Pandora Timeshifting App: Main Discussion Thread

[steve111]

"access file not found trying again after 1 sec"

I keep getting this error, and no mp3s are saving. I checked my temp dir, and while there is a folder "plugtmp", it is completely empty and was last modified on February 8th 2006. I have no folders called "plugtmp-X". So, I guess it makes sense that I'm getting the error. But I don't know why the folders (and access file(s)) are missing.

It seems like others are getting the same error (for the same reason?), but if anyone has posted a solution I am missing it. Is there a way I can find out which directory Pandora is using, since it's obviously not my %temp%?

[Zoltan]

is it even empty when pandora is running??

And are you sure that you are NOT using any other macromedia flash version than 8? Are you sure you looked into the right temp folder for the right logged-on user? (stupid question I know, but just to get sure...)

Did you change the standard tempfolder to something like C:Temp? Did you check C:WindowsTemp?

If all that didn't help, try the following:

Run pandora and search for "*plugtmp*" in your explorer! If you are realy using Flash 8 this SHOULD show you the path to the temp-dir!

[smckenz]

Hi, I used to use this more often, but I have a problem to where when I rip a song, it wll often rip a completely different song, and rip that same incorrect song for several more songs, all the while labeling them as though it was ripping the song I am listening to.

For example, say I am listening to Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones, the song ripped and labeled by Pandora is actually Pinball Wizard by The Who. The song still appears in the Pandora folder, labeled as Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones though. It will continue to rip Pinball Wizard for several more songs as well, labeling them all according to the song am listening to.

[Zoltan]

Clear your Temp folder, make sure that you have all the plugtmp-folders as we were talking about some posts above. Had that problem too, clearing the temp folder solved it. BUT as you probably now, the very first song will not be labled correctly!

[smckenz]

I cleared the temp folder of everything but those plugtmp-## folders (I have 58 of them) and now Pandora won't rip any songs at all, right or wrong.

EDIT: Nevermind now it's still just ripping completely wrong songs.

[Zoltan]

hmm... sorry, I don't have any more ideas right now...

PJ ran for several hours now without problem for me... About 70 new songs now and as far as I checked they're all labled right. I will have to listen to them tomorrow, it's too late now (02:19 for me...)!

[smckenz]

Does skipping songs and changing channels cause known problems? I've narrowed it down to where that may be where I'm hitting rough spots. Anyone else find this too?

[Zoltan]

Does skipping songs and changing channels cause known problems? I've narrowed it down to where that may be where I'm hitting rough spots. Anyone else find this too?

Hmm I don't know how often I told about this problem here... But I think reading at least the last few pages of that thread would help a lot - you avoiding problems and us repeating the same things again and again.

Okay... Once again...

YES, SKIPPING CHANNELS WILL CONFUSE PANDORAS JAR! ALSO IF YOU ADD MORE MUSIC (ARTIST OR SONGTITLE) TO A STATION, THIS MIGHT LEAD PJ TO MIX UP THE FILES! IF YOU SKIP A SONG WITH CRUISE CONTROL ON AND DO NOT WAIT FOR PJ TO SAVE IT FIRST (I.E. YOU SKIP SEVERAL SONGS RAPIDLY IN A ROW) IT WILL PROBABLY GET CONFUSED AS WELL! IF YOU SWITCH A CHANNEL OR ADD MUSIC, AT LEAST REFRESH YOUR BROWSER PAGE OR EVEN BETTER RESTART WHOLE PJ! IF YOU WANT TO SKIP SONGS, TURN CRUISE CONTROL OFF!

And just to repeat another thing once again:

WITH THE CURRENT VERSION OF PJ IT'S NO CURIOSITY THAT THE VERY FIRST SONG WILL NOT BE SAVED PROPERLY! YOU CAN TRY TO RE-GRAB IT MANUALLY WITH THE BUTTON, BUT THERE'S NO WARRANTY IT WILL WORK! SO BETTER DELETE THE FIRST GRABBED SONG OR MAKE SURE THAT IT HAS BEEN LABELED RIGHT!

Another very *blinkblink* ->> IMPORTANT <<- *blinkblink* thing:

PANDORAS JAR WILL NOT GRAB ANY FILES IF YOU'RE USING MACROMEDIA FLASH 9! THAT VERSION WILL NOT CACHE THE MP3S IN YOUR TEMP FOLDER! YOU HAVE TO DOWNGRADE TO FLASH 8 IN ORDER TO USE PJ!!

(HOW TO DOWNGRADE, READ http://www.hak5.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=15026#15026 !!!)

