item...

As for sonicstage crashing, which version are you using? Version 4.3 is the newest one and is pretty stable.

and it's better to transfer music to your player in small batches, or if you plan to do a big batch, do it overnight, as it looks like it froze up but it's actually running.

as for the screen being hard to see, *all* OLED screens are hard to see in natural light. They look awesome indoors though.

as for the menu system, i didn't think it was that hard to use. Granted, there's no 'click wheel' or 'spin wheel' (or sony's jog dial ) but i found the menu system to be not too hard to figure out. I have 2 A3000s and a A1200, and the newest players NWZ-A818 is based off of that same menu system, and i have no problems with it. it's not like the older walkmans used it either so it wasn't like i didnt have a learning curve to it...

As for it not working in linux, it doesn't work with MacOS either. If you researched you'd find that sonicstage was a windows only app.

Only the new drag-and-drop compatible players are able to be used in any OS.

and unfortunately, i have no comments about how to make the experience more enjoyable, since you seem quite infuriated with it and based on your problems i dont really think it's 'fixable', heh..

[randomlyred]

I'm firmly of the opinion that I shouldn't need to research an MP3 player. It appears to be the only one made that isn't linux compatible. Even Ipods work! I guess this is what happens when you blindly assume that it should be OK, because it's Sony, a reputable company.

I'm using 4.3.01 Every time I turn it on now it causes a c++ error in windows:

"runtime error!

"Program: C:\Program Files\Sony\SonicStage\Omgjbox.exe

"This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way. Please contact the application's support team for more information".

Lesson learnt. Sony=No! No! For the love of god and all things holy, buy a Creative!

[aznbro85]

I'm firmly of the opinion that I shouldn't need to research an MP3 player. It appears to be the only one made that isn't linux compatible. Even Ipods work! I guess this is what happens when you blindly assume that it should be OK, because it's Sony, a reputable company.

I'm using 4.3.01 Every time I turn it on now it causes a c++ error in windows:

"runtime error!

"Program: C:\Program Files\Sony\SonicStage\Omgjbox.exe

"This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way. Please contact the application's support team for more information".

Lesson learnt. Sony=No! No! For the love of god and all things holy, buy a Creative!

would you go buy a car without researching? a house? a pet? sports equipment? other A/V equipment for your house?

I don't know about you, but i sure as heck would.

And when I mean 'research' i don't mean like looking into every single facet about the item, just a quick read about it's specs and what it is able to do and not do, in comparison to it's competition.

as for your sonicstage problem, it looks like it might just be a bloated install of windows or something. Sonicstage seems to work best when installed onto a very clean install of windows. I personally have never experienced that problem before, and hopefully somebody else in this forum might have encountered it and knows a way to get it fixed.

What version of windows are you using?

and fyi, about ipods working in linux... seems like it's not such the case with the new crop that just came out, though i'm sure it might work in the future, but as of now the new iPods don't seem to play well with anything other than iTunes..

http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/15/ipods-b...ing-with-linux/

According to the blog iPodminusiTunes, Apple has blocked the new iPods from synching with third party applications (i.e. anything that isn't iTunes). The most significantly affected userbase in all this is the Linux community, who've been able to upload songs to their older iPods using free software such as gtkpod and Amarok for a while now. The tweak to the new iPod database files doesn't appear to be incidental either, with a number being added to the front of the database file causing the iPod to be exclusively tied to a single copy of iTunes. Fortunately, the problem isn't beyond a little bit of reverse engineering, so Apple's rather pointless meddling could be reversed given time.

And just a heads up.. for Sony's players.. only the NEWEST ones, the NWZ-A8xx, NWZ-S6xx, and the NWZ-B1xx series are drag-and-drop, so those are usable without going through any software, or if you want you can use software (not sonicstage or iTunes though).

Edited September 16, 2007 by aznbro85

[randomlyred]

http://www.rockbox.org/

The new Ipods certainly do work. As do Creative, Toshiba, my no-name computer fair player, Iriver, Sandisk, and anything with drag and drop functionality.

