How large of a collection? What process or program did you use?
I’ve been trying to put 22gig of music (about 4000 files) onto my droid x which has a 32gig sdcard. I’ve successfully transferrred the files by drag-and-drop by mounting the phone to the computer as an external storage device.
When I unmount the device, the phone attempts to catalog the files, but then it freezes before it completes. It’s behaving as if the database is running out of RAM during the cataloging process. If I delete media storage data (where the system stores catalog data) and load about half the data, everything works fine. Anybody else had this issue?
cT
I haven’t had this issue, but on any Android devices I’ve used/own, the system alerts you to low memory situations. I’ve transferred about 16 gigs of music to my 32 gig card (kingston class 4), and haven’t had any issues with my tablet or phone.
Another possible solution, is to perhaps use a cloud-based service, where you can upload your collection and have it readily available on your device (it caches some of the recent music, locally, if you don’t have internet access). I’m currently using Google Music for this, as well as Amazons service.
mSpot is an app that does exactly this. It works pretty well, but only provides 2gig of storage for free. Paying a fee for the ability to store all your songs isn’t that bad, and the uploader does it automatically from your PC and they just show up on your phone. Unfortunately, the upload program does not seem to work on a Linux Mint computer (although I haven’t tried really hard)…
Have you tried doing it in smaller chunks? I’ve got close to 13 gigs on mine, but I didn’t add it all at once, just bit by bit over the past year. I think the most I’ve added is about 5 gigs when I first got the phone. You could try add 5gigs, unmount, let the phone catalog, repeat. IT might take a little long, but you’d only have to do it 4 times.
There’s also the possibility you might have a corrupt file in there. I know my old phone (a Blackberry) had trouble when I tried adding a bunch of music. Turns out there was a bad file in there that it got stuck on.
16 Gig is about where I start having issues. (About 11 gig of music and 5 gig of photos, ebooks, video, etc.)
I have tried loading in small chunks. I still run into problems. I’ll report back if I find an acceptable solution.
I’ve tried the following:
loading smaller chunks of data.
I’ve tried moving 200MB of songs at a time; unmounting the external USB drive from the computer; and allowing the phone to rescan for changes in order to build the media database after each move of 200MB. Around 11-13G, the phone hangs on the rebuild. I suppose it could be a bad file but when accessed from a Windows based Laptop there are no issues with the laptop accessing the phone (mounted as an external usb device).
2) excluding the music folder from the system scan and using a third-party music player.
You can exclude a directory from the system scan by placing a period (.) as the first character in the directory name. Windows XP Service Pack 3 ( My laptop OS) doesn’t allow you to create such a directory. So the directory has to be created on the phone using something like AStro file manager or Linda File Manager. Power AMP (free trial, $5 purchased), and Music Folder Player (free in Android Market) allow you to play music by folder browsing as opposed to using the music library. BOTH Programs, however, hang up when they are initially trying to load a folder list when my entire library is loaded on the card. Both programs would need the entire list to enable shuffle, a feature that they both have. They both work fine when I only have around 2000 files and 500 or so directories. All of the directories are sub-directories of the main music folder. The sub-directories are mostly organized by artist.
So rather than using those programs, I can play music by directory browsing choosing a song and opening each song individually—not really a good solution. However, at least excluding the music directory from the system scan keeps the phone from freezing.
I’m beginning to think that Android can’t support large lists.
Phone specs:
Droid X (Gingerbread android 2.3.3)
32G PNY microSD class 4 (formatted fat32 cluster size 32k)
Laptop
Window XP service pack 3
RAM 512M
Celeron 1.8 GHz
Wish I could help, I have about 20 gigs of music on my 32gig card in my HTC Incredible and it works fine. Sure the copying over takes forever, but once it’s there I don’t notice any cataloging until I start the music player and then I just have to wait 5 minutes or so the first time I use it. I can say the stock HTC Music player was so slow with that volume of songs that it was unusable. Since I downloaded Mixzing, however, it’s very fast even when scrolling through thousands of tracks. If your problem happens when you load your music player, I’d definitely recommend Mixzing (most features are completely free!).