*Phew!*

Sorry if that sounded quite rude and harsh, but I hope in this way I will not have to repeat that again! ;-) If you want to get helped, try to help yourself first! You don't have to read the whole thread, as many of the bugs on the first pages have been solved in the last versions... But reading the last two or three pages shouldn't be a problem, eh? ;-)

[VaKo]

I don't pay much attention to this thread but Thank You Zoltan.

[Zoltan]

sure, you're welcome, hehe!

[steve111]

is it even empty when pandora is running??

And are you sure that you are NOT using any other macromedia flash version than 8? Are you sure you looked into the right temp folder for the right logged-on user? (stupid question I know, but just to get sure...)

Did you change the standard tempfolder to something like C:Temp? Did you check C:WindowsTemp?

If all that didn't help, try the following:

Run pandora and search for "*plugtmp*" in your explorer! If you are realy using Flash 8 this SHOULD show you the path to the temp-dir!

I'm using Flash 9, hmm. Do I need to downgrade it? Thanks for the help!

[Guest t3chn0b0y]

Yeah downgrade to version 8

[Zoltan]

how often did we say that now... wait a sec, I'll add it to my post, so we'll just have to post a link to it in the future, heheh! ;)

[steve111]

Thanks...and sorry, I did a search but I didn't manually comb the 70 pages, so I must have missed it.

In fact, that may be the case for my new question, in which case I apologize in advance. I have downgraded to Flash 8, and I now get a plugtmp folder with files created in it with names like "5448175894890518423" (I did find people reporting this when I searched, but I didn't see a solution). I don't have any plugtmp-X folders. This has made me 2/3 satisifed; I can at least find the music now. However, I have to find the right file and tag it all myself. If I could get PJ to do that for me I'd look like this guy --> :D

Firefox version: 1.5.07

Flash player version: 8.0.24.0

OS version: XP Home SP2

Thanks again for all the help.

Scratch all the above, just realized the mp3s are being saved properly after all, just not to the dir I specified but as a subdir of my PJ directory, which is why I didn't find them. I don't really care about this at all. So, :D and thanks again.

[lilukai]

Hi, Im new to the forum but ive tried and testing the few solutions out there for the naming problem (clearing the cache, using flash 8, latest java, latest fox). The problem which has been said so many times is that songs are either misnamed with a different name or that the same song records several times over under different names.

I was just wondering if this is due to the way the jar pulls the files from the tmp directory. I have a folder, plugtmp, that sometimes songs are recorded to. Or, they are recorded in the tmp directory under plugtmp-11, plugtmp 12, etc. (because i have put in the folders labeled plugtmp-1 through -10 as instructed earlier)

I would love to know if there is some kind of solution out there for this. Right now, it doesnt matter what I do, I only use one station so changing stations isnt a problem for me, and I never skip as I can skip later when I listen to the songs.

So, is this going to get fixed anytime soonish? :) I could do without a lot of the features that come with Pandora Jar, not that they arent freaking awesome features but the main one i want doesnt work so ergh.

If i could code Id just make something simple where mp3s are simply named 1.mp3, 2.mp3 and then a text file that shows what songs were recorded. At least then I could refer to it later if there was a song I really liked so I could buy it. Anyway, if anyone knows how I could do that (about the only coding experience I have is visual basic and ruby).. or if someone knows how to do that.. :)

Heheh. :)

Edit: On further investigation Ive realized something. I downloaded a bandwidth meter to see what i was downloading when, and while watching the tmp folder I realized that the pandora ripper would copy the latest *complete* file, unless it was stuck because changing stations where it would copy the last *complete* file it had copied.

So now I need to figure out how to either prebuffer more than 1 song, or just pause it every once and a while to let it catch up.

[oldmanpanda]

I've been having the same problem as the above poster, I download a song; and the downloader will just keep nabbing the same one for quite awhile, is there anything I can do about this?

Extend the time of Cruise Control? Is that possible? WIll it help?

[ObsidianTK]

I've been having this problem as well, but it's really sporadic -- sometimes it works, sometimes not. lilukai, did you have any success simply "waiting for it to catch up?" I gave it a half hour once, and it didn't seem to fix the problem...

