SOLVED!
As I saw in another thread, someone who was having very similar issues had downgraded from 4.0 to 3.4 and it solved the problem.
I downgraded both Firmware and Engine program to 3.4 and tried the export again.
The SD card works perfectly now.
So for everyone trying to point fingers at SD cards, PC, OS, etc. No, it’s none of that. Denon broke something with their 4.0 update.
IF YOU’RE HAVING THIS ISSUE, DOWNGRADE FIRMWARE AND PC SOFTWARE TO 3.4. 4.0 IS BROKEN!
Ive just carried out some testing using 4.0 on both the device and my desktop software. I found an old USB i hadn’t updated for ages and set it synchronising, it took a long time (80mb read speed, USB 3.0),around 3hrs to update, i then did the same for my internal SSD, that updated in around 1 minute, admittedly less music to upload.
Ive just done a short 20 minute set flipping between the two sources and haven’t received any errors.
To conclude, if Engine was globally ‘broken’ as you put it, we would all be seeing issues, so i suggest doing an end to end drains up of your workflow/collection to weed out the issue you are having.
After searching the forums more, this has been reported multiple times with very similar issues on SD cards, not USB drives. Your testing with USB drives doesn’t prove it’s not an issue with exporting to SD cards. Could you test it with an SD card as well? Also, this is a fresh SD card, not one that already had a 3.4 database on it that needed updating.
I’ll try and dig one out to give it a go.
Its more the micro SD you’re storing your library on id be concerned with, purely due to the fact that computer companies usually tag built in SD readers to USB 2.0 interfaces, which makes it incredibly slow. My music is all on my internal SSD on my MacBook so its embedded into the processor/GPU and running and hyper speed, meaning the only bottle neck I can create is what im outputting to, something I plan on putting to the test tomorrow when this USB 3.2 flash drive arrives. I’ll be posting the timings for my full collection.
Im not saying it’s definitely connected but if you imagine leaving your computer dormant for 15hrs or so, it’s far more likely to run into an issue over that period isn’t it, given Windows propensity to go off the rails without much persuasion.
I imagine any kind of interruption to the export process has potential to corrupt it.
I can now confirm that after downgrading from v.4.0 to v.3.4 for both Engine OS and Engine Desktop and rebuilding the library from scratch, all problems have been resolved. There are no more crashes, the library remains intact and retains approximately its original size even after use in my Prime 2 and the access times when searching in the MicroSD card are acceptable.
On the one hand, my comparison refers to a library that was newly set up under Engine 3.4 in April 2024, which came into contact with Engine 4.0 for the first time this week and has not worked on MicroSD cards in at least three independent attempts since then. On the other hand, the comparison refers to a library rebuilt from scratch yesterday with exactly the same tracks under the same conditions, just without any contact to Engine 4.0.
PC is a HP EliteDesk with Ryzen 5, 32GB RAM, Win 11. System, engine desktop, tracks & library are located on an internal WD 2TB M.2 NVMe SSD. No Serato, no external stuff, no bells & whistles. Just a straight forward workflow with well maintained tags in well maintained folders that are imported to Engine Desktop’s library and shall be transferred together to a MicroSD-Card for use on a Prime 2.
As far as I can tell from this experience, only the update to version 4.0 is causing the problems with the library, as I made the comparison ceteris paribus. Whether this is a general problem with version 4.0, whether it only becomes visible with my files (here: FLAC/MP3 mixed), only with certain file sizes (here: 32k files, 600 GB hard disc space), I cannot judge. I also can’t say if downgrading Engine OS and Engine Desktop is enough to fix the problem without rebuilding the library from scratch, because I haven’t tried that
Yes, the MicroSD card is still very slow. I will therefore soon be replacing it with an internal S-ATA SSD drive in my Prime 2. However, as a precaution, I will make backups of the original library, both from the PC and from the external data carrier, before updating to a new version of Engine OS or Engine Desktop.
Ed.: The new 1TB SSD has just arrived, nothing fancy. I simply copied the entire MicroSD card and used the same volume name so that synchronisation is not affected. Works perfectly and much faster than the external “fast” MicroSD card.
Ive had an issue previously where the sync manager thinks my drive is full when it isn’t, it then causes an error to the export as it thinks there is no space.
Do you think this is happening in this case? the only way i ever resolved it was to format the drive and export my whole collection again.
The alleged lack of free space on the external data carrier reported by the sync manager could indeed indicate a problem with the sync manager. During my second attempt, I also received this message during the sync process (“red bar”), but in the end all 32k/600GB tracks were copied to the data carrier and the library was also created on the card with ~350 MB, i.e. a comprehensible size. In my case, the alleged lack of storage space in the meantime apparently had no visible further consequences, but the library was still corrupt after a short period of use in Prime 2.
BTW, I always performed a quick format (exFat) of the microSD before I startred a new attempt.
Yeah so my theory is the corruption is being caused by the export thinking its ran out of space, perhaps the DB becomes corrupted as it starts duplicating data?
It hasn’t happened to me in ages. One weird thing i noticed yesterday when updating an old USB stick, i cancelled it halfway through and suddenly an extra 20gb of space was showing as available, which then disappeared again after i restarted the export.
Hm, difficult to say.
I started comparing the file sizes on the PC and on the data carrier the first time I had the “library corrupt” message on my Prime 2. The track data size was still plausible, but the library files on the card were much too small after the error message.
During my subsequent attempts, I also observed the transfer process a little. As expected, the directories with the track files became larger and larger. As far as I remember, the library files were created in full size at the beginning of the process and remained unchanged during the process, but according to the time stamp the library was synchronised again at the end of the transfer. There was nothing noticeable for me, but I didn’t watch all the time. In any case, there was no recognisable point in time at which a process could not actually be completed due to a lack of space.
It is possible that the corrupt library from the card also damages the source library in the PC when the card is reinserted and synchronised there (perhaps this is what @djliquidice meant above).
This has been my experience.
In the past, I’ve experienced a problem where the sync manager mistakenly believes my drive is full, which results in an error for the export since it believes there is no space.
Update.
I updated the firmware and Engine to 4.0.1 and no longer have the issue listed above. It appears it was only with 4.0. I have yet to try out 4.1.0.
This topic was automatically closed 24 hours after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.