Sansa e280R to Sansa e280 (Plain Vanilla)

I have a Sansa e280R (that’s the BestBuy Rhapsody model version of the Sandisk Sansa e200 line of flash based mp3 players.)

I used to use a Sansa e260 when they first came out, but it went through the washer by mistake in the autumn of 2007 and didn’t work right once it dried out, the thing works, but the play/pause button is freaky and therefore, it’s not useful to use the device much at all. (Yes)

So then, in December hubby got me a new one, promised me a new one, and I was to upgrade to an e280, but then couldn’t find one in the stores, only one e280R at Best Buy, in the back, a clerk got it out, but we said “no thanks.” We continued to look in other stores, and eventually went back and got that e280R afterall.

I’d been interested in Rock Box for awhile already, but was chicken to implement it back then on my e260. I didn’t have enough room for what I wanted on it anyhow, so I just lived with the OF (Official Firmware.)

When I got the new e280R I really wished it was a plain e280, but it was what it was. I don’t use Rhapsody at all, so I found the “Rhapsody Channels” part of the OF to be annoying. I started thinking about Rock Box and thought about it for months, then finally this month “May 2008” I started really reading up on it and then one day dove in and did it to my e280R.

It worked well. Except one thing: after I started to explore what Rock Box could really do, I found that I got errors when I inserted songs into dynamic playlists (that was a cool new thing to me and I was mad that it didn’t work.)

Basically, the first thing that happened was that the playlist played the first song or songs from one album, but when a new song was gotten to in the playlist, something inserted, or even queued, the first song of that sort would play, then the screen would go back to the first song on the whole playlist and then the Sansa in Rock Box (Firmware) went dead. Nothing would turn it on. Nothing but taking the screws of the back, removing the battery, putting the battery back in. THEN it would start up again.

It would play whole single albums just fine all alone, just flipped out on changes from one album to another. FWIW.

So I did what seemed to be a good thought. A few days later, after playing with it a bit, I took the Rock Box install out and put a fresh daily build on.

It worked, I thought, but all of the sudden this new RB install acted different when I connected the USB cord to the computer while in Rock Box. The first RB install, right away went and loaded the OF automatically. This second install, a few days of a build later, got stuck at a partial USB cord image in RB, and I had to power down by holding the power button about 13 seconds or so.

I had to boot in the OF and then plug in the USB cord to connect with the PC. I found this to be not very nice at all, compared to how it worked with my first Rock Box install.

Not just that then, I had a different error going on when I played songs from insert or queue playlists, as before, expect this time I had a “*Panic* event line full” error, and all stopped (froze actually), but I could hold the power button down the 13 seconds or so to re-start my Sansa e280R in RB (or OF, if I wished.)

So I finally found a post on a forum on RB’s site about someone else with another kind of Sansa (a C200 type) that had the very same error, and what solved it for them was to take ALL of Rock Box off, down even past the bootloader, and then re-start that install from the beginning.

I tried that. For me it was to take off the bootloader and Rock Box directory. (R firmware stays “unlocked” from step 1 of the e200-Rhapsody Rock Box installation. Once unlocked, always unlocked.)

What I actually did was delete the .rockbox folder from my Sansa, then used the Sansa Updater to upgrade to a new OF, and that wiped out the RB bootloader setup.

Then I did step 2 and on of the e200R RB installation –with FRESH copies of everything.

This time it all worked to a dandy finish. It all worked.

Only I wasn’t happy with what happened when I went to connect with the OF to charge on my PC, or to load/unload music in “MSC” (Rhapsody) USB Mode.

Refresh Database was hanging almost, taking so long, and it was annoying. I actually did put my music files in a different folder from “Music” on my device, but the R version of the e200’s doesn’t care about that, it finds the music anyhow, so that didn’t help. I had read previously about putting the music in another folder from Music on the e200 vanilla models, but I don’t think that works either, at least not for me it didn’t … but I’m jumping ahead a bit.

All along I had wanted to see if I could turn my device into a plain vanilla e280 but I couldn’t find exactly anything written since before the Rock Box e200 port was do-able easily for the average Windows user (late 2007 to now.)

So since I knew that the original R firmware had to be “unlocked” and that in order to do that a plain vanilla e200 bootloader/firmware of some variety was somehow loaded onto the player (and other more complex than one would wish to deal with things) in the sansarpatcher.exe install I thought and thought about it, then figured finally today, “OK, I’m game to try Un-Rhapsodyizing my e280R.”

I took an OF that I have on my computer from when I updated my e260 (had tried multiple times to “fix” it before giving up in December ’07) and I put that firmare on my player in the Systems folder and renamed it OF.mi4 … disconnected from the PC, turned the player off, then re-booted into the OF from the RB bootloader, and there was a firmware upgrade, and whoo hooo! It was indeed a plain vanilla e280 in actuality of Firmware.

My first lesson in RB installation taught me that 3 installs was what worked. The same then happened for me, sort of, once I switched to plain vanilla status. I wanted a fresh install, new bootloader, etc.

It took some doing. I had put RB on with RB Utility, but I couldn’t get the “connect to PC” thing to work how I wanted still. (I had decided that if it didn’t work how I wanted, I had to make sure I would made it work how I wanted.)

So then I installed the bootloader and RB manually, and then the Database wouldn’t initialize and it was a problem that wouldn’t stop. I did take off RB and try a fresh copy of .rockbox … but still the database wouldn’t initialize. So I ended up formatting the Sansa (Why Not! Can’t hurt, well, probably won’t) and putting the latest OF on it with Sansa Updater, then manually installing the bootloader and RB, then using Media Monkey to put most of my music on it (in a different folder from “Music”) then the Database Initialized very fast, and I’m good to go.

When I boot up the OF (original firmware) I don’t get the long Refresh Database deal. Well, I actually don’t USE the OF anymore, I have found the workaround to not choose a language after an upgrade will keep the OF from building a database to be what is best, for now.

When I am booted up in RB, if I connect the USB cord to the PC, I get a USB cord image, then the RB bootloader data flows and it connects to the OF real fast and flips to Connected right away.

This is the “language” thing: it goes to the OF “Language” screen and then immediately “connects”.

When firstly upgrading the OF, one has to change the USB mode from MTP to MSC to install Rock Box. How to do that while keeping the “language” un-picked is to just start the Upgraded OF, don’t choose a language, then connect the USB cord to the PC, it’ll connect immediately, then disconnect your device from the PC, and the Sansa goes right to the main Menu, where you scroll through Music, FM Radio, Settings, etc. … so you then can go into settings, and put your USB mode on MSC.

Then you can connect to the PC again, and install the bootloader for RB with sansapatcher.exe.

I don’t use the OF for anything but connecting to the PC now, so letting the Language choice screen alone is fine, and if for any reason I want to go into the OF I can connect to the PC in OF, then disconnect from the PC, and there I can get to the actual OF menus.

I hope this all makes sense.

I am glad to have done this. The fonts on the OF aren’t as nice now, but who cares, not me, I don’t use it anymore, not with a great Rock Box firmware. And now I don’t have to go through the Refresh Database, since I did this and know for sure that not using the OF you can just not choose a language and avoid the OF Database Refresh/Building. If you do choose a language, I’ve found it will Refresh the Database, no matter what the RB bootloader tells it to do (disable database.) For now.

www.rockbox.org
www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/SansaE200Port