And as for research, I just happily assumed that a good brand name HDD MP3 player would be good. I had less trouble with my Rio 500, and that was 7 years ago!

I'm sorry that I'm not a Sony fanboy, because evidently that's the only group of people who like this garbage device. In the future I'll certainly be reading a few reviews on google before buying things - certainly would have been put off by the plethora of warnings about this thing.

*sigh*

Edit: My Sonicstage is not on a bloated install of windows. It's the only piece of non-OS software installed on the machine. (I only use it for SonicStage, nothing else).. Windows XP Pro. SP2

And buying another Sony? roflmfao. Why would I do that?

Edited September 16, 2007 by randomlyred

[Old skool D]

http://www.rockbox.org/

The new Ipods certainly do work. As do Creative, Toshiba, my no-name computer fair player, Iriver, Sandisk, and anything with drag and drop functionality.

And as for research, I just happily assumed that a good brand name HDD MP3 player would be good. I had less trouble with my Rio 500, and that was 7 years ago!

I'm sorry that I'm not a Sony fanboy, because evidently that's the only group of people who like this garbage device. In the future I'll certainly be reading a few reviews on google before buying things - certainly would have been put off by the plethora of warnings about this thing.

*sigh*

Edit: My Sonicstage is not on a bloated install of windows. It's the only piece of non-OS software installed on the machine. (I only use it for SonicStage, nothing else)

And buying another Sony? roflmfao. Why would I do that?

Welcome to ATRAClife. I'm sorry that you have had issues with your Sony Player. I don't consider myself a 'Sony Fanboy', but like many here I do like the Sound quality of their product, hence I still buy/own thier products. I too had the same device you currently own, and I too had problems with it. If only I had known about this website. I returned mine, but I now own a 8 GB A808, which I love. I have owned Ipods in the past, and I went to ipod related forumns for help & advice. If you decide to perserve with your player, many on here are more than willing to help. I hope you will

Edited September 16, 2007 by Old skool D

[aznbro85]

http://www.rockbox.org/

The new Ipods certainly do work. As do Creative, Toshiba, my no-name computer fair player, Iriver, Sandisk, and anything with drag and drop functionality.

And as for research, I just happily assumed that a good brand name HDD MP3 player would be good. I had less trouble with my Rio 500, and that was 7 years ago!

I'm sorry that I'm not a Sony fanboy, because evidently that's the only group of people who like this garbage device. In the future I'll certainly be reading a few reviews on google before buying things - certainly would have been put off by the plethora of warnings about this thing.

*sigh*

Edit: My Sonicstage is not on a bloated install of windows. It's the only piece of non-OS software installed on the machine. (I only use it for SonicStage, nothing else)

And buying another Sony? roflmfao. Why would I do that?

ah yes.. rockbox, that's a completely different ball game right there. the newest ipods *as is* aren't compatible with linux, after apple changed something in the coding to kill off syncing from 3rd party apps. Rockbox I dont think has a firmware for the newest iPod classics or ipod Touch yet either, so you'd have to get a 5.5 gen or a 2nd gen nano or something

with the whole sony rootkit debacle and such I find it kind of hard to believe you would have went straight in with one of their products that you'd have to go through your computer. a quick cnet or google search would have informed you quite well about sonicstage and the non drag&drop-ness and other 'quirks' to it.

and not only fan-boys enjoy these 'garbage devices'. ATRAC is an awesome audio codec that produces good sounding files at sizes smaller than MP3. Though it is 'outdated' now (compared to AAC and other audio formats), it's still gets the job done.

That last comment of yours I know that you are just a hater and are just in here bashing. Fell free to read my review of their newest product. It works with all OSes and without any software restrictions.

But again, we all have our own opionions, and if you dont like it, dont use it.

Return it, and get something else

[randomlyred]

Unfortunately I can't return it. It's not broken.

