Sony Connect Player software problems? Check here for tips.

This article is intended to help people who are experiencing problems with Sony Connect Player software. I’ll also try to put the scale of the problems into perspective.

[Update 27th May 2006]

Sony has released an update to SonicStage called SonicStage CP Version 4. This version supports all of the enhanced functions of the NW-A Series Walkman mp3 players - it appears to have none of the problems exhibited by Connect Player. SilvaBokis recommends you download it and give it a try. Check out this link for more information

[End of Update]

In December Sony shipped the NW-A1000, NW-A3000 and NW-A605/7/8 Walkman models. These models have a new music management program called Sony Connect Player that replaces the previous software, Sonicstage.

I bought an NW-A3000 on the first day they went on sale. My own experience of the first release of Sony Connect Player was a nightmare. The software was unusably slow, hogged system resources, crashed, corrupted song databases. These experiences were echoed by other users on various websites.

I the month that followed Sony released two updates to the original Sony Connect Player software. The updated version of Sony Connect Player works very well on my home PC. I haven’t changed the PC – so the software updates seem to have resolved my particular problems.

How bad is the problem?

Many people have no problem with Sony Connect Player. It installs perfectly and works well for them. It seems that the majority of these people bought their Walkman after the first Sony Connect Player upgrade in mid December. For confirmation of generally happy customers (there are some unhappy ones too) check out Amazon reviews here, here and here.

The fact that other people are happily using Sony Connect Player doesn’t really help those users who are having problems – and it looks like a lot of people have got problems. Check out the Gen Kanai blog for a very long thread about the trials and tribulations of using Sony Connect Player.

What is the cause of the problems?

I believe there are 2 primary causes of problems - PC specification and size of digitised music collection.

If you have a low spec PC and/or you have a large (>3,000 song) digitised music collection then you may experience performance problems with Sony Connect Player.

If you have a high spec PC and/or you have a small digitised music collection or it's your first MP3 player and you're digitising from scratch then the odds are that you won't have a problem. That isn't a promise, but it is what I have observed from my own experience and that of others.

Some fixes for problems with Sony Connect Player

Here are some fixes for common problems. I will add more as they become available.

What to do if you can’t get past the Sony Connect Player License Agreement screen because you can’t see the checkboxes that need ticking.

The following advice came fom Sony Tech support:

*Follow the onscreen prompts until you reach the [License Agreement] screen.
*On the [License Agreement] screen, if the radio buttons to select whether you agree or disagree with the license have not been created, press the [Tab] button four times and then left arrow key once, The [Next] button should no longer be greyed out, please click on it.
*Follow the onscreen prompts to complete the installation.
*If the [next] button is still greyed out when following the above steps please can you restart your computer, follow the steps above but this time when you reach the License Agreement screen press the [Tab] key once and then the [left arrow] key once. If the [next] button is now active please click on it and follow the onscreen prompts to complete the installation.

What to do if importing a large MP3 collection is very slow and sometimes crashes Sony Connect Player

This was the main problem I experienced with the first version of Sony Connect Player.

Solution 1 - I managed to get over 8,000 songs onto my NW-A3000 by doing the following:

• Disconnect the Walkman from the PC while importing tracks. This prevents the Sony Connect Player from trying to simultaneously import tracks and synchronise them to the Walkman.
• Set up a watch folder pointing to an empty folder. Add a number of your MP3s to that folder & let them import. Connect Walkman & Synch tracks. Close Connect. Use Task Manager to ensure that Cplayer & tinyhttp are closed. Disconnect Walkman. Open Connect & repeat process.

Solution 2 – Download and install SonicStage 3.3. This alternative Sony music management software is a lot more stable than Sony Connect Player. It works with the new Walkman models but a few features are disabled (Artist Link, Song ratings). So not every feature on the Walkman works but the most important ones – loading and listening to songs – are reliable for most users.

I will update this article as more problems/solutions are discovered. Ask a question using the comments facility below and I’ll try to answer it.

NB. Please don’t post abusive comments about Sony or the Sony Connect Player – they will be edited or removed. I know that software problems are very frustrating but this is a place where I want to present answers not arguments. I’d like this page to develop into an FAQ where visitors can easily find solutions - I won’t let it degrade into a public slanging match. Thank you.

