Hi all,
I was trying to use a flash drive in the USB2 port of my Rossini Player. I connect the drive, hold the menu button for a couple of seconds and the display always tells me “Folder is empty”.
I’ve tried with 3 different pen drives (8, 16 and 64 GB). Tried different formatting (FAT32 and un-encrypted NTFS). I’ve tried to put some music files in the root of the drive or in sub folders.
I’ve never been able to obtain something different from the laconic message “Folder is empty”… by the way this is the same message you get if nothing is connected to the USB2 port so I don’t understand if the port is working or disabled/broken.
I’ve also tried to reboot the unit and nothing has changed.
Any advice would be very appreciated!
Thanks so much!
To start with an obvious question: Have you verified via your computer that the transfer to your flash drive has actually created the files in it? The message " Folder is Empty" could simply be stating the reality.
Hi Pete: I’m having the same problem and have confirmed that I do in fact have files on the drive. In my case, I thought it was because I had more than 32gb on the drive.
Hi Pete,
yes of course. The various flash drives I’ve tried contained music files. I’ve also tried to access to USB2 without plugging a flash drive and the message (a little misleading to be honest) was the same: “Folder is empty”.
For this reason I was also wondering if the USB2 port could be in some way not active/functioning…
Hi Harry,
I tried with different flash drives, different capacities (8, 16, 64 GB), different formattings (following what the user manual say), putting only one song in the root directory of the flash drive or making a sub folder with a whole album… unfortunately nothing has worked for me.
It could be. We have two threads running with broadly similar topics currently. The other is :
You will see that @Lee has reduced the maximum stored on the drive <32gb and it now works.
It may be worth pointing out that the flash drive facility is not meant for more than something to play a few tracks that a friend may bring round rather than storage for more extensive music libraries.
I think that whilst possible is very unlikely. There may be something about the files or the transfer that causes the issue. However this is difficult to advise on online as I do not know what may be the issue not being able to see what you have done. Anyway I do know that you have tried drives under 32gb and that they have been formatted to FAT32. These should work if the music formats are standard types. This needs testing rso format a low capacity thumb drive as FAT32, create a folder called “Music” in it and copy a single album into this i.e. copy the subfolder that contains the album from wherever you have it stored. This is just to see if it works so keep it simple.
So you should have a drive that contains a Music folder and inside this folder there should now be a subfolder with an identifying name and if you open this subfolder you should see the tracks. If this is all in place try it in the Rossini and let us know the result.
Has he a Rossini and is he plugging the SSD directly into USB 2 ? A 1tB drive should fail feeding USB 2. In fact the usual way of doing this is to connect the SSD to a computer which has a media player installed so that full navigation is enabled. Is he actually doing this?
Ok Pete, tomorrow I’ll try creating a “Music” folder in the root directory of the flash drive (will use the 16 GB one formatted as FAT32) and put a folder with an album within the “Music” folder. I’ll let you know.
It might be worth re-partitioning the flash drive (to a partition 32GB or less), in addition to formatting that partition to FAT32. On Windows thats the Partition app, on MacOS it’s the Disk Utility app.
You won’t need to create any special folder or anything, and having tracks within any sub-folder or in the root itself should work just fine.
Hi, but I should make a re-partitioning even if the flash drives I’m trying to use are 8 and 16 GB? I’ve tried with this ones after the first test with the 64 GB precisely to avoid any problems related to capacity exceeding 32 GB.
All I can say is that the manuals recommend thumb drives not exceeding 32gb and that HDD or SSD drives are not supported. I tend to take dCS at face value.
Incidentally the drive may be 1tb but has it 1tb of music data on it or is the content limited?
Another option is to use my Macbook Pro and some music player. I do that occasionally and it sounds very good…but I am looking for a more stripped down app.
All apps for UPnP replay seem to look fairly complex until you become familiar with them. They all require setting up which, although a fit and forget exercise that may not require further attention in the future there is still a steep learning curve. However thereon it should all be straightforward.
So in part it depends on what you regard as simple or suitably minimal.
The other matter of your concern is:
For me the issue with using a general purpose computer with a media player is that although you can experience good sound ( broadly speaking) there are issues making very good sound more complicated.
Firstly the general purpose computer is an electrically noisy beast . Secondly while you play music it can start to use some of the processor power to undertake housekeeping tasks as it may see streaming as the computer being idle. Thirdly with Macs delivery of bit perfect files to the player was ( or is?) not possible consistently as everything is routed via the mixer and this also affects the sample rate if I recall correctly. Perhaps someone has an update on this? For Mac based replay however the recommendation has to be Audirvana. Is it too complex from your viewpoint?
Frankly the simplest approach would be to get a small NAS unit /Minim
Server and use Rossini as it was conceived; network connection and Mosaic. It is actually ultimately less complex in my opinion than what you are considering.
I guess I am going to break my discipline of not doing subjective reviews but I had several years of HDD drives/computer/media player/USB connection. When I switched to NAS and network I classed the change as giving a completely new and better listening experience.
Mosaic takes a little time to be familiar with initially but I am awaiting the forthcoming upgrade and we will see how it is progressing.
Worth a try if your 8GB/16GB USB flashes didn’t work.
If by stripped down app you mean a simple player to use with your PC/Mac and USB, as Pete says, it’s rather challenging because of the mixing that goes on within the OS audio handling core. MacOS especially is notorious for audio mixing amd/or sample-rate-conversion or other non bit-transparent manipulation.
On the Mac, the simpler the App, the more likely it’s using Apple’s Core Audio framework extensively and likely to interfere with bit-transparency. So, going simpler is not the best choice for USB player (on MacOS at least).
However, some apps do specifically call out bit-transparency and have “Exclusive Access mode” to ensure the OS doesn’t take control. Of the player software on Macs, I only trust Audirvana Classic (not sure about the latest Studio or Origin) to be totally bit-transparent. I haven’t really looked into others like Amarra, Pine Player, Vox, or even VLC (which I do use for UPnP network stream/multicast testing).
All that said, once the track stream gets bit-transparently into the Rossini’s S800 board, whether via USB1 (Async USB) or read off USB2 (Flash) or via Network (UPnP or Roon), it makes no sonic difference at all (technically, if they sounded different, dCS would have some serious explaining to do!). If you’re hearing a difference, then one or more of your comparisons is not bit-transparent.
At the end of the day, outside of native USB2 Flash file access, which as I’m sure you well know is a b*tch to use, UPnP over Ethernet is the least likely to mess with the bits coming off files on storage. Chasing USB is not worth it.
Yes Pete, his SSD has 1TB of music and it’s not partitioned in any way.
I work as a software analyst and programmer so I have a very technical, precise and rational approach. The first thing I always do is read the manuals carefully so, in this case, it is even stranger that I cannot make something as simple as reading a USB stick work while perfectly respecting all the specifications indicated in the user manual.
Obviously lots of discussion and I may have missed it but what format are the files that you have written to the USB stick? What are their file extensions?
As always - the USB connection is intended for small transitional collections of music (i.e. “I just bought this album, let me take it to my friends to let him hear it…”) rather than a permanent place to put your own collection - for that we would recommend that your music is stored on a proper UPnP server so that it can be browsed, sorted and filtered more flexibly than just the folder and file browsing offered by the USB input.