[flyingarmadillo]

In the file Mp3Processor.java, there's the following code snippet, which tells Pandora's Jar what file to use:

        sortFilesByMostRecent(files);

        boolean foundBuffer = false;

        File tmpMp3File1 = null;

        File tmpMp3File2 = null;

        for (File file : files) {

            if (!foundBuffer) {

                tmpMp3File1 = file;

                foundBuffer = true;

            } else {

                tmpMp3File2 = file;

                break;

            }

        }

Everyone see what this does? It looks in your plugtmp folder and chooses the second most recent file. Which would work fine, if Pandora buffered one file at a time. But it doesn't. It seems to download them in clumps: Five files, then play them all, then another five, etc. Which explains why the naming problem is sporadic; when the file it's playing happens to be the second-most recent file in the plugtmp directory, it works great.

How to fix it? I haven't coded since high school, and don't have anywhere near the necessary chops, so I'll let smarter people than me figure that one out. What's needed is some way of figuring out exactly which file Pandora is reading from at any given moment. Any ideas?

Alternatively, is there something you can do in Firefox to keep Pandora from buffering more than two songs at a time? Adjusted cache size maybe? Just tossing out ideas.

Hope this helps and thanks for the great app!

[Zoltan]

But it doesn't. It seems to download them in clumps: Five files, then play them all, then another five, etc.

Hmmm... very strange! For me it only caches 2 files!

[flyingarmadillo]

Okay, after further testing, it looks like Pandora only caches one song ahead. However, it waits until the previous song has at least started, and sometimes apparently doesn't cache at all (this looks to be why the first song never seems to copy right). Since it takes time for the cache to build, it looks like it does help to wait for any given song to be halfway through before trying to copy it.

That doesn't always work, though, as some people have mentioned, and a close look at the temp directory shows why - When Pandora downloads songs, it usually saves them as plugtmp-#-1, 2, 3, and so on, directly in the temp folder. However, sometimes (after some size limit is reached?) it picks a (seemingly random) plugtmp-# folder and saves the file as a long string of numbers. Pandora's Jar doesn't notice, and keeps grabbing the second-most-recent plugtmp file. That explains why sometimes, it keeps getting the same song over and over again.

So, what can we do about this? Glad you asked. The key is to pay very close attention to the temp folder, making sure that the song you want is always the second-most-recent file in the temp directory that begins with the character string "plugtmp".

First, make sure Cruise Control is off. In its current incarnation, CC isn't much more than a recipe for frustration. You want to keep your hands on the wheel to make sure you're getting exactly what you want.

Pandora usually caches two songs at a time (this is the expected behavior) so watch the temp folder during the first minute or so of the song you want. Once there are two files beginning with plugtmp in that folder, it's time to click the grab button.

If Pandora only caches one song, which often happens the first time you load it, or after an unusually large file, you can get around that by creating a text file and labelling it plugtmp.txt. Pandora's Jar will think that's the buffer track and grab the song you want.

You can get around the alternate-folder problem similarly: cut-and-paste the track you want (I always make sure to delete old temp files so that the track you want is the only track in the folder) and rename it plugtmp or plugtmp-arewasfa, as long as it begins with plugtmp. Then make sure it's the second-to-most recent plugtmp file in the directory, either by creating a text file, or, if Pandora's cached a second song, repeating the process for that.

The procedure I've outlined is time-consuming and requires almost constant attention, but it let me get 100% of the songs I wanted, with no mislabellings. Hope you like it!

[Zoltan]

Hmmm... Seems plausible to me, but can you tell me why it's working for me without any trouble? *gg*

[flyingarmadillo]

It's still unclear exactly how Pandora decides where to cache the files. Probably for you, it's just performing the expected, "normal" behavior all the time - two files at a time, saved as plugtmp-whatever. Be careful, though - if it ever stops doing that, it won't warn you, and you'll end up with a few traitor songs that aren't what they claim to be.

[flyingarmadillo]

One other thing you can do, that doesn't even require Pandora's Jar or Firefox, though you will have to have Flash 8 - just go into your temp folder, and rename plugtmp-1-1 or whatever, to Led Zeppelin - Dazed and Confused.mp3 (or what have you.) The files are already mp3 files - the only thing Pandora's Jar does is rename them and move them, which might be easier for n00bs to do manually.

[Zoltan]

uhm... I guess everyone knew that already... ;-)

sry ;)

[pandorawillbemine]

Well, i havent made may posts or been to the site in a while due to the fact that i finally got the program working (for the most part)......just had a few questions,

1, where is the information for the songs such as song title, album title, track # ....etc Pulled from, because some artists pull album art into the album folder, and for some songs it doesnt even make an album folder it just puts the song in the artist folder.

2. What is a good piece of software for tagging songs that come out of pandora(possible ones that are incorrectly tagged) Ive heard of Musiz Brainz, does anyone know how this software works (does it use existing id3 tags, or does it actually analyze the song, then pull tags)