"Play More Like This" feature stopped working

Some time over the last few months the feature to "Play More Like This" music on the Toyota Prius C audio system stopped working.  The system displays a message "No similar songs found" even though it has found songs in the past...since there are over 8,0000 songs on the drive it can't possibly not find similar songs!

{A little background: my music is stored on a 32 gig thumb drive plugged into the USB port of the car audio system. The audio system allows you to browse and play music stored on the drive.}

"Play More Like This"  feature allows you to ask the system to search your music collection for similar songs and create  a list of songs to play. This is a great feature since you can get a new playlist with only hitting a single button rather than hitting multiple buttons to browse for songs....safer driving!

So what is the problem?

I'm on the trail to finding out what's wrong, but no answer at this point.

Here's what I've done so far:

• Searched the internet for postings about the problem. It seemed that few people have encountered this problem, and I could not get any clues to a solution.
• My suspicion is that there is some error on the drive causing the feature to return no songs to the "Play More Like This" search.  
• I plugged the thumb drive into my computer and ran "Error Checking"  on it. No errors were reported.
• I plugged another thumb drive into the USB port of the car with a sample music selection and tested the feature. IT WORKED! From this test I conclude that the car system is working and the thumb drive is the problem. But how to find it.....
• So I plan to delete files {say the newest ones from the last 6 months}  from the thumb drive and test in order to find the files that may be causing the problem...This is time consuming test since it takes time for the audio system in the car to read the contents of the drive and be ready for the "Play More Like This"  feature to be invoked. Like waiting for a computer to boot! Also I need some method the delete finds from the thumb drive without going back and forth from my car to desktop computer....e.g. a laptop or tablet.

So on to the testing, and I'll report back soon.

7/9/2013:

Deleting files did not help to isolate the problem, "Play More Like This" still would not work.

I also tried a program called "Mp3checker" to check the tags and format of the files on the USB drive.

Several files were bad according to the program. I removed these bad files, but "Play More Like This" still did not work.

Interesting though, I found some documentation that states the limitations of the USB music device; e.g. number of files, number of directories, etc.  I thought this pointed to a cause of my problems...
Limits are:

• Max directory levels:8
• Max number of folders:999
• Max number of files: 9999
• Max number of files per folder: 255

and then out of nowhere "Play More Like This" would work at times! So my testing so far as not isolated the problem...Oh well.. so still working on this problem.

Connect your Android Device to your Windows PC over wireless network.

One of the cool features of the ES File Explorer app is the ability to connect to shares and computers on your local network {LAN} over your wireless network.

It took me awhile to find this feature, since it is somewhat hidden in all the features and options.

In the upper left side of the App window, is an area of the screen that contains the word "local" with a small down arrow. I didn't realize that this arrow was something I could touch and get other options.

The options are:

• Local - Show the local storage on your Android device
• Lan - Show shares and Computers on your local LAN
• FTP - Show FTP servers ... { I haven't used this option} I may comment later on this...
• Bluetooth - Show Bluetooth storage devices. Again I haven't used this option.

So if you switch to the LAN option, you will most likely see a blank screen, e.g. there are no computers or shares found. So how do you populate/see the computers on your home network?

1. you can scan the network. Touch the menu button on your device, then select "New" then "Scan". The device will scan the network and show icons for discovered computers. The icon will show the IP address of the computer.
OR
2. you can add a server manually. You will need the following information:

• A Share name OR the IP address of the computer you want to connect to.  See below on how to get the IP address...
• The user ID you will use to connect {a windows user name}
• The user password for the user.
• A name you want to use for the Share or server.

I would recommend setting up a Sharing on your server instead of using IP addresses.The servers on my local network using DHCP and so their IP address may change each time the server is rebooted.

Once your server or share is set up you can touch the icon to connect and wirelessly access files and copy them to your device. Works great!

Free content for your Kindle.

I must admit that I love to read on my Kindle: books, magazines, blogs, web page clippings, library books, etc.

Amazon has great content, but there are other sources for reading material for your Kindle or other devices running a Kindle app that are worth looking into.

Here are two sources of reading material that I use:

1."Send to Kindle" an extension for Google Chrome browser that allows you with a click to send a web page complete with photos to your Kindle.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/send-to-kindle-by-klipme/ipkfnchcgalnafehpglfbommidgmalan

2. Calibre.  Calibre is a windows program that will download content from various sources, format it for the kindle and email it to your device. There are many sources that Calibre can use: New York Magazine, Wired Magazine, CNet News, PCWorld, etc.  Calibre can be set up to run and get content on a schedule.

http://calibre-ebook.com/download_windows

Photoshop Elements Organizer 11 Crashes at startup

After getting version 11 installed and the catalog conversion problem solved, I actually started to use the program. And that did not last too long... after adding some photos to the catalog, the Organizer crashed and continued to crash each time I started the program.

