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Author Topic: Corrupt m4a files  (Read 3008 times)

plevin

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Corrupt m4a files
« on: February 14, 2005, 03:13:28 pm »

I have been using MediaCenter to tag my music, delete duplicates, and reorganize into folders. I just finished that process and had MediaCenter move all my files into a new folder. I noticed that there were still some files in the source folder though. They would not import into MC. I brought them into iTunes, which produced silence. When I tried them in QuickTime, I got the error: Either "(Song Name)" contains no 'moov' atom, or the file has been corrupted. foobar2000 says, "MP4: unable to find correct sound track in the MP4 file. " Because this problem only occurred with m4a files, I checked the m4a files that were in MC's library. Some of them would play, but only give silence like iTunes, and some would appear to start playing, but MC would immediately skip to the next track. For both of these types of files, iTunes gives silence and foobar says, "A device ID has been used that is out of range for your system." The files that are silent in MC are silent in QuickTime too, and the files that skip in MC won't open in QuickTime because "the filename was bad." There does not appear to be a m4a file that will play. I remember being able to play many of them in MC when I first imported them, so they were not bad to being with. I have only used MC to modify these files. After reading this thead, I am pretty sure the problem comes from the way MC tags m4a files. All of these m4a files were ripped with iTunes. I have almost 4000 of these files totaling over 12 GB. The thread gives two programs, "Tag and M3U" and "Mp3tag" that might be able to repair some of my files. I'm going to give these programs a try, but I want to see if anyone here has ideas. I can only obtain the original files for about half of these corrupted files, so starting from square one is a last resort. Also, I would like to continue to use MC rather than switch to iTunes. Here is my system info:

Media Center Registered 10.0.173 -- E:\Program Files\J River\Media Center\

Microsoft Windows XP 5.1 Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
AMD Unknown 1997 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 1048 MB, Free - 639 MB

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2900.2180 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158) / Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2900.2573 (xpsp_sp2_gdr.041130-1729) / Shell32.dll: 6.00.2900.2578 (xpsp_sp2_gdr.041130-1729) / wnaspi32.dll: N/A
Ripping /   Drive F: LITE-ON COMBO LTC-48161H  Mode:ModeSecure  Type:Auto  Speed:Max
  Drive H: NU      DVDRW DDW-082     Mode:ModeSecure  Type:Auto  Speed:Max
  Drive V:   Mode:Normal  Type:Auto  Speed:Max
  Digital playback: Yes /  Use YADB: Yes /  Get cover art: Yes /  Calc replay gain: Yes /  Copy volume: 32767
  Eject after ripping: Yes /  Play sound after ripping: Yes  Soundfile:   chord.wav

Burning /  Drive F: LITE-ON  COMBO LTC-48161H   Addr: 1:0:0  Speed:48  MaxSpeed:48  BurnProof:Yes
  Drive H: NU       DVDRW DDW-082      Addr: 3:0:0  Speed:40  MaxSpeed:40  BurnProof:Yes
  Test mode: No /  Eject after writing: Yes /  Direct decoding: Yes /  Write CD-Text: Yes
  Use playback settings: No /  Normalization: None
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JimH

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Re: Corrupt m4a files
« Reply #1 on: February 14, 2005, 03:19:03 pm »

MC modifies its own database, but doesn't modify the M4A files. 
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plevin

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Re: Corrupt m4a files
« Reply #2 on: February 14, 2005, 03:34:10 pm »

I have run Library Tools > update tags (from library) so that the properties would show correctly in other programs than MC.
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JimH

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Re: Corrupt m4a files
« Reply #3 on: February 14, 2005, 03:37:17 pm »

MC would not write tags to an M4A file in that case (or any other).  M4A files are AAC and MC can't read or write them directly.  MC uses the Quicktime engine to play them.

I think you're barking up the wrong tree.
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plevin

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Re: Corrupt m4a files
« Reply #4 on: February 14, 2005, 03:59:15 pm »

Thanks, JimH. I just restarted and tried playing some of these songs in iTunes. Amazingly, they are playing. I have no idea what was going on. I think I will be editing all my m4a tags in iTunes so that artists and albums match the mp3 files I tagged in MC.
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