It’s certainly not a storage space issue. 16 gigs was just my music, with quite a bit more when you include other media (split between the two devices).
Are you running a hacked version of Gingerbread, or is that the official release, on your Droid X?
I’ve previously had issues with large lists, but it was either app specific, or an issue with a given ROM and related memory constraints (original Droid).
Thanks everyone for your responses. I found a work around.
Joey TightLips, I tried MixZing but ran into the same problems, but it seemed like a nice player. Krouget, My Droid X has an official copy of Gingerbread. It hasn’t been hacked. My work around is to exclude the library from the media database and use a different player.
Here’s are the steps to my work around:
**1) Using a File Manager such as Astro or Linda create a hidden directory on the SDcard. **
Hidden directory are not cataloged in the Android media database. Hidden directores begin with a period (.) . My directory is .Music.
2) Download Music Folder Player Free from the Android MarketPlace.
Music Folder Player Free is a very basic player that the developer made mostly to listen to audio books. It automatically saves the spot in the file where you were last listening when you browse away from a folder. When you browse back to that folder, the file you were last listening to begins playing at the exact spot you left off. Although this feature is nice for books, it’s a bit annoying for music. But the browsing is fast and the music starts immediately. The tagged data does not display, but the app works and is FREE.
3)Set Music Folder Player Free to look for music files in your hidden directory.
Open the Player. Press the generic menu button. Select Preferences. Scroll to the bottom of the list. Check “Use custom folder”. Press “Audio root folder”. browse and select your hidden directory. NOTE When you open the player the first time, if you already have some music on your phone, the player is going to scan your phone in order to find the music. Depending on how much music you currently have on your phone, it may take a few seconds to minutes to complete the scan.
**4) Close the Player.
** 5) Load your music into your hidden directory.
Attach your phone to your computer using a USB cable. Drag and drop your music folders into your main music directory. (In my case /mnt/sdcard/.music)
6) Detach your player.
**
Safely remove your device per your computer’s OS methods. The phone will be available in whatever your normal boot up time is. Because your music is in a hidden folder, the system ignores the files. The files aren’t added to your media database so there is no lag time while your phone is made ready.
**
7) Open the Player and select the songs you would like to hear.
For 4013 music files, it takes Music Folder Player Free less than 30 seconds to present the list of songs. Music Folder Player Free allows shuffling within the current folder or across all of your music folders. It doesn’t allow playlists. If you close the program, it will still take 30 seconds to present you with your list of folders and songs. So it is best for you to suspend the process, if you are going to be listening when you come back from a call, etc. That is, don’t hit the back arrow key. You will exit the program if you do. When you are ready to return to the player, long press home and choose it from the list of active programs.
My phone specs are as follows:
DroidX
32G PNY Class 4 MicroSD
Gingerbread (2.3.3)
Total file on the SDcard: 4698 files in 219 folders (22.8 Gig)
Music files: 4013 files in 181 folders (21.3 Gig)
Other files: 685 files in 38 folders (1.42 Gig) —I was mistaken about this in my earlier post.
I intend this to be my last post on the topic since my problem is solved and no one else seems to be having this problem.
I still think Android must have issues with dealing with large numbers of files. After I had arrived at the work around, I wanted to see if I could get the songs loaded into the android’s media catalog. I deleted all other files off of the SDcard leaving only the music. Then, I renamed the hidden directory so that it was available to the system. After rebooting the phone, the system SUCCESSFULLY cataloged the entire music library. I browsed through the library using the native music player. I was able to browse by artist or song or album or playlist. I was able to play any song that I selected. The phone was running well —no lag. The phone took about 25 minutes to catalog the entire collection. During the cataloging process the phone responded satisfactorally. After the database was complete the phone worked perfectly normally. I then reloaded the rest of the data to the phone. The phone immediately began to behave sluggishly. I then decided the reboot the phone. The phone froze while shutting down. Upon rebooting the phone, as soon as the SDcard loaded, I connected it to the computer so that I could move the music database back to a hidden directory. Upon disconnecting the phone from the computer, the phone worked properly again.