Topic: no input plugins after reinstall (Read 3597 times)

ban · « **on:** May 21, 2005, 04:48:57 pm »

after re-installing windows 2000 and media center there isn't anymore an import of music files like mp3- or ogg-vorbis- files.
when importing files from a folder and finding an mp3-file, the program tries to download some plugins but cannot find them.
"failed to connect to a server.
Reason: Not found
URL: http://www.musicex.com/mediacenter/mc_data/plugins/in_mp3.mjp"

That's strange. So I tried to find another direction and found some link to another file in_mp3.dll and installed it. Works well, but the next missing file then is in_ogg.mjp and I didn't find an alternative.

anyhow, something is wrong because if there would really be a problem with the URL I thing there would have been much more postings about it. But it seems that I'm the only one...

KingSparta · « **Reply #1 on:** May 21, 2005, 04:55:20 pm »

Maybe if you state what version you have someone can help...

but some links have changed and if your running an older version they may no longer work.

MC11 Is Current.

ban · « **Reply #2 on:** May 21, 2005, 05:11:36 pm »

I use mc 11. and got the same error with all the latest versions including the 110274.
the missing plugins e.g. in_mp3.mjp, in_ogg.mjp should be part of the distribution. but they are not in my case.
something is not installed, e.g. if I click under options on tools/options/encoding the program crashes.

Click Cardo · « **Reply #3 on:** July 23, 2005, 11:40:02 am »

I just installed 11.0 also. Was able to import my WMA files fine.

Importing MP3 media was a nogo with the same plug-in message in the first post. Viewing the import log it finds all the MP3s ok, bu the ImportNewFiles function reports "Ignored (Already in database, etc.) and no files are imported.

When I go to Options:Encoding and select the MP3 Encoder then hit the Advanced button I get the following:

Cannot create the encoder plugin. 80040154.

I'm using XP SP2 and Firefox as my default browser.

Can anybody help us out??

JimH · « **Reply #4 on:** July 23, 2005, 11:52:41 am »

The MP3 encoder problem is a different one. Just go to the web site and get it. Use IE.

The import suggests that the files are imported. Did you try a search for them?

Click Cardo · « **Reply #5 on:** July 23, 2005, 12:15:06 pm »

JimH

I do not have ANY mp3 files in my library! If by search you mean look at the library window for the artist/album/etc. info then none of it is there. I also went out and back into MC and still saw nothing.

Thanks for getting back on this so quick, but I'm still stuck on importing mp3's.

Thanks
CC

Click Cardo · « **Reply #6 on:** July 23, 2005, 12:19:37 pm »

I went to the plug-in site in IE. For XP/MC11 the only encoder shown is the FLAC encoder.

What now?

Alex B · « **Reply #7 on:** July 23, 2005, 01:06:10 pm »

Actually there seems to be serious problem with the MP3 encoder plug-in in the download page. I noticed this already some time ago, but I didn't have time to check the problem properly then.

The plug-in is not listed for MC10 and MC11. For MC 9.x there is an MP3 plug-in and the text part displayed on the website is correct for the version 9.x.

However this mjp file points to a zip file that is actually not correct for any MC version.

The zip file includes an MC11 encoder plug-in from September 2004 and lame.exe v. 3.96.1 from about the same time.

Also, the internal link that the installed MC 9/10/11 program versions use downloads LAME 3.96.1.

I guess this means the following:

MC11: If the user has deleted the MC11 MP3 encoder plug-in using the Plug-in Manager it is possible that dll file downloaded is too old. The included Lame version is OK.

MC9 & 10: I Don't know about the dll. Perhaps it works if there were no plug-in architecture changes before 9/2004, but the Lame version is incorrect. It should be 3.93.1 because 3.96.1 becomes extremely slow if the high quality option is selected.

There was a lot of discussion about this several months ago and Matt (from JRiver) knows what causes that slowliness.

The download page should contain separate MP3 encoder plugin mjp files for each version. Each mjp file should point to a different zip package (dll + lame).

Click Cardo · « **Reply #8 on:** July 23, 2005, 01:47:38 pm »

I went to the plug-in manager. There is already a MP3 Encoder listed in the tree-view for encoders. For Input there is no MP3 entry. I hit the Add Plug-in button. Goto the plug-ins folder and select in_mp3.dll then hit the Open button. It returns to the tree view with blank space on the right and nothing added. It's like it never registered the plug-in.

I tried to rip a CD with the MP3 Encoder selected and still get the "cannot create encoder plug-in 80040154" error message and no results. I still cannot import.

