From: Andreas Stemmer <groovingandi_at_gmx.de>
Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2003 11:13:07 +0200

Sharon wrote:

> Last night I was trying to get back to the book I started listening to
> and it wouldn't play. I ended up in a folder called "root.m3u".

This is probably not a folder but a playlist. Perhaps you created it while
playing around with the rockbox menu item "create playlist" which does a
scan of the current folder and all its subfolders and makes a playlist of
all the files in it.

> However, when I get the little triangle next to one to play that one and
> push the middle round button that I'm sure is the "play" button, instead
> of having the book start playing and the screen fill up with information
> about it, there is nothing on the screen except the battery icon and a
> couple other icons at the top, and nothing plays.

The middle round button is the play button, yes. It seems that there's a
problem with your audio book file, but you said you managed to play it in
rockbox earlier and it plays well on the computer. Do you have copies of
your books on the computer? Perhaps the best thing would be to clear your
harddrive and put it on again. I can give you detailed instructions if your
self-confident enough for this. But perhaps it's better to try some other
things before.

You did a scandisk in windows which reported no errors as you wrote in some
other post. Perhaps there are some settings in rockbox which got screwed
up. You could try the following: rename the ajbrec.ajz on your jukebox to
something different, for exampe rock.ajz, and reboot your jukebox. You'll
get the archos firmware and can try to play your audio books there. Or try
to reset your settings in rockbox (after renaming it back to ajbrec.ajz and
rebooting), there's a menu option in the general settings for this and try
your books then.

> So I connected it to the PC again and that "root.m3u" file LOOKS like a
> winamp file; it has the winamp icon and when I click on it winamp comes
> up. Microsoft also wants to send itself an error message.

This looks like a problem with your windows drivers or with your filesystem
on the jukebox. If you want to reinstall the windows drivers, you could do
the following (I assume you have xp and a jukebox recorder, right?): with
your jukebox connected to the computer, open the device manager (you can
find it by a right-click on the "My computer" icon -> Properties -> a
button in one tab, I don't remember the name), find your jukebox (usb mass
storage device) and remove the driver. After a reboot, windows should
reinstall its drivers hopefully.

> However, I have 2 external USB hard drives on this PC, and they all have
> the same icon and say the same thing in the "safely remove hardware"
> window: USB Mass Storage Device at Location 0". I clicked that box that
> says display device component and could identify the Jukebox cuz it is
> "J". When I say "stop", which is what windows says to do, windows says
> "The device 'Generic volume' cannot be stopped right now. Try stopping
> the device again later."

This message is presented if the drive is still active or if windows still
uses something on the drive. Close all your explorer windows, winamp and
other tasks that could be trying to access your jukebox or could have a
file open and try it again. It should work then.
If it doesn't work either, you can always shutdown your computer and then
remove the drive.

> Now I don't know WHAT to do. I can't unmount it. Did I corrupt it by
> unmounting it improperly?

Perhaps, but it should be manageable. In the worst case, you have to
install your windows drivers again (see above) and/or reformat your
jukebox.

After reading all I have written here, I have the impression that this
could be a little bit too confusing, therefore I'll sum it up again:

- there are six possible error sources for your problems:

1. windows has problems with accessing your jukebox because the drivers
aren't properly installed -> possible, but normally, xp installs everthing
automatically and it did work everytime I tried it

2. there are conflicts with the other usb devices you mentioned ->
possible, there were some problems reported a while ago with some Iomega
HipZip drives that couldn't be installed on the same computer as the
jukebox without problems

for 1&2, you could try to connect your jukebox to a friends pc and test it
there

3. you have a damaged file system on your jukebox because you didn't
unmount it properly -> possible and most likely, but a scandisk or a
reformat should help

4. your file system is ok, but the audio file has errors -> possible and a
common problem, but unlikely from your descriptions, you could test with
some other audio files

5. some settings in rockbox got screwed up -> test with original Archos
firmware or do a reset settings in rockbox (could be possible that while
playing around, you changed the wps (the screen which is presented while
playing files) to something else which displayes nothing and that you
accidently muted the jukebox or turned the volume down far enough to hear
nothing)

6. you really have a physically broken jukebox -> you should test the other
items before giving up

One more tip, then I'll shut up: if you can't delete root.m3u in windows,
you can try to delete it in rockbox: in the directory browser, go to the
file (put the triangle before it) and press ON+PLAY (press and hold ON,
then press PLAY shortly, release ON). You should get a file menu allowing
you to delete the file.


Andreas Stemmer
Received on 2003-08-16