[TowerCardReader]

I have updated from 1.3.3 to 1.5.0 and now my device is bricked. Wont turn on wont show up on my computer at all. The companion software now does also nothing, shows nothing, I can't even exit from the software because the exit, minimize and maximize options wont load leaving me to end the task in the task bar.

Yet I do not care anymore about this device, I NEED my money returned, or I will sell the paper weight to someone that is willing to resurrect it. This is my opinion, the Hifi walker is such an under-powered device in comparison and is half the price, yet when I run RockBox on it I can load music infinitely faster than the Tangara, I do not understand why an already made software like RockBox is just not good enough and all this flashing and extra companion software is for some reason better. I really wish this was a device that just ran RockBox. I apologize for my anger yet I spent $250, waited months for delivery withour any information and the software needs monthly updates that can cause a complete bricking of the device ugh! I just can't do this anymore. 

Again, I need my money back or I will sell this thing to anyone.

[ailurux]

I have updated from 1.3.3 to 1.5.0 and now my device is bricked. Wont turn on wont show up on my computer at all. The companion software now does also nothing, shows nothing, I can't even exit from the software because the exit, minimize and maximize options wont load leaving me to end the task in the task bar.

Yet I do not care anymore about this device, I NEED my money returned, or I will sell the paper weight to someone that is willing to resurrect it. This is my opinion, the Hifi walker is such an under-powered device in comparison and is half the price, yet when I run RockBox on it I can load music infinitely faster than the Tangara, I do not understand why an already made software like RockBox is just not good enough and all this flashing and extra companion software is for some reason better. I really wish this was a device that just ran RockBox. I apologize for my anger yet I spent $250, waited months for delivery withour any information and the software needs monthly updates that can cause a complete bricking of the device ugh! I just can't do this anymore. 

Again, I need my money back or I will sell this thing to anyone.

Sorry to hear about your frustrations. I understand that you don't want to spend the effort to reflash the device, but just so I can keep an eye out for this kind of bug, did you use the most recent companion version to flash? There's an issue currently where older versions of companion don't flash correctly resulting in the device being unresponsive until it's flashed manually. Unfortunately, we're still working on getting the new release built for Mac OS, so I don't fault anyone for using the older version, but it would be good to confirm that it's the same issue.

As for why we didn't go with Rockbox for our firmware, there's a few reasons. Rockbox is quite a large project targeting many different devices, and Tangara is designed to be easy to hack on and add features to. We wanted to provide a custom built firmware for the device as a starting point for people to improve and make their own. Maybe in some time Tangara's firmware will be more similar to Rockbox in terms of features, but there's already many devices that run Rockbox, so if people just want to run Rockbox there's other options. Tangara is a bit of a niche device, and the way we've done things isn't necessarily "better". If you're happy with an off the shelf device that runs Rockbox, then more power to you. I don't think either approach is better or worse, just different priorities. 

There's some people who are really keen to buy a Tangara who missed the initial crowdfund, so if you want to sell yours, I can point them in your direction. For a return you'd need to talk to CrowdSupply but they're unlikely to accept returns at this stage.

[TowerCardReader]

I have updated from 1.3.3 to 1.5.0 and now my device is bricked. Wont turn on wont show up on my computer at all. The companion software now does also nothing, shows nothing, I can't even exit from the software because the exit, minimize and maximize options wont load leaving me to end the task in the task bar.

Yet I do not care anymore about this device, I NEED my money returned, or I will sell the paper weight to someone that is willing to resurrect it. This is my opinion, the Hifi walker is such an under-powered device in comparison and is half the price, yet when I run RockBox on it I can load music infinitely faster than the Tangara, I do not understand why an already made software like RockBox is just not good enough and all this flashing and extra companion software is for some reason better. I really wish this was a device that just ran RockBox. I apologize for my anger yet I spent $250, waited months for delivery withour any information and the software needs monthly updates that can cause a complete bricking of the device ugh! I just can't do this anymore. 

Again, I need my money back or I will sell this thing to anyone.

Sorry to hear about your frustrations. I understand that you don't want to spend the effort to reflash the device, but just so I can keep an eye out for this kind of bug, did you use the most recent companion version to flash? There's an issue currently where older versions of companion don't flash correctly resulting in the device being unresponsive until it's flashed manually. Unfortunately, we're still working on getting the new release built for Mac OS, so I don't fault anyone for using the older version, but it would be good to confirm that it's the same issue.

As for why we didn't go with Rockbox for our firmware, there's a few reasons. Rockbox is quite a large project targeting many different devices, and Tangara is designed to be easy to hack on and add features to. We wanted to provide a custom built firmware for the device as a starting point for people to improve and make their own. Maybe in some time Tangara's firmware will be more similar to Rockbox in terms of features, but there's already many devices that run Rockbox, so if people just want to run Rockbox there's other options. Tangara is a bit of a niche device, and the way we've done things isn't necessarily "better". If you're happy with an off the shelf device that runs Rockbox, then more power to you. I don't think either approach is better or worse, just different priorities. 

