I'm copying files to an mp4 device and when Im done the device shows 'ghost' files of the files I copied, with a slightly different name, but zero data. These appear in the playlist and are a pain in the proverbial to delete using the mp4 player interface, one by one. Is there a way to:
a) prevent them being made in the first place
or
b) delete them from the mac (they dont show up on here)
Any advice welcome.
Regards,
Mark

Your not using windoze are you? To put them on?

On the device, do the filenames begin with a "." (period)?

Any files/folders beginning with a period on a Mac are hidden.

Perhaps they are icon/tag files.

I know that PSP's use these.

What app/s are you using to export the videos?

Names something like: ._name?

Yeah, it's a pain which is the result of copying the files manually to a device using a non-HFS+ format. I'm not sure how this can be fixed except by using the terminal to delete those files.

Is there any way I can get the finder to make them visible and then set up automator to delete files with that prefix? It sure is a pain.

Sure. With the device connected, go to its root level (ie Device Name) and type a period in the search bar in the top right hand corner. Opt to just show results for that device. Change the search settings so that invisible files/folders are enabled and they should all appear in the search.

There are many other ways of doing this though. Apps include Omni Disksweeper (Shareware) among others.

I had tried that search for files beginning with '._' on the volume that are visible or invisible, but I get no results. I even tried the omni program and it finds '._ds store' folder and ._trash folder, but not the individual annoying little files I want to get rid of. I don't know why.

interesting..

very, very interesting.

The files show up on the device, but do not show up in DiskSweeper.

This makes no sense, unless the device has some other form of memory that does not connect to the computer.

What type of device is it?

I can't get the files to show up on my mac. I even tried connecting under os9 as well, but the same reaction. After os9 though it also added a lot of desktop.db files.
I've transferred about 150 songs to the player and it shows 300 files. I wonder if it's to do with the icons used? Anyway, the extra files are 0kb, and all start with "._" but when I search in the finder for visible/invisible files on the device with that in the name I get no results. Very weird.
The songs play fine, but after each song is the 'ghost file'. Eg. I play "song 1.mp3" and the next file after it finishes is "._song1.mp3" which doesn't have any data, and doesnt play.

Also, is there any way to make amv (animation video) files on the mac. I've googled all over the place, but only find references to windows programs that will make amv files. It's not a big deal, but it would be nice to use.