Help. Problems exporting project to SD card

BeatBuddy Help, Questions and Bugs
1

Hi.
I tried to create a backup SD card by following the advice on previous posts. Purchased a Sandisk 32GB SDHC UHS-1 Class 10 card and inserted into Beatbuddy pedal and connected using the USB cable. Clicked File - Export - Project to SD card. Copying started but then a pop-up appeared saying ‘unable to create destination folder / Drumsets. What would you like to do? Abort / Retry’. When I click on retry the same message keeps appearing. Screen on pedal reads ‘Invalid SD card’.

I subsequently gave up with the backup idea and returned the original SD card into the pedal. Now when I add a new song or make changes in BBM, the same message appears when I try to export to the original SD card and it won’t let me export. (Pedal works fine with the songs previously uploaded to it). Same thing happens when SD card is inserted into card reader.

I am not very computer literate and any advice as to how to rectify this problem would be appreciated. I am not worried about the backup - just want to be able to get back to exporting to the original SD card.

I am using
macOS Catalina V10.15.7
BBM version 1.6.4.1
Beatbuddy Firmware 4.1.2

Kindest regards

2
  1. Check that your SD card is not locked or write-protected (small slide on the side of your SD card).

  1. If you have a built-in SD slot in your Mac, you would probably be better off using the Mac SD reader instead of trying to use the USB connection method which has been reported by some users as not a reliable method of transferring data to the SD card. If your Mac does not have an SD slot reader, consider buying and using an external USB media reader instead.

  2. If none of the above is working, try this:

  • insert your original SD card into computer SD slot (or try using USB connection)
  • use BBM - File - Open Project and navigate to your SD card and press Open (or OK)
  • you’ll be asked to save your project to your computer and you should do so (give the project a new name and make sure that it saves to ~user/documents/bbworkspace/user_lib/projects
  • using the BeatBuddy Manager (BBM), make some minor edits to your project (add a song or just make a tempo change to an existing song)
  • use the BBM to export project to your SD card
  • if this works, you’re good to go, if not:
  1. You can contact Support, support@singularsound.com for help.

Please let us know what it takes to solve your issue as it will help other users landing in the same boat.

1 Like
3

Thanks Persist. Tried all of the above but the problem still occurs. I have contacted support so will see what they come back with. I will let you know what the solution turns out to be.
Thanks again for your input.

4

You’re welcome. Just a parting thought: check the card format by

  • highlighting the SD card in the Finder
  • use CMD - I to get info on the card. It should display MS-DOS (FAT32) or something quite similar. It’s a long shot given that you followed existing guidelines.

Support will probably have you start with a reinstall of the bbworkspace folder and contents.

Also, if your Sandisk card is SDHC UHS-I, that indicates they’re intended for video cameras. I don’t know if they’ll work properly with the BeatBuddy (BB) pedal.

5

Hi. Just to let everyone know that the issue has been resolved. I ended up un-installing Beatbuddy and all related files (after having backed everything up on an external hard-drive). Re-installed as per manual and everything is working fine now. Only small issue that occurred during the process was during first ‘export to SD card’ when a pop-up asked if I wanted to save to my ‘Applications folder’. Clicked on ‘No’ which let me navigate to the SD drive. Now when I export it automatically saves to the SD card.
Hopefully none of you will need this, but shared just in case!!
Thanks again Persist for your help.

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6

Persist
Do you have a recommendation for an SD card that works with Beatbuddy? I thought that I was safe purchasing the above mentioned card as (I thought) that it met the criteria - 4-32 GB Class 10
Thanks

7

Glad you’ve got everything working again.

I am cheap so whenever our local Microcenter is giving away SD cards to customers, I stop in and get one. Over the years, have picked up two 32Gb SDHC Class 10 cards and they’ve been very reliable in use with two pedals.

Some thoughts:

  1. Unless you’re amassing thousands of songs and more than 100 drum sets, you will probably never fill a 32Gb card. A 4Gb SDHC card will hold hundreds of songs and dozens of drum sets.
  2. I tried to find an online store selling non-I (UHS) cards but they all seem to be type I UHS cards. There were a few 4GB Sandisk cards on Amazon but they were Class 4 (which means they’re probably slower than the Class 10 cards).
  3. Now that you seem to have the BeatBuddy Manager (BBM) working, and If you still have that Sandisk UHS-I 32Gb card, test it again to see if it will accept the export of your project from the BBM. If it does, let us know. If it doesn’t, you can check that the format is FAT32. I think it is…

I noticed that my Microcenter card says Extreme on the label but does not include the UHS-I descriptor. I’m tagging @BeatBuddy_Support to see if he will weigh in on the SD UHS-I cards and whether or not they work when the pedal is connected via USB.

Bottom line: test your Sandisk card and let us know if it works in the pedal via USB or with an external USB media reader. Also, either a 4Gb or 16Gb card should meet your needs.

8

Yes, there shouldn’t be an issue with those cards. “UHS-1” is a descriptor of the speed, not the format: What is UHS-1? | Integral Memory FAQ.

Based on what I read above and how it was solved, this seemed more along the lines of a software problem than a hardware problem. (My guess is that the files somehow got corrupt along the way, that’s why it is always a good idea to make backups, at least of the folders as PBF files)

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