There's some people who are really keen to buy a Tangara who missed the initial crowdfund, so if you want to sell yours, I can point them in your direction. For a return you'd need to talk to CrowdSupply but they're unlikely to accept returns at this stage.

Thank you, anyone that wants this can buy it's yours, I can easily negotiate a resonable price considering shipping. Rerflashing this "bit of a niche device" is on the buyer, if that lowers the price so be it.

[tbcollins1]

I have updated from 1.3.3 to 1.5.0 and now my device is bricked. Wont turn on wont show up on my computer at all. The companion software now does also nothing, shows nothing, I can't even exit from the software because the exit, minimize and maximize options wont load leaving me to end the task in the task bar.

Yet I do not care anymore about this device, I NEED my money returned, or I will sell the paper weight to someone that is willing to resurrect it. This is my opinion, the Hifi walker is such an under-powered device in comparison and is half the price, yet when I run RockBox on it I can load music infinitely faster than the Tangara, I do not understand why an already made software like RockBox is just not good enough and all this flashing and extra companion software is for some reason better. I really wish this was a device that just ran RockBox. I apologize for my anger yet I spent $250, waited months for delivery withour any information and the software needs monthly updates that can cause a complete bricking of the device ugh! I just can't do this anymore. 

Again, I need my money back or I will sell this thing to anyone.

FWIW - I shared a lot of your frustrations with this device and ended up selling mine as well. While mine did not brick, it was essentially a brick with me trying to use the way I wanted to. The limited time I used the device it still felt like a project that was very much in beta, and in some cases even alpha. It does not handle big libraries with thousands of songs well at all, despite the marketing material boasting that it supports up 2TB cards (good luck trying to use even a fraction of that on this device and it actually work), the menus were slow and buggy to scroll through, the random crashes, the number of times I had to pull the SD card to get it to boot.. etc Things that should just not happen on a $250 device.

Two months ago I moved to a 2nd gen iPod Mini, built in 2005(!) that is just light years ahead of the Tangara in almost every way. 31k songs (>300GB) - not a problem! It takes a little while to boot, but they're all there and playable with some minor caveats, and that's on the Stock OS that Apple never even intended to be used for that many songs!! And it's even a more in-depth experience with Rockbox (itself an open source project!!!), which takes far less longer to initialize the database than Tangara did AND it actually gets every song. And yes, Tangara does have the option to navigate to songs through folders, but they don't display in ABC order, making this feature effectively useless. The USB 2.0 speeds on iPods definitely makes transfers a long affair and there's no bluetooth (but you can add it with a dongle), but those are small inconveniences to deal with IMO.

Now, I know this is an unfair comparison in many ways - iPods had tons of $$$ poured into R&D and Apple was able to manufacture them at scale, while Tangara is a fully open source project built by a small team. I LOVE that part about it! But I still find it to be sad and disheartening that a 20 year old device is far more capable than something built today. I really wanted to love Tangara, but it seems like the users it would be most inclined to (musicphiles with big libraries who want a simple offline experience that just works) are gonna be really disappointed, and it's more of a novelty than anything else in its current state. It requires tinkering and fiddling - it's not just plug and play. Progress is ongoing to make it better, but I just cannot recommend anyone spend $250 on this thing until it becomes far more fleshed out and is able to do more of the basic things you'd expect from an MP3 player in 2025.

Best of luck in getting yours sold - I was able to offload mine pretty quickly without issue, and it's much better in the hands of someone who will love and use it compared to just sitting in drawer like it was for me.

I hope to see the Tangara project continue to improve and one day would love to return it once it becomes capable of doing what I want it do - play music without frills.

[ablative]

I'd be happy to buy your unit if you still wanted to sell it!

[TowerCardReader]

I have updated from 1.3.3 to 1.5.0 and now my device is bricked. Wont turn on wont show up on my computer at all. The companion software now does also nothing, shows nothing, I can't even exit from the software because the exit, minimize and maximize options wont load leaving me to end the task in the task bar.

Yet I do not care anymore about this device, I NEED my money returned, or I will sell the paper weight to someone that is willing to resurrect it. This is my opinion, the Hifi walker is such an under-powered device in comparison and is half the price, yet when I run RockBox on it I can load music infinitely faster than the Tangara, I do not understand why an already made software like RockBox is just not good enough and all this flashing and extra companion software is for some reason better. I really wish this was a device that just ran RockBox. I apologize for my anger yet I spent $250, waited months for delivery withour any information and the software needs monthly updates that can cause a complete bricking of the device ugh! I just can't do this anymore. 