I'm confused how this is all is supposed to work. I would think ripping/importing mp3's would happen right out of the box!

Alex B · « **Reply #9 on:** July 23, 2005, 01:58:42 pm »

Quote from: Click Cardo on July 23, 2005, 01:47:38 pm

I went to the plug-in manager. There is already a MP3 Encoder listed in the tree-view for encoders. For Input there is no MP3 entry. I hit the Add Plug-in button. Goto the plug-ins folder and select in_mp3.dll then hit the Open button. It returns to the tree view with blank space on the right and nothing added.

I'm confused how this is all is supposed to work. I would think importing mp3's would happen right out of the box!

Normally the MP3 and Ogg Vorbis input plug-ins are installed without any user intervention. These input plug-ins are not meant to be installed afterwards. Only the MP3 encoder is downloaded, but that does not have anything to do with importing.

Something has broken in your installation. Perhaps you should do a complete uninstall and reinstall.

Click Cardo · « **Reply #10 on:** July 23, 2005, 02:04:32 pm »

Just tried ripping/encoding using installed Windows Media encoder. Got same error message. Maybe I do need to re-install.

Before I take that step can I have a second opinion?

Thanks

bob · « **Reply #11 on:** July 23, 2005, 02:17:08 pm »

The MP3 plugin is downloaded DURING THE INSTALL with the other standard plugins. The one on the plugin page should probably be removed (and I will remove it). If you are having trouble with the MP3 encoder you should simply reinstall MC.

Alex B · « **Reply #12 on:** July 23, 2005, 02:30:11 pm »

As I explained MC9 and MC10 get a wrong encoder version also when the download is activated automatically inside MC. Lame.exe has never been included in the MC installer package.

MC should have downloadable plug-ins for off-line installation. Sometimes MC is used on the PCs that are not connected to WAN (E.g. HTPC and mobile applications).

Click Cardo · « **Reply #13 on:** July 23, 2005, 02:51:41 pm »

I figured out the problem. I had Firefox set as my default browser. When I set it back to IE everything(EDIT:The Import) worked fine.

JEEZ! Give us poor Firefox users a break. There are other browsers that people use besides IE. If IE is required as the default browser it should be prominently noted somewhere is to find.

Alex B · « **Reply #14 on:** July 23, 2005, 03:08:00 pm »

Quote from: Click Cardo on July 23, 2005, 02:51:41 pm

I figured out the problem. I had Firefox set as my default browser. When I set it back to IE everything worked fine.

JEEZ! Give us poor Firefox users a break. There are other browsers that people use besides IE. If IE is required as the default browser it should be prominently noted somewhere is to find.

I use always an ftp client program for downloading new builds. But as a test I downloaded MC 11.0.309 with Firefox. The file is bit-to-bit identical with my earlier download. Something else must have gone wrong. Or do you mean that the installer file was correct, but Firefox as a default browser prevented MC to install correctly?

Alex B · « **Reply #15 on:** July 23, 2005, 03:10:19 pm »

Rarewares.org site has a special area for old program versions. Here is a link to LAME v. 3.93.1 for MC9/10 users: lame3.93.1.zip.

You can just replace the lame.exe file in the MC plug-ins folder if you have downloaded the wrong version (3.96.1) recently. You can see the version by running lame.exe in a command prompt.

Click Cardo · « **Reply #16 on:** July 23, 2005, 04:00:28 pm »

I do not know if installing with Firefox as the default caused any installation problems. When I switched default back to IE without doing anything else the import worked OK.

Now I'm still having problems ripping/encoding even with IE as default. Windows Media and MP3 both give "cannot create encoder plugin" message. When I'm in the plugin manager I can see all the encoders, but hitting the Advanced key on them gives me the same message.

lame.exe has a 8-8-2004 8:22am timestamp and 740KB size. oggenc.exe is the only other EXE file in the plugins folder.

Do you think I should re-install this time with IE as the default? I can't seem to get anywhere with the plugin manager.

KingSparta · « **Reply #17 on:** July 23, 2005, 07:12:47 pm »

Quote

Do you think I should re-install this time with IE as the default?

Yes, Try It

bob · « **Reply #18 on:** July 26, 2005, 12:00:22 pm »

Quote from: Alex B on July 23, 2005, 02:30:11 pm

As I explained MC9 and MC10 get a wrong encoder version also when the download is activated automatically inside MC. Lame.exe has never been included in the MC installer package.