OldSkool, were you able to work around any of the problems? I really do like the look of it, and I don't want to have wasted all the money, but I'm just so frustrated right now that all I want to do is bin it.

All I want is to (even on windows) be able to put songs on it without it taking half an hour to mess around with software (if i can get it to work that is), and have the device work reliably without losing its database. I don't think a bit of out of the box functionality is too much to ask for

[Old skool D]

Unfortunately I can't return it. It's not broken.

OldSkool, were you able to work around any of the problems? I really do like the look of it, and I don't want to have wasted all the money, but I'm just so frustrated right now that all I want to do is bin it.

All I want is to (even on windows) be able to put songs on it without it taking half an hour to mess around with software (if i can get it to work that is), and have the device work reliably without losing its database. I don't think a bit of out of the box functionality is too much to ask for

Unfortunately I couldn't. When I brought mine it came with Connect stage software, which, if you think Sonic stage was bad, would have had you pulling your hair out. Awful. If I had been patience, and used Sonic Stage, I would have been OK. A great sounding piece of kit. Have you tried re-installing your Sonic Stage?

[aznbro85]

Unfortunately I can't return it. It's not broken.

OldSkool, were you able to work around any of the problems? I really do like the look of it, and I don't want to have wasted all the money, but I'm just so frustrated right now that all I want to do is bin it.

All I want is to (even on windows) be able to put songs on it without it taking half an hour to mess around with software (if i can get it to work that is), and have the device work reliably without losing its database. I don't think a bit of out of the box functionality is too much to ask for

One of the problems with the NW-A3000 was that it was laggy. I have an HD1 and HD5, and they seem more responsive than the A3000. I heard that one of the reasons was because of the intelligence features. try disabling that in sonicstage by going to "tools" => "options"

on the left panel choose "Transfer" and on the right side under "Device/Media" select the ATRAC Audio Device and click "transfer settings", then click on 'advanced'

on the 'intelligent features' tab, unselect "Use Intelligent Features"

that clears out the clutter on the database a bit and it gets rid of the long hang while resyncing up to update the song stats and stuff (top 100, ratings, artist link, etc)

each time you add or remove something from the player, it will update the database. If you disconnect the player while it's still syncing, it will render that database unusable, so when the player's hooked up to the computer wait til it's ok before taking the player off from the computer. that way, it should rebuild the database correctly.

if all else fails, try to reinitialize the player and try again [Home=> Settings=> Initialize Disk]

hope it helps

[randomlyred]

Scratch that. Sonicstage crashed (gasp) with a runtime error.

Connect player seems to work though. Is there anything wrong with using that instead?

Edited September 16, 2007 by randomlyred

[aznbro85]

I've had to re-initialise the player.

Is there a way to select a large batch of songs to transfer, or do I have to do it one album at a time?

you can send over a few albums at a time.. to do this, in the transfer window, just press "control" and click on the titles that you want to send over, and then hit the "transfer to a device/media" button ( ==> )

keep in mind, if you select a whole bunch of songs (40+ tracks), sonicstage might look like it has crashed. It is just processing the 'large' task and is just temporarily frozen. Give it a few minutes, and it'll start transfering. If in like 10minutes the top right hand corner doesnt start moving the __ of ___, then it probably crashed. But it does occasionally 'lag'/freeze when you try to send over a lot at once.

Hence my suggestion about setting it to work overnight, haha..

EDIT: If connect works for you, then go for it. For a lot of people, CONNECT lagged, was an even bigger RAM hog than sonicstage, and had some other quirks, that i don't really remember...

being in the US, sony USA wasn't willing to put connect into this region, since they didnt like the software at all. I got to try it out from my exports from EU and from Japan

a lot of disgrunted first version connect player users:

http://www.kanai.net/weblog/archive/2005/11/22/21h17m54s

have you tried uninstalling sonicstage and reinstalling it? It sounds like the install might have gone bad since you get that runtime error.