Comments

[Pete McEwen]

Silva,
Can you help me please.
Having ripped and successfully transferred approx. 300 CDs to my NW A3000, with just 10 of my collection to go Connect Player decided to go into sync mode. In doing so it turned off the NW A3000, which required a reset to bring it back to life. The upshot, not one tune left on the device. Not to worry! I backed up all my files on a portable hard drive. The problem I’m faced with now is that when I attempt to import the files from the HD it duplicates the entry in the library plus not all the tracks can be played. A library twice the size it should be is, I believe, having an effect on the length of time Connect Player is taking to open, ½ an hour! I have attempted to remove the library but Connect Player just hangs. To remove one artist takes about 15 minutes and there are approx 200 of them. I have uninstalled and reinstalled Connect Player, but it has made a copy of my library and hidden it somewhere so it reinstalls with the library intact.

So, my question is can you help me to find and delete whatever file Connect Player created.

[silvabokis]

Hi Pete.

You will need to delete the old library folder (and maybe the data folder) that you can find at the following location on your machine - C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Sony Corporation\CONNECT Player

You may need to enable 'view hidden files and directories' to find this folder.

When you have found the folder you will see a number of subfolders including \Library and \Data.

Rename each of these folders to something like \LibraryOLD and \DataOLD and then restart Connect.

You should now have a clean Library thay you can import your tracks into.

[kirstie mcleod]

hya can you please help me i just got my sony walkman NW A/1000 for my christmas and when i try to rip songs from cd's into the connect player it says next to every song that there is a cd read error. i don't no what to do and i have tryed looking at help things but there is nothing about my problem please help me

[silvabokis]

Hi Kirstie - I haven't experienced that problem myself but there are a couple of things you can do.

1. If this is happening with all CDs then you should see if you can play them in another program such as Windows Media Player - this will confirm whether the problem is with Connect or with your CD drive.

2. If the CDs are recognised in other programs then you have the option of ripping in an external program and then importing the songs into Connect. You can rip to MP3 in Windows Media Player and (if it recognises your drive) you can rip to ATRAC using SonicStage 3.3.

Rather than do a straight import you should set up Watch Folders in Connect that will automatically import new music from whatever directories you tell it to watch.

I know this is a a workaround but at least you can start getting your music into Connect and then see if the problem goes away when Connect is next updated.

[Pete McEwen]

Hi Silva,
Thanks for your advice. Library file found and modified. Now have >3000 files loaded on my NW A3000 and a valuable lesson in patience. All I have to do now is work out how to make Artist Link work. Any ideas?

[silvabokis]

Pete - Glad it worked!

For Artist Link to work I think you need to leave Connect open for a long time - this allows it to go online to GraceNote to get all the extra track info it needs.

When you next attach your Walkman it should pass the extra data to the device and Artist Link will begin to work.

Or at least that's how I think it works ;-)

[Gen Kanai]

Silva- thank you for the link.

I've got almost 1000 comments from users who are frustrated with Connect Player. It's absolutely staggering to me.

[silvabokis]

Gen - I think the page on your blog highlights just how serious this issue is.

What I want to do on this page is act as an alternative Tech Support - helping users to find a fix for their Connect related problems.

Anyway - cheers mate!

[Damian]

Hey,

I was able to use connect for my first 2/3 attempts, since then I have been using sonicstage. I probably have circa 3000 tracks in the connect library.

The problem I have is that when I try to load connect I can only get as far as the loading page & it hangs there for ever more.

Any ideas?

Thanks
Damian.

[silvabokis]

Damian - On another forum it has been suggested that running Connect in 'Windows 2000 compatibility mode' can speed things up.

To do this you need to right click the Connect icon, click Properties, click Compatibility tab, check 'Run this program in compatibility mode for' and select Windows 2000 from the drop down. Then click OK.

If this doesn't work you could try clearing the Library and reimporting tracks (instructions earlier in this page).

[Damian]

Thanks Silvia. Unfortunately that didnt work.

If you come across any other ideas - pls post them

Rgds
Damian

[Helen]

Hi, I am having trouble ripping some of my cd's onto my connect player. I find that if they have multimedia content on the disk, it isnt recognised as an audio disk but a data disk and no tracks appear in the cd window. I cant send windows media files to the device either for some reason, it says that they have sent but they arent on my player. Can you help?
Many thanks
Helen

[silvabokis]

Hi Helen,

Connect Player doesn't currently rip CD Extra or other Audio CDs with multimedia content.

