Very strange Long File Name problem... Any Ideas? [SOLVED]

trolltroll Windsor, Nova Scotia Icrontian
edited February 2013 in Science & Tech
Greetings and Salutations!

I have picked up a most amazing little audio player, the Colorfly C3 from Hong Kong.
image
Audiophile quality player for a great price.

Anyhow that is not the issue.

This little player plays FLAC's, WAV's and APE's all with drag and drop as it shows up as a drive in Windows and on the Mac.

This is the strange part, I thought there was a problem with the C3 as it stopped recognizing FLAC files, they just wouldn't show up in the menu. With a little research it seems that the Cowon players can exhibit the same problem.

If you rename all the FLAC's to .fla they are recognized again and play fine. I was sure this was a Firmware problem with the player and went on a quest... To make a long long story short there is nothing wrong with the C3 or the Cowon players or the files bit rate or the ID Tags or the FLAC files themselves , it is a Windows issue concerning Long File Names.

When you copy FLAC files to this player, a USB stick or even on your local drive, they show up in explorer as:

Song Example.flac

If you bring up a command prompt, go to the directory where the file is and do a DIR, you get:

01/31/2013 10:41 AM 50,000,000 Song Example.flac

Perfect for windows but not for the VFAT players. If you do a DIR on them you will see the same information now here is the problem.

If I do a DIR/X on the directory I get this on a proper working copy:
01/31/2013 10:41 AM 50,000,000 SONGEX~1.FLA Song Example.flac

Since it is an .FLA the player will recognize the file and play it, but on my Windows 7 PC when I copy the FLAC files to the player I get this:

01/31/2013 10:41 AM 50,000,000 SONGEX~1.FL~ Song Example.flac

The extension of the file has been changed to a .FL~ which the player does NOT recognize and therefore will not play any songs. If I go and rename all the files to .FLA everything works as Windows is not applying LFN stuff to the extension. But I just don't want to rename my music library for a Windows issue.

PC's I have tried:
My XP machine and same problem bad extension.
Virtual XP on my Windows 7 computer will copy the files properly BUT you have to attach the USB Drive to the Virtual XP side and not use the shared connection or it fails.
My C2D MacBook copies the files fine.
Fresh install of 7 on a customers PC creates the files extensions properly.

So it is either a Windows Update, a piece of software or something else that has changed my Windows to cause this. I've read that a fresh install fixes the problem but we all know how much work that is.

You can try this yourself on your machine to see if you have the same problem and you don't even need music files to do it with.

From the CMD prompt:
C:>copy con song.flac
Type a few letters, then press CTRL Z

Back at the prompt type DIR/X and you should see:
SONG~1.FLA song.flac if you don't have this problem and
SONG~1.FL~ song.flac if you do.

So there is the problem I have, sorry if it was long and winded, maybe a little convoluted as well...

I've searched many places but my Google-Fu sometimes is not up to snuff and I don't have a TechNet account.

I'm throwing this out to the Guru's of Icronic to see if any one has an idea as to what has changed on my system or could possibly be the cause of this?

Thanks to those who suffered to the end this post! :)
[Deleted User]

Comments

  • EMTEMT Seattle, WA Icrontian
    What filesystem is on the player and on the local disks of the systems you tested? FAT, FAT32, NTFS?

    I assume you don't want to just rename all your music to .fla?
  • shwaipshwaip bluffin' with my muffin Icrontian
    edited January 2013
    make sure win95truncatedextensions in your registry is set to 1 - fix it and restart if not:

    http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc756733(v=ws.10).aspx

    looks like you'll have to copy/paste the link. stupid parentheses
    trollEMT
  • trolltroll Windsor, Nova Scotia Icrontian
    Hey EMT!

    The player is VFAT/FAT32 the XP & 7 systems are NTFS and the Mac is HFS+ 10.6.8
  • trolltroll Windsor, Nova Scotia Icrontian
    Wow shwaip!

    Looks like the exact ticket for the problem!
    That is why I love this place so much, I'll apply it when I get home and report back!