A search of the Adobe forums let me know that I was not the only one experiencing this problem but there were no real solutions posted there that seem to fit...so I used the Support Chat window to get a solution to the problem.

The tech I got for the chat window, was very good and quickly targeted the problem. The problem was a conflicting video file used by my Pinnacle USB TV tuner device. We renamed the offending file, and started the Organizer, and it now works!  See below for the details of the steps involved to solve MY issue... yours may be different.....but the approach below may help identify your particular problem...

Troubleshoot PSE Organizer crash issue.

1. See if there is an error event in the system log.

• On my Win7 system, start the event viewer. In the Windows search field, type   "Event viewer" then click on the Event Viewer program.
• Double click on "Windows Logs" on the left hand pane
• Double click on  "Application" in the middle pane to bring up the events for applications.
• See if there is a red error icon signifying an error event.
• If so, then click on the event and see if the faulting application is PS Elements Organizer.exe
• If so, then good news is that you are on the trail of the cause of the problem.

2. Read the error message for clues as to what may be the problem...

For me the error message was this:

Faulting application name: PhotoshopElementsOrganizer.exe, version: 11.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x503fdd1d

Faulting module name: H264Codec.ax, version: 2.0.532.0, time stamp: 0x4823ad4d

Exception code: 0xc0000005

Fault offset: 0x000244e6

Faulting process id: 0x1c18

Faulting application start time: 0x01cdb6d89b788dd4

Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Elements 11 Organizer\PhotoshopElementsOrganizer.exe

Faulting module path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Pinnacle\Shared Files\Filter\H264Codec.ax

Report Id: e86a87cb-22cb-11e2-8ef0-00027223b541

So the assumption was that the problem was with a video module installed on my system:  C:\Program Files (x86)\Pinnacle\Shared Files\Filter\H264Codec.ax 

3. What to do? OK so there may be a problem with module x... how to proceed....this is the "tricky bit".... it was assumed that Organizer was trying to load the H264Codec for possible viewing of a video file in my catalog and that the module was probably not needed.  I renamed the file to C:\Program Files (x86)\Pinnacle\Shared Files\Filter\H264Codec.ax_old

4. Started the PS Elements Organizers program, and now it works!

5. But, that's probably not the end of the story...perhaps the Pinnacle program needs the H264 file and now won't be able to find it??? Perhaps there is an updated module??? So just because the Organizer now works, I am not done, and there is yet another problem to smash...

Music playlists for Toyota Prius USB drive

I recently got a new car, a Toyota Prius C and am loving all the new technology : GPS Navigation  Bluetooth phone connection, IPhone integration, a USB port for my music files, and large touchscreen to control all the tech.

USB Port with almost hidden 32 GB drive

Cruzer Fit 32GB drive holds all my music

I purchased a SanDisk Cruzer Fit CZ33 32GB USB Flash Drive  to hold my music files. I copied my MP3 music files to the drive, plugged it into the car and it worked right away. It is very convenient to control the playback of music using the large touch screen in the Prius and the steering wheel controls are very handy as well.

One problem though was that playlists I had created with WinAmp and Microsoft Media Player did not work; either the playlist did not show up when browsing for playlists in the car, or the playlist did not contain any entries. Jump to "What I did" below for a solution, or read on....

Doing a search in the Toyota forums yields lots of information with recommendations for solutions to this problem. But I had problems getting anything to work that well...either it was too complicated to set up, or it did not work all the time.

In my attempts to troubleshoot why playlists were not working; I learned a lot about their format and so was able to understand why they did not work. Basically the format of a playlist is a text file of statements that are pointers to the songs to be played. The actual statements in the playlist look like XML or HTML. You can use Notepad to open a playlist, to see what's there and even edit it to make corrections if needed.

For me, my MP3 files are kept on my media server that is "Drive T:" on my PC. So if a playlist contained a pointer to a music file on drive T, is was never going to work in the car...e.g. There is no drive T in the car!


     <title>John David Souther</title>
    </head>
    <body>
        <seq>
            <media src="T:\John David Souther\01 The Fast One.mp3"/>
            <media src="T:\John David Souther\02 Run like a Thief.mp3"/>
            <media src="T:\John David Souther\03 Jesus in 3-4 Time.mp3"/>
      ....

So in order to build playlists that work in the car, the pointers or references to the music file must be correct. The problem was how could I do that easily.

Here is what I did:

1. I loaded all my music files onto the Cruzer Fit drive and plugged it into my computer. The cruzer USB  drive was assigned drive letter F:
2. I ran WinAmp on my computer, and started with no files in the media library. You can clear the library from the settings. 
3. I added all the music files on the Cruzer Fit drive F: to the WinAmp library. e.g. File -> Add Media to Library.
4. Next I created a playlist and SAVED the playlist to the root /main directory of the Cruzer Fit Drive F:
5. Since only files from the Cruzer Fit Drive are used in the playlist, the pointers to the music file are correct, and the playlist works in the car.

