Topic: Flac problem? (Read 5045 times)

benn600 · « **on:** July 09, 2006, 01:19:23 pm »

I have decided that constant crashing in MC is not a very good way to listen to music. What should I do? Either I am going to wait until the problem is fixed with the FLAC plugin (which would have to be soon)--whether the author fixes it or perhaps the MC folks could fix it? Otherwise, I really must find an alternative format, probably APE. I really do not want to use this format because it's less known to me and besides, converting 180GB of music would take a long time. I also have to worry about making sure I don't