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[chrisgreen]

I have noticed that JRiver MC is not recognizing partial FLAC files, and I wonder if the program could be made to ‘flag’ them.

I hear weird skipping listening to certain FLAC files. When I open these files in Adobe Audition, they are flagged as ‘partial’, or sometimes the opening operation is ‘cancelled’. JRiver will play them, but they are missing data, and that’s the source of the weird skipping.

There are other aspects to this issue, including the routine that moves downloaded FLAC files from my download drive to my library drive.

My question is whether JRiver can recognize these partial files and flag them somehow. It would save me the laborious step of opening files in Audition to check if they are complete.

[blgentry]

It would seem to be a good idea to find the source of your partial files and fix that.  Presumably these are bad downloads of some sort.  Perhaps a more reliable mechanism for downloading is the correct answer.

Best of luck,
Brian.

[chrisgreen]

I am in the process of getting to the root of the problem. I have ruled out bad or incomplete downloads already.
That was easy. I am getting exceedingly good support from Bombich Software, makers of Carbon Copy Cloner, and I am sure they will help me sort out the root problem. I expect I will soon be able to put this whole issue to rest.

But, none of this is really relevant here. I am just curious whether MC is able to detect a fault in a FLAC file in a way that Adobe Audition does.

[chrisgreen]

BTW, for anyone interested in the root problem, it appears to be a mismatch in HD formats.

I download files to a drive formatted with APFS. Downloads are moved to a library HD that is formatted with HFS+. It seems that HFS+ does not support sparse files that can be created on APFS, and when a sparse file is copied from APFS to HFS+, there can be a loss of data.

The solution seems to be converting any HFS+ drives to APFS. Hopefully, the partial FLAC issue is resolved for me, but I am still curious how Audition flags partial FLAC files and whether MC could do the same.

[blgentry]

It sounds like maybe you copied files that were not fully transferred and then tried to resume the transfer on the new disk. 

Sparse files are not normal.  They are files that have a pre-allocated size, but the data has not filled them yet, so they don't take up the space that they say they do.  FLAC files should never be sparse "at rest".  If a torrent client has created them at full size and then begins filling in the data, they may be sparse during this process of transferring the file, bit by bit. But when the transfer is done, the file should be normal and not sparse.

Brian.

[chrisgreen]

OK, it seems like maybe I have not drilled all the way down to the root just yet. I can say for sure that I did not resume the transfer on the new disk. That just does not happen in this system. Your statement about FLAC files not being sparse at rest appears to be an excellent observation.

I am getting help with CCC support.

[chrisgreen]

I am still working through this issue, but I have a question about sparse files on APFS. I think I am reading that APFS creates sparse files normally and that files may remain in a sparse state. Can you say whether this is accurate. For example, if a FLAC file is sparse on a source drive that is formatted in APFS and is transferred to another APFS drive, could it remain in a sparse state?

[blgentry]

I've been working with sparse files, on and off, for more than 20 years.  AFPS is relatively new and my knowledge of AFPS specific sparse file handling is minimal. 

I do know this:  I can copy files from drive to drive and I don't seem to have any problems with the files.  Some of my drives are HFS+ and some are AFPS.

Brian.

[chrisgreen]

OK, well I think I have a handle on this issue. There seems to be a few different issues that needed to be addressed. Hopefully, they are all resolved.

I still wonder why Adobe Audition (Fission also) identifies partial FLAC files and Media Center does not. I am trying to work out whether it is related to CRC.

I am not sure how well I understand CRC, but it sounds like an app can verify the audio portion of a FLAC using CRC. I believe MC does this to some extent. I am sure you know a heck of a lot more than me!