Comments on: Fischer Price FP3 Player = Headaches for dad.

By: momof2

momof2 — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:55:20 +0000

Fisher price has a PATCH FOR VISTA, you need to call customer support and have them email it to you. Even though i was able to see my files, I still could not see a playlist.sng or playlist.str. and the read problem of the file came back. Although I had called several months ago, customer support had said they would email the patch, apparently it has been out for awhile, so they are not emailing it as promised. Also, you have to uninstall the software before installing the fix, my advice, either burn your playlist or songs onto cd or send to usb stick, i prefer the last saves a cd. As for using picture icon more than once, yes you can, you dont even have modify, you just have to change the name, result is pictures do get duplicated and a little harder to scroll through. Hope this helps, I have now spent way too much time on this!!!

By: momof2

momof2 — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 03:15:40 +0000

If you are having problems with changing the fp3 player file from read only try this.
I had many problems, argh, vista has a few bugs, for some people this may work, it does not always work, you have to diasable the uac, click:
control panel
user account
turn user account control on to off
diasble uac
Double check your permission boxes are checked as well (under security, click edit)
If this doesnt work, as it did with me but it may for some, also this may only work for awhile, then try this as well:
click on properties of the fp3 file, click on hidden (not read leave it for now), the file will dissapear but you will still see it in the menu, then right click again for properties, now undo the read and the hidden, and for me i was finally able to see the tracks! they are however not in playlist song or story as brandon has suggested, but now that i see them and i will try modifying. whew what a headache for sure!
My advice to anyone, dont buy this if you have windows vista!!!!

By: homemom

homemom — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 06:39:38 +0000

Carol, I have had a heck of a time with this fp3 player. Not sure if you have added an additional memory card to your player but after i did i ended up with exceptions, problems with registering the player, transferring the fp3’s to the player, not being able to safely remove the player from the computer or turn it off, etc. After about 10 hours of installing, uninstalling, testing, i finally found that if i took out the batteries, and the additional memory card. Hooked the usb cable up to the player, it would open up, find the correct register file, and then would tell me it could not find certain tracks (obviously as they are on the card), insert the card at that point, let the computer find it as an additional drive, it would then allow me to transfer the music properly.
Truly if my daughter did not love this player so much it would have gone in the trash LONG ago. The software is just horrible. I hope this info helps someone else and saves them 10 hours of aggravation!

By: Carol

Carol — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 02:47:46 +0000

Can anyone explain the following files that appear on my FP3 from Windows Explorer? Track00002 through Track00007 file type is listed as ssp.exe.
I can view this list of files and also click on these file and get a message that FP3 software is being downloaded. That all sounds good but any time I click on My Player, I get the following error message. Access to the path K:\Track0002.fp3 is denied. I can not copy any songs from My Library to my FP3. When I use the FP3 to see these files, it shows that no songs or stories are loaded. Any clue? I’ve tried rebooting, changing USB ports and reinstalling the software.

By: Darrel Austin

Darrel Austin — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:27:44 +0000

@Amanda: “do I need to look for another MP3 player for him?”

Sadly, yes.

@Natasha: “What site can I download software?”

If you re-read the post, you’ll see that is but one of the frustrating issues with this product…you CAN’T download the software. ;o)

@Tony: “Okay, I love the player…I ABSOLUTELY HATE THE SOFTWARE!”

That is the biggest crime, IMHO. Obviously FP spent money on quality industrial design and engineering. It *is* a great device…completely crippled via DRM and bad software.

By: Erin

Erin — Mon, 12 May 2008 04:24:40 +0000

Thanks Bradon - you saved my brain from turning to moosh!

Kinda wishing I’d just waited until Little Miss was a bit older (she’s turning 2 this month) and gotten her an el cheapo MP3 player… nevermind, at least I can still use the blasted thing!

By: E's mom

E's mom — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 13:46:39 +0000

Here’s my FP3 issue: I have no problem downloading CD’s into the software UNTIL it gets to the last song. Doesn’t matter what CD it is, I always get an error message and it fails to download the last song. Anyone else have this problem? Thanks!

By: Geoff

Geoff — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 03:33:51 +0000

XP users….
I have had a terrible time using the Fisher Price software on my XP machine. It has never worked! I can rip a CD but cannot copy the FP3 files to the player. Brandon’s hint for Vista users works well, in the process of following his suggestion I noticed an XP error message that referred to encrypted files. The upshot…. I have been encrypting all of my files, however, the FP software will NOT work on encrypted files! Simply un-encrypt the music files in the “c:\users\yourusername\music\fisher-price\fp3 player” directory and the FP software works (at least for me).

By: Tony

Tony — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 18:37:46 +0000

Okay, I love the player. It is sturdy. It is easy for my kids to use. It can be put in portable speakers like a boom box. That’s great. That said, I ABSOLUTELY HATE THE SOFTWARE! It is the major source of my headache with this player. Our family moved overseas and our PC died of a power surge. Had it not been for this author’s original post, I might NEVER have known that it is impossible to register the player on multiple machines. I could not find that information on the Fisher Price website (again, poorly designed). I could not find it in the FAQs on the CD. Thank you for helping me with this problem.

By: Shawn

Shawn — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 03:41:53 +0000

Kudos to Brandon for his work and I think know what is happening to all the others that cannot write to the device. When it was manufactured, all of the files were set with the Read only bit set on all of the files.

When a song is written to the device, it adds the track, then it will update either the playlist.sng (songs) or playlist.sty (story). If these files are set to read only, then they can not update the internal playlist and the player will not know about any new tracks.

Short story to get it working with XP, Vista or whatever - When you connect it to you machine and the drive pops up; right click playlist.sng and then choose properties. Uncheck the attribute for Read only. Then do the same for playlist.sty. It should work fine for everything, and the access errors will disappear.

The run-arounds that FP said about it not being a network computer for DeAnna is completely off base.