Again, I need my money back or I will sell this thing to anyone.

FWIW - I shared a lot of your frustrations with this device and ended up selling mine as well. While mine did not brick, it was essentially a brick with me trying to use the way I wanted to. The limited time I used the device it still felt like a project that was very much in beta, and in some cases even alpha. It does not handle big libraries with thousands of songs well at all, despite the marketing material boasting that it supports up 2TB cards (good luck trying to use even a fraction of that on this device and it actually work), the menus were slow and buggy to scroll through, the random crashes, the number of times I had to pull the SD card to get it to boot.. etc Things that should just not happen on a $250 device.

Two months ago I moved to a 2nd gen iPod Mini, built in 2005(!) that is just light years ahead of the Tangara in almost every way. 31k songs (>300GB) - not a problem! It takes a little while to boot, but they're all there and playable with some minor caveats, and that's on the Stock OS that Apple never even intended to be used for that many songs!! And it's even a more in-depth experience with Rockbox (itself an open source project!!!), which takes far less longer to initialize the database than Tangara did AND it actually gets every song. And yes, Tangara does have the option to navigate to songs through folders, but they don't display in ABC order, making this feature effectively useless. The USB 2.0 speeds on iPods definitely makes transfers a long affair and there's no bluetooth (but you can add it with a dongle), but those are small inconveniences to deal with IMO.

Now, I know this is an unfair comparison in many ways - iPods had tons of $$$ poured into R&D and Apple was able to manufacture them at scale, while Tangara is a fully open source project built by a small team. I LOVE that part about it! But I still find it to be sad and disheartening that a 20 year old device is far more capable than something built today. I really wanted to love Tangara, but it seems like the users it would be most inclined to (musicphiles with big libraries who want a simple offline experience that just works) are gonna be really disappointed, and it's more of a novelty than anything else in its current state. It requires tinkering and fiddling - it's not just plug and play. Progress is ongoing to make it better, but I just cannot recommend anyone spend $250 on this thing until it becomes far more fleshed out and is able to do more of the basic things you'd expect from an MP3 player in 2025.

Best of luck in getting yours sold - I was able to offload mine pretty quickly without issue, and it's much better in the hands of someone who will love and use it compared to just sitting in drawer like it was for me.

I hope to see the Tangara project continue to improve and one day would love to return it once it becomes capable of doing what I want it do - play music without frills.

My anger has been really unnecessary and I would like to apologize in whatever I can convey to the folks on the forum.

I appreciate reading your response, unfortunately I am not the most tech savvy person so working on this device has been more uphill bushwhacking than fun tech exploration. I am sure I can do way more with this device if I wanted to and I don't. All my issues with the default device, that I paid $270+ for is that there's no physical back button. There are software workarounds, yet it's these workarounds are the gritt in the chew, the grind in the gears. The press and hold on the scroll wheel was disorientating, though the volume buttons can be reprogrammed this only removes the volume button's normal functions. So if I want a physical back button then I have to sacrifice the fast scroll for one of the volume button. Also the screen is so small already, and every menu has the back button displayed and in different sizes and occupies highly valuable screen space. I wouldn't be here typing this if there was a physical back button already installed by default, I would be only disappointed but hopeful. Instead I felt baffled and frustrated having to scroll to the back button displayed on the screen rather than just pressing a button. Though I am aware It's easier to mod than most other MP3 players and adding a back button may be not that hard to do at all, but I have no interest on working on it anymore because I feel like the first real mod I need to do is make it bassline standard with a back button. I already paid for this and it's less than able to function as a basic level for me, so when my device bricked during the firmware update it broke me.

I am glad your ipod is working great, I am thinking of getting another battery for my H2walker if I can get the thing open. I had mentioned my device because it costs half as much as most of the players listed on the Tangara crowd supply, iPod Gen 1, A&norma SR35, M11 Plus Ess and the iPod Classic (Refurbished). All my point was that a device that costs half as much run circles around the Tangara device, I could bought two more for the cost this device ran me. Also you mentioned Bluetooth, the H2walker post Rockbox flashing can load either the original firmware or Rockbox, so you can keep Bluetooth use even with it installed.

Again thank you for your empathy.

---

I'd be happy to buy your unit if you still wanted to sell it!

I can't repond or PM anyone atm as there is a PM table limit reached error.

[ablative]

I have updated from 1.3.3 to 1.5.0 and now my device is bricked. Wont turn on wont show up on my computer at all. The companion software now does also nothing, shows nothing, I can't even exit from the software because the exit, minimize and maximize options wont load leaving me to end the task in the task bar.