    Too FINE!
  • AlexDeGruvenAlexDeGruven Wut? Meechigan Icrontian
    The real question is. How warm does it sound?
  • trolltroll Windsor, Nova Scotia Icrontian
    edited January 2013
    Not warm at all Alex but very clean and crisp. If your looking into one, I'd read all the reviews as there are a few quirks with the player that can be annoying to some but are easily overlooked.

    This is NOT an iPod or a Sansa Clip+, it has no playlists, it will not resume playback, it does not play by artist, genre or gapless, (workaround for that) you put files on it and play them.
    The Sound Quality it where this little baby shines.

    (Danger Danger Head-Fi link below, you might not come back from that void. :) )
    Here is a review of the C3 vs a higher model CK4.

    If your looking for features and quality that won't break the bank, then FiiO is coming out with a player as well down the road called the X3 supposedly $200 price range and will do up to 24/192 resolution files and support ALAC. :rockon:

    I'm just waiting for the Astell & Kern AK100's to drop in price... :D
  • trolltroll Windsor, Nova Scotia Icrontian
    Well @shwaip that was the fix that I needed, thank you very much!
    Who would know it was that simple a fix except for an Icrontian with their knowledge and expertise!

    It makes things so much easier when you can just drag and drop the files to the player and the uSD card!
    Thanks Again!

    Also I feel quite embarrassed having a Windows Expert Badge in my profile...
  • shwaipshwaip bluffin' with my muffin Icrontian
    troll said:

    Well @shwaip that was the fix that I needed, thank you very much!
    Who would know it was that simple a fix except for an Icrontian with their knowledge and expertise!

    It makes things so much easier when you can just drag and drop the files to the player and the uSD card!
    Thanks Again!

    Also I feel quite embarrassed having a Windows Expert Badge in my profile...

    np.

    sounds like it's time to turn in your windows badge and gun, though.
    trollJBoogaloo
  • trolltroll Windsor, Nova Scotia Icrontian
    @primesuspect I take it you can fix this for me.
    :cheers:
  • EMTEMT Seattle, WA Icrontian
    Wow nice work @shwaip. I still can't figure out how I would discover that reg value through search engine of choice.
  • trolltroll Windsor, Nova Scotia Icrontian
    EMT said:

    Wow nice work @shwaip. I still can't figure out how I would discover that reg value through search engine of choice.

    My thoughts exactly, there are lots of results about the file name itself, but not too much of the extension...

  • shwaipshwaip bluffin' with my muffin Icrontian
    searched for vfat file extension truncation, got lucky :)
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    The Google-fu is strong with this one
  • System Administration: 9% knowledge, 90% Google, 1% luck
    primesuspectErrorNullTurnip
  • TushonTushon I'm scared, Coach Alexandria, VA Icrontian
    I agree with that sentiment, but imagine the google ratio is higher.
  • WinfreyWinfrey waddafuh Missouri Icrontian
    Let's be honest it's mostly Shwaip.
  • trolltroll Windsor, Nova Scotia Icrontian
    edited February 2013
    Ok I found out what has caused this problem...

    ComboFix...

    When you run it the win95truncatedextensions is set to 0... That's what I get for trying to virus clean a friends HD plugged onto my machine, now I know to just reset it if ComboFix ever runs again...

    Made a post on Anything But iPod pointing back to here as there are a lot of Cowon users with the same problem.
    Was told by a RockBox Creator / Mod there that something in my system is really screwed up and I needed to reformat / reinstall... Then it was my player that was corrupt and it needed the same...
    Anyhow all is good and lessons were learned!
    :clap:
  • TushonTushon I'm scared, Coach Alexandria, VA Icrontian
    As an aside, I don't believe that Combofix would scan a non system drive, i.e. running combofix on your machine with the friend's drive plugged in as a second drive wouldn't do anything.
  • trolltroll Windsor, Nova Scotia Icrontian
    As I found out... But thanks for pointing that out @Tushon ;D
  • TushonTushon I'm scared, Coach Alexandria, VA Icrontian
    Roger, just making sure that was cleared up. :D
    [Deleted User]
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