You are correct, the reinstall will cause the in_mp3.dll file to be overwritten however if lame.exe exists there already it will not be downloaded again. The version of lame that MC11 downloads is 3.96.1. This works fine for me. If you wanted to use the old 3.93.1 version you could download it from the site described above and put it into the plugins directory.

Alex B · « **Reply #19 on:** July 26, 2005, 02:00:53 pm »

With MC10 (and older) LAME 3.96.1 is OK unless the user selects the "High" quality option. It uses the -q 0 switch. Because the internal LAME mappings have changed that uses an extremely slow experimental option. If an old user makes a clean install or a new user tries the $18 MC10 offer they will get LAME 3.96.1 when MC installs the encoder. LAME 3.93.1 works as designed with that option.

bob · « **Reply #20 on:** August 08, 2005, 10:39:04 am »

Alex, what would be the correct mapping to use with the high quality option with 3.96.1?
Lame has so many options, I use the following for mine:

--vbr-new -b 192

Which seems to do a good job and seems fast to me. I think you could up the -b 192 to -b 224 however past that there are some mp3 players that will not handle a higher bit rate.

With the vbr option though, some of the older mp3 players won't display track time, etc properly.

Alex B · « **Reply #21 on:** August 08, 2005, 11:29:35 am »

I am not sure if I understand what you are asking for. I guess you are not speaking about updating MC10's enc_mp3.dll internal options to be compatible with LAME 3.96.1.

If you mean LAME 3.96.1 VBR settings universally you really should not use anything else than these VBR options:

Quote from: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=18091

All these options include code level tweaking (starting from LAME v. 3.95.1) that cannot be exactly achieved using other LAME command line strings. Anything added to these will usually more or less handicap the quality.

As you said, MP3 players that cannot handle VBR or 256-320 kbps CBR bitrate belong to history. I would return a new player if it has those problems.

In case of old incompatible player I would simply use e.g. --preset cbr 192.

bob · « **Reply #22 on:** August 08, 2005, 05:13:44 pm »

Sorry, I didn't mean to mix up my personal settings with what the defaults are.

As far as I can see, with Quality VBR mode set in MC and fast checked, the parameters are:

--preset fast standard for high and
--preset fast extreme for extreme

I'm still unclear as to why this is a problem with 3.96.1. Sorry if I'm not getting it...

Alex B · « **Reply #23 on:** August 08, 2005, 06:08:36 pm »

There is absolutely no problem with MC11. The options are excellent and follow nicely the LAME developers' quidelines as you can see here: http://lame.sourceforge.net/lame_ui_example.html. Actually, I suggested that when Matt was working on the new MP3 interface.

The display panel that shows the actual command line used with the predefined options was a clever addition from Matt (I think it was Matt's idea).

The situation is different with MC 10 and earlier because the MP3 switches used are completely different. The high quality option uses the switch -q 0 which is buggy in LAME 3.96.1 and trickers a painfully slow experimental mode.

The -q switch has nothing to do with the -V switch. It is not recommend that the old -q switch is used together with the current presets.

Quote from: Gabriel (LAME developer) at http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?s=94fc52b2274e0c8d07fccb0c6c750c87&showtopic=18091&st=25#

Quote

A bug regarding -q 0 and -q 1 has been recently identified and corrected in 3.97 alphas. 3.94-3.96.1 were affected by this problem.

The High Quality option in MC 9/10 works correctly with LAME 3.93.1 (= as designed - a bit slower, but nothing like what happens with 3.96.1).

bob · « **Reply #24 on:** August 09, 2005, 10:50:00 am »

The way we are handling "standard" plugins is to reinstall the main package to get the standard plugins. This should work fine for MC versions 10 and 11. As Alex has noted, the program then pulls the lame command line encoder when it's first used. It appears though that MC 10 and MC 11 both pull the same file which will give lame 3.96.1 which as has been noted has problems with high quality mode in MC 10. The best that can be done in this situation is to add a seperate plugin that provides the old 3.93.1 encoder for MC 10. This is what I just did for MC 10. So, if one has to reinstall MC 10 and they want to do mp3 encoding using the standard options they can download the command line encoder by going to the plugins page.

Alex B · « **Reply #25 on:** August 09, 2005, 11:22:56 am »

Seems to be a good solution. A plug-in download will return the original functionality.

An alternative solution is to use a --preset command line with the newer encoder. That would give even better results.

bob · « **Reply #26 on:** August 09, 2005, 11:24:14 am »

Just changed the MC 9.x lame plugin to the same logic as MC 10 since it had an unusable .dll in it anyway.

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Author Topic: no input plugins after reinstall (Read 3597 times)