Hi, first post, hope someone can help. Long post but I want to give as much information as possible to help narrow down the problem.
I updated my Xperia T (LT30p) to JB 4.3 (.199) OTA the other day. I’m not a phone/computer expert but not a complete dummy either – I’d say I’m an Intermediate user. Phone is stock UK PAYG, not rooted (supplied as a replacement by Sony UK for a carrier-based phone that endlessly re-booted itself after I installed the 4.1 update - I feel for the people that say they’re having the same problem with 4.3!)
After the update the phone was laggy and the battery life was terrible. Also, for the first 3 times I connected it to Media Go it was re-syncing the Music folders and re-generating the thumbnails, even though I’d let it finish the thumbnail generation and revert to idle status the time before. This surprised me as it should not have been necessary as everything was synced and up-to-date before the 4.3 update.
I then noticed the Album Art display problem:
When I select full screen player mode for a Sensme playlist (where every track has different artwork) and swipe through it, some of the artwork changes from High Resolution to an enlarged Low Resolution version. Not all tracks are affected, maybe 30-40%. If I swipe slowly, maybe the first 15 display correctly, then one will be wrong. If I then reverse swipe back through the first 15, some of the first ones will also have changed to low resolution even though they were correct seconds earlier. Sometimes the art flickers and changes right in front of me. Once they have changed, they seem to stay that way even if I close and re-open the player or play the album separately. Sometimes, the playlist also reverse swipes itself back a few tracks, as if the player hasn’t caught up with what’s happening on the screen.
I have around 3,500 tracks on the SD card, all iTunes MP4 with individually embedded High Resolution Album Art (600 x 600 or greater) transferred with Media Go. They all displayed perfectly in the full screen player mode on JB 4.1.
My thoughts/things I have tried:
- I have done a Factory Reset and wiped the Internal Card which has solved the battery issues and the phone seems to be running smoothly but the Album Art display problem is the same.
- Low Memory? Clean Master says I am using 72-79% of my RAM which leaves 150MB or more free at any time. I think this is about 10% higher usage than before the 4.3 update even though nothing else has changed. I tried the Walkman app straight after the Factory Reset before re-installing my Apps though and the problem was the same. I have 2GB or more free space on both the Internal and SD cards so I don’t think that should be the issue.
- Force Close the Walkman/Delete Cache & Data and re-boot to re-load the Album Art – same problem.
- Delete the files in \Xperia T\Internal Storage\Android\data\com.sonyericsson.album and re-boot – this made Media Go regenerate thumbnails again but same problem. However, the new thumbnails are not in that file? Perhaps there is another file I need to delete?
- Delete albumthumbs in \Internal Storage\Android\data\com.android.providers.media and re-boot – same problem.
- Delete an affected album and re-load with Media Go – same problem.
- Transfer a brand new ‘Sensme’ playlist over with Media Go – same problem.
- Checked the original sizes of affected Album Art to see if it’s the large ones (1,000 x 1,000 or more) that are affected – it’s not, it’s random and inconsistent.
- Tried some tracks on a different SD card – same problem.
So, anyone got any ideas?
- Is there a legacy album art folder somewhere on the SD card that is causing a conflict? I’m reluctant to reformat the SD card and re-transfer everything – most of my Apps are on there.
- Are there some legacy folders on the Internal Card that are causing a conflict? I don’t see how as I erased the card as part of the Factory Reset but...
Also, if Sony Walkman developers actually read this stuff:
1/ Why have you taken the number of tracks summary off the Album list page? This is ridiculous – it means I now can’t tell the difference between a complete album and a single track that’s been transferred as part of a playlist unless I click on every single album title!
2/ Why bother adding thumbnails to the Artist list? Gracenote can only find about 60% of them so it looks crap and there’s no facility to manually add art to fill in the gaps. And if Gracenote can’t find a picture for Elvis Presley, there’s no hope really, is there...? Why doesn’t it pick up the Album Art embedded in the track – it would look better than nothing?
P.S. The Walkman is the main reason I bought a Sony phone. The SmartConnect is fantastic for playing music in the car over Bluetooth but I don’t want to look at low res art!
Thanks for any suggestions.