Notes:

What about my normal library of media on drive T:?  I use Windows Media Player and it's library to reference all my media on drive T: and other places on my home network.

The WinAmp library for me, will only reference music files on the Cruzer Fit drive.

Of course, I have to bring in the Cruzer Fit drive from the car whenever I want to create a playlist or play music in WinAmp on my computer.

The Cruzer Fit drive is tiny! and is not visible when in the car. So it  lives in the car and is always ready to play music whenever I am driving.

WimAmp playlists {.m3u} have a different format than Windows Media Player playlists {wpl}, but the idea, the references to music files work the same way, e.g. bad reference and the playlist will not work.

I also have a suspicion that some types of "tokens" used in Windows Media Player playlists cause the playlist not to work in the car, e.g. see the cid and tid tokens below...

<media src="Music\Rock\Thirty Eight Spec. - Rock&amp;Roll Strategy\Rock &amp; Roll Strategy - Thirty Eight Special - 03 - Little Sheba.mp3" cid="{A83EF887-27DA-4334-8628-D93DAFCA8469}" tid="{B3A73BCB-BDDD-4AA7-A114-F05CBF08F826}"/>

Pantech Crossover Android Phone on Consumer Cellular Network

It used to be that the AT&T GoPhone "pay as you go" service was one of the lowest cost providers, but a new policy changed that, and led me to change my phone service over to Consumer Cellular {CC}.

My cost runs about $25 a month and that includes 100MB of data and messaging. So it's a very good deal. I am able to use my IPhone 3GS on their network by using a custom APN.

I wanted to add a second line to my service for my wife. She has an AT&T Pantech Crossover running Android.

I signed up for a second line and got a SIM card. The second line adds $10 to my cost. The great thing is that both lines share the same data and messaging costs..e.g. you pay ONCE for data and share it on both phones.

AT&T phones work on CC network settings so I inserted the new SIM card in the Pantech and it worked right away....except for the data service.

I knew that I needed to update some network settings, perhaps create a custom APN, but I didn't know exactly how to do that...

From the CC web site I found a page with all the settings needed for a phone to work on their network, but the Pantech phone would not let me edit the APN settings.

I called CC support. Basically they said that the Pantech Crossover would not let me edit the APN settings and that I was out of luck!

But I thought that there must be a way to get the phone to work and I kept looking for a solution.

I found one...basically it is true that you cannot edit the default APNs, but you can add new ones!

A little more searching on the internet and I found a website that had the exact settings and instructions I needed.

http://www.unlockit.co.nz/mobilesettings/settings.php?id=179

I added the new APNs as defined in the above web site and everything works, data, voice and messaging.

Adobe PhotoShop Elements 10 to 11 Catalog Conversion Fails

I recently purchased version 11 of PhotoShop Elements, cause I didn't like version 10 that well, and version 11 was reviewed to be much better and has some new features that I wanted to try.

The download and installation of version 11 went off without a hitch, but I ran into a problem when I tried to convert the previous version  {Vers. 10} of the Catalog into version 11.

Note: the Catalog is the tags, albums, people etc. that you use to organize your collection of media..The whole purpose of Elements IS the catalog!!!

Basically, the Catalog conversion process would fail and advise me to run the version of the software {Adobe Photoshop Elements 10} that created the catalog and repair the catalog and try again.....

I did, I did, again, search, read articles and again....no luck

A web search did not turn up any answers either...

So I reluctantly went to Adobe's help site, and fired up a chat session with a support person to try to get resolution...... yada yada, three hours later, and no solution...don't get me started on the sorry state of software support these days....just horrible! The support person actually suggested that I start over with the new version and abandon the old catalog!! Are they crazy!!!

So my next step was to post a plea for help to an Adobe Forum, and with some tips and more thinking, I actually got the Catalog Conversion process to run...

To see my post in the forum follow this link:
http://forums.adobe.com/message/4765679#4765679

Basically I think the problem {where the conversion fails} is one of permissions. e.g. the conversion process must run with Administrator rights.

I have NOT tested this to be able to say this is the problem 100% since there are a number of other things that could have come into play, and I have a life and don't fell obliged to debug Adobe's software.

 With the idea that permissions might be the problem, I created a shortcut to the Elements Organizer11.exe and right clicked and selected "Run as Administrator".--> Catalog conversion was successful this time!  Note: if you run Elements in the standard way, you get a  shell process that lets you select the "Organizer" or the "Editor". I'm not sure running in the standard way with Administrator rights cascade down to the Organizer process???

OK any more writing about this will just confuse the issue, if you have questions, ask.