or maybe even better, since you said you don't have anything in windows other than SS, maybe try to reinstall windows and sonicstage? That'd be the best bet, but that'd be also the most inconvenient one

hopefully a uninstall/reinstall will work

~~~~~

i should also mention that databases made in sonicstage and connect are NOT compatible. So if you try and decide you like connect, you wont be able to add songs using sonicstage. so i think it's advisable to get sonicstage working, since it's 'newer' than the defunct connect software.

Edited September 16, 2007 by aznbro85

[randomlyred]

But I can't run it like that overnight, because I'll have to select each disk as the last one is added. Can I not queue up a whole stack to run o/nite?

[aznbro85]

But I can't run it like that overnight, because I'll have to select each disk as the last one is added. Can I not queue up a whole stack to run o/nite?

unfortunately, i'm not that well versed in the Connect software, i only used it for a week or two before going back to sonicstage which i've been using for the past 6 or 7 years.. ~_~

hopefully another forum member can answer that aspect of your problem

[ceres]

Do you have the latest firmware installed?

[aznbro85]

yeah, here's a link to get the newest firmware, which is at version 3.0

http://support.sony-europe.com/DNA/Downloa..._A3000&l=en

[SimonGrafftey]

You are probably running Windows XP SP2 or Vista, but have you tried the Microsoft Hotfix for OpenMG:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en

This solved a similar problem I had ages ago with SonicStage.

[randomlyred]

XP SP2, up to date with updates... and I don't really want to d/l anything more for Windows, seeing as I'm only using it for this thing

I've decided to just fill the HDD and then not change the songs on it... easier than messing with the bastard

And firmware: 3.00 - I may be frustrated, but Im not going to give up on a product until I've done all the basic tweaking... unfortunately this appears to need a sledgehammer

Edited September 18, 2007 by randomlyred

[aznbro85]

XP SP2, up to date with updates... and I don't really want to d/l anything more for Windows, seeing as I'm only using it for this thing

I've decided to just fill the HDD and then not change the songs on it... easier than messing with the bastard

And firmware: 3.00 - I may be frustrated, but Im not going to give up on a product until I've done all the basic tweaking... unfortunately this appears to need a sledgehammer

Hey randomlyred,

sorry to hear that your experience still isn't all that great. is the only problem now just getting the runtime error in windows when you are trying to use sonicstage? If that's the case, and since you dont use windows for anything else other than SS, maybe you should try formatting and reinstalling windows. That probably will correct that problem.

[antiipod]

walkman is pretty good, i think non atrac walkman may make u less pissed, cause they provide drag and drop, u don't have to deal with atrac and ss anymore, though there are people who really do appreciate atrac and ss. u can just read some reviews on the player before ur purchase, those reviews will tell u how crap the software is, then they will tell u that u can't see the screen under the sun, also menu isn't like ipod, those reviews wanna go hard on sony, but then u will know better whether this is the kind of walkman that u need, or maybe some other brands maybe better for u

[Shinji Ikeda]

walkman is pretty good, i think non atrac walkman may make u less pissed, cause they provide drag and drop, u don't have to deal with atrac and ss anymore, though there are people who really do appreciate atrac and ss. u can just read some reviews on the player before ur purchase, those reviews will tell u how crap the software is, then they will tell u that u can't see the screen under the sun, also menu isn't like ipod, those reviews wanna go hard on sony, but then u will know better whether this is the kind of walkman that u need, or maybe some other brands maybe better for u

I have never seen a review be critical on the iPod. Actually, there have been few that have been critical, but most have been glowing reviews of the iPod. The funny thing that I find is that some reviews go as far as to state the Apple with their iPod revolutionized the way we listened to our music (Naspter and other DAP had more of an influence on this). Which make me at least realize that this reviewer is not being objective.

[randomlyred]

The runtime isn't my only problem, it's just the most obvious.

Oh antiipod, if only you were there when I was contemplating buying it, you could have been the voice in my ear.

IMO Rio and Eiger made more of a change to the way we listen to music than Apple - look at a Rio300 and note that it was released in 1998, 3 years before the ipod