There are 2 ways around the problem.

1. You can rip tracks to WMA or MP3 using Windows Media Player or many other Jukebox programs. Once ripped the tracks can be imported into Connect.
2. If you have SonicStage version 3.3 on your PC it can often rip CD Extra to ATRAC format. Once again, you can import these tracks into Connect.

Regarding your problems sending WMA files to the device:

1. Have you upgraded the firmware of your player to the newest version that includes support for WMA?
2. Even after firmware upgrade only non-rights protected WMA files will be transferred to the device.

[Jamie]

I've managed to get Sonic Stage working with my walkman with a lot more success than Connect Player which was slow and frankly boring to watch. Now, I know it's been mentioned that features such as artist link are disabled, but does anyone have a clue if there's any software out there that will work better than Connect Player, but that retains these features- I'd rather like to be able to use them.

[Sean]

thank you very much for the info on how to get past the user agreement screen!

[brit]

I know that the sony nw-a1000 is supposed to hold 4000 tracks...so how come mine only holds 1400? Am I supposed to convert into atrac? I've tried this, but it clearly hasn't worked! Also is there a way to delete all tracks in one go from the player?

[silvabokis]

Jamie - Unfortunately the only software that supports all features in Connect Player.

Brit - The stated file capacity is based on converting all files to ATRAC3Plus at 64kbps. Personally, I would never compress tracks that much as sound quality will inevitably suffer. I currently rip to ATRAC3Plus 160kbps - you get a lot less tracks on the player but they all sound great.

[Sean]

with the help of ur site, i installed connect player a few days ago. now i hae a few more problems with it.
i understand it is incredibly slow, but there are things that puzzle me more. i currently only have 1175 songs on the player which were transferred using sonic stage. But when i connect it to connect player, it says there are only 8 hundred and something songs, and the rest have errors despite the fact they play ok on the walkman. this means it wont let me transfer these songs back to my computer.
also, sometimes when i disconnect it form connect player and turn it on it says there is no database, yet if i reconnect it, and let it transfer,m then disconnect it again it works. what might be causing this?
another quesry i have is how do i set up artist link? and how do i transfer information on my top 100 songs and play history?

many thanks

[silvabokis]

Hi Sean - I'm afraid I don't have a solution for your first problem. Perhaps you could try resetting your player, clearing the Connect library (instructions in main post above) and then reimporting tracks.

The disconnect problem is happening because you're disconnecting when Connect is still in the process of synchronising the song database to the player. If you install the latest Connect Update there are better status messages so you can tell when it's safe to disconnect.

To get Artist Link working you need to leave your Walkman connected to your computer for a few hours with Connect running.

Top 100 songs and Play history should automatically be updated when you connect your Walkman to the PC with Connect running.

[Sean]

Thanks. will artist link still configure if the songs on my walkman are not actually in my connect library?

ive got the latest version of connect. perhaps ive been too hasty in removing it and thats whats causing the database errors. well ill be sure to try clearing my library and reimporting.

many thanks, sean

[silvabokis]

Hi Sean - Artist link will only work on the songs in your library - this is because the Artist link database is updated on the PC side and then copied to the Walkman when you synchronise.

[Joe]

Hey

I'm knew to this, i just googled for some help as i usually do. Anyway, i was wondering instead of using connect player, why can't i used Windows Media player? any guidance on how to do this would be greatly apreiciated or on how to use the connect player completely would also be greatly apreiciated, I really suffered having to listen to my maths teacher go on about algebra because i could use my Mp3 player! *cries*

[silvabokis]

Hi Joe - The only software that works with your Walkman is Sony Connect or (with some functions not supported) SonicStage.

If you get the latest update for Connect it may resolve your problems - it has for a lot of other users. There's a good chance it won't though :-(

[silvabokis]

Sony UK has extended the operating hours of the Connect Player Software Helpline:

Monday - Friday 8am to 8pm
Saturday - Sunday 10am to 4pm

The telephone Number is 0800 169 5263

[Jean]

Hi Silva,

I've just bought a NW-A3000 last week. I was working fine but yesterday I had this message "No data base found, Please connect a compliant software"

I made a full upload with Connect but nothing changed. Do you have an idea ?

Thank a lot