Yet I do not care anymore about this device, I NEED my money returned, or I will sell the paper weight to someone that is willing to resurrect it. This is my opinion, the Hifi walker is such an under-powered device in comparison and is half the price, yet when I run RockBox on it I can load music infinitely faster than the Tangara, I do not understand why an already made software like RockBox is just not good enough and all this flashing and extra companion software is for some reason better. I really wish this was a device that just ran RockBox. I apologize for my anger yet I spent $250, waited months for delivery withour any information and the software needs monthly updates that can cause a complete bricking of the device ugh! I just can't do this anymore. 

Again, I need my money back or I will sell this thing to anyone.

FWIW - I shared a lot of your frustrations with this device and ended up selling mine as well. While mine did not brick, it was essentially a brick with me trying to use the way I wanted to. The limited time I used the device it still felt like a project that was very much in beta, and in some cases even alpha. It does not handle big libraries with thousands of songs well at all, despite the marketing material boasting that it supports up 2TB cards (good luck trying to use even a fraction of that on this device and it actually work), the menus were slow and buggy to scroll through, the random crashes, the number of times I had to pull the SD card to get it to boot.. etc Things that should just not happen on a $250 device.

Two months ago I moved to a 2nd gen iPod Mini, built in 2005(!) that is just light years ahead of the Tangara in almost every way. 31k songs (>300GB) - not a problem! It takes a little while to boot, but they're all there and playable with some minor caveats, and that's on the Stock OS that Apple never even intended to be used for that many songs!! And it's even a more in-depth experience with Rockbox (itself an open source project!!!), which takes far less longer to initialize the database than Tangara did AND it actually gets every song. And yes, Tangara does have the option to navigate to songs through folders, but they don't display in ABC order, making this feature effectively useless. The USB 2.0 speeds on iPods definitely makes transfers a long affair and there's no bluetooth (but you can add it with a dongle), but those are small inconveniences to deal with IMO.

Now, I know this is an unfair comparison in many ways - iPods had tons of $$$ poured into R&D and Apple was able to manufacture them at scale, while Tangara is a fully open source project built by a small team. I LOVE that part about it! But I still find it to be sad and disheartening that a 20 year old device is far more capable than something built today. I really wanted to love Tangara, but it seems like the users it would be most inclined to (musicphiles with big libraries who want a simple offline experience that just works) are gonna be really disappointed, and it's more of a novelty than anything else in its current state. It requires tinkering and fiddling - it's not just plug and play. Progress is ongoing to make it better, but I just cannot recommend anyone spend $250 on this thing until it becomes far more fleshed out and is able to do more of the basic things you'd expect from an MP3 player in 2025.

Best of luck in getting yours sold - I was able to offload mine pretty quickly without issue, and it's much better in the hands of someone who will love and use it compared to just sitting in drawer like it was for me.

I hope to see the Tangara project continue to improve and one day would love to return it once it becomes capable of doing what I want it do - play music without frills.

My anger has been really unnecessary and I would like to apologize in whatever I can convey to the folks on the forum.

I appreciate reading your response, unfortunately I am not the most tech savvy person so working on this device has been more uphill bushwhacking than fun tech exploration. I am sure I can do way more with this device if I wanted to and I don't. All my issues with the default device, that I paid $270+ for is that there's no physical back button. There are software workarounds, yet it's these workarounds are the gritt in the chew, the grind in the gears. The press and hold on the scroll wheel was disorientating, though the volume buttons can be reprogrammed this only removes the volume button's normal functions. So if I want a physical back button then I have to sacrifice the fast scroll for one of the volume button. Also the screen is so small already, and every menu has the back button displayed and in different sizes and occupies highly valuable screen space. I wouldn't be here typing this if there was a physical back button already installed by default, I would be only disappointed but hopeful. Instead I felt baffled and frustrated having to scroll to the back button displayed on the screen rather than just pressing a button. Though I am aware It's easier to mod than most other MP3 players and adding a back button may be not that hard to do at all, but I have no interest on working on it anymore because I feel like the first real mod I need to do is make it bassline standard with a back button. I already paid for this and it's less than able to function as a basic level for me, so when my device bricked during the firmware update it broke me.

I am glad your ipod is working great, I am thinking of getting another battery for my H2walker if I can get the thing open. I had mentioned my device because it costs half as much as most of the players listed on the Tangara crowd supply, iPod Gen 1, A&norma SR35, M11 Plus Ess and the iPod Classic (Refurbished). All my point was that a device that costs half as much run circles around the Tangara device, I could bought two more for the cost this device ran me. Also you mentioned Bluetooth, the H2walker post Rockbox flashing can load either the original firmware or Rockbox, so you can keep Bluetooth use even with it installed.

Again thank you for your empathy.

---

I'd be happy to buy your unit if you still wanted to sell it!

I can't repond or PM anyone atm as there is a PM table limit reached error.

Send me an email at ablative.antler657@passmail.net