[boomhaueruk]

Hi,

First time post from me. I've got an Arcam Solo Mini and have just got a new phone - the nokia 5800 Xpress Music.

I was hoping to use it as a 'USB Device' on the solo mini as it's going to be my main music portable music player. But it doesn't seem to detect correctly.

If I plug the memory card that's in the 5800 into a card reader and pop it in the usb slot on the Solo mini, it reads the tracks fine. But if that card is in the 5800 and I connect the usb lead between the phone and the mini, one of three things happens;

1 - Nothing. the display on the arcam solo mini says "connect usb device" and the nokia acts like it's not been plugged in. (this occurs if the phone is on the front screen or locked)

2 - The phone says "USB connection active" then flicks to "do you want to refresh the library" then back to "usb connection active" - the arcam solo mini doesn't change from "Connect usb device" (this occurs if the phone is in the 'music player' application)

3 - The arcam solo mini picks up the tracks correctly, and can play them (this has only happened once so far - I'd been using the music player and plugged it in whilst suspended). This - obviously, is what I want to work out the method for.

Any ideas?

[boomhaueruk]

BTW - every time I've tried to replicate 3, it does what I say in 2.

[mattneighbour]

It can only work if the phone can present itself as a simple flash drive. If you can access files on the phone from a PC using only Windows explorer, not any Nokia software, then it should work. Do you have to put the phone in a special mode for this? If you need Nokia software to access the phone then Mini will not be able to access it. If this is the case I suggest you connect the phone to the front 3.5mm jack input instead.

[Dankeech]

Very likely at best your Nokia will pick up as a 'Mobile Device' within windows and not pick up as the format of just a portable drive such as external USB HDD or memory stick.

I'd guess the behaviour of your Arcam Solo Mini is entirely normal considering the source device. Impressed though that it takes a card-reader and can read the card from your phone.

Matt is definitely the expert on this product. I just wanted to clarify the device-format question.

[mattneighbour]

Thanks Dan, I'd forgotten about Windows Explorer recognising mobile phones. It thinks my iPhone 3G is a camera! I meant that Windows needs to pick it up as a disk drive.

I was trying to say in a non-techie way that Solo Mini only recognises USB Class-Compliant Mass Storage Devices with a single FAT16/FAT32 partition. Memory cards in a USB reader can fall into this category.

[boomhaueruk]

Hi Mattneighbour and dankeesh,

Well, I don't have windows sadly, so can't test that, but on a Mac it comes up without additional software - though the phone, on being plugged in, asks which mode you want to put the usb connection in.

As I say, it did work (and indeed, asked which mode you wanted the cable in) - once and I played songs off it. It's more that I can't do it again.

The trouble, going from what Matt's saying, is working out how to get the phone to detect the arcam as a usb host and get the phone to put the phone into the media library mode.

[manicm]

Matthew, on this note I have a problem with USB sticks on the Mini:

It plays fine, but sometimes when adding a new folder with songs it does not traverse the folders in alphabetical order, what's up?

I have a flat structure on the stick with one level of folders and songs beneath them.

[mattneighbour]

Please bear in mind that Mini is an embedded system, not a computer. The USB chipset is capable of seeing all the supported music files that are present on a storage device, but it can only present them in the order that they were written to the device.

I recommend that USB sticks are written to using the 'synchronise mobile device' functionality of media player software, rather than using the operating system file manager.

[boomhaueruk]

Do you think the fact it's an embedded system is why the nokia isn't picking it up, then?

[scholar1]

Hi - sort of follow up question to this.

Most of my cd are saved as mp3 on an external portable hard drive, but the solomini doesn't pick them up, even when i copy a few file to the root directory.

I've also got an old 1GB sony music player. When I use the sony software to transfer music from the pc to it, it converts them all as .oma files, even though it says they are stored as mp3s on the connect software. So the solo mini doesn't recognise them.

If however, I have them as mp3 copied to the player, the solomini does pick them up, but the player doesn't list them then (I think that there might be a work around for that now).

what i want to do is get the new 32gb sony player for use on holiday, but also to then plug into solo mini at home. will I be able to do this? https://www.sonystyle.co.uk/SonyStyl.../NWZX1060B.CE7