MAC thinks that MP3 Player is an Audio Device

[Hezzi]

We got a cheap little mp3 player for my son. He is far too young to be trusted with anything expensive, but he likes to listen to his songs. Anyway, when I tried to hook up the player the computer wouldn't recognize it. At least that is what I thought. After an hour of frustrated troubleshooting, I figured out that my MAC thinks that it is an audio device. How do I fix this? It is extremely annoying. The MP3 player is the CDN5 device in the screen shot...

 

[JTToft]

And your intention is to drag and drop files to it like a USB thumb drive?
Does it appear in Disk Utility as a drive? If not, you may want to consult the user manual to see how it's supposed to function.

 

[Hezzi]

And your intention is to drag and drop files to it like a USB thumb drive?
Does it appear in Disk Utility as a drive? If not, you may want to consult the user manual to see how it's supposed to function.

That is my intention. It doesn't show up in disk utility. And, of course, there is no users manual... It is that cheap of a product... :/

 

[JTToft]

That is my intention. It doesn't show up in disk utility. And, of course, there is no users manual... It is that cheap of a product... :/

- Strange. I've no idea how it's supposed to function then. You can't Google your way to something based on the name of it?

 

[Fishrrman]

When plugged into the Mac, it -IS- "an audio device", insofar as the Mac OS is concerned. That's why it shows up in the sound panel (or in Audio/MIDI Setup) as a "source".
You need to select it -as- the source, then the Mac will see and connect to its audio output.

If your son wants to listen to music from the mp3 device while using the Mac, maybe the easiest ways might be to:

1. Get him a set of lightweight headphones, and just plug them into the mp3 player
or
2. Get a pair of self-powered speakers. Show him how to plug in the mp3 player to the speakers, turn them on, and play music that way.

More thoughts:
I believe that some mp3 players have an option to behave as either a "file storage device" (to which you can copy and delete files, as you would a USB flashdrive", or a "media device" (for playing back music but not file manipulation).
You might check to see how that's set up.

 

[Mr. Retrofire]

...It is extremely annoying. The MP3 player is the CDN5 device in the screen shot...

And the brand of the player is? The USB Device ID in the System Profiler is?

 

[John_L]

We got a cheap little mp3 player for my son. He is far too young to be trusted with anything expensive, but he likes to listen to his songs. Anyway, when I tried to hook up the player the computer wouldn't recognize it. At least that is what I thought. After an hour of frustrated troubleshooting, I figured out that my MAC thinks that it is an audio device. How do I fix this? It is extremely annoying. The MP3 player is the CDN5 device in the screen shot...

I know this is a bit of a necro post considering it's 4 years old (not to mention your son is 4 years older) and you've most certainly resolved the issue in one way or another by now, but in case you're curious, or someone else runs into the same issue, I figured out the resolution to the problem. I had the same "CDN5" device showing up as an audio device, and not as a drive, and it turns out that the device requires an SD card, and even with an SD card, it doesn't show up as a drive, but, the SD Card (inserted into an adapter to the larger size) fits into the Mac and shows up as a drive and you can drag and drop MP3s onto the SD card, then eject and insert the SD card into the player and voila, it works. Oddly enough, it shows up as an audio device mainly because it's recognizing the audio out. I was able to connect the player to the computer with the USB cable and it too appears in sound preferences as an audio device along with internal speakers (and in my case the HomePod too), and I could even select it, and hear audio coming out of the headphone jack, but in the end, insert the SD card into the Mac and load MP3s there, then simply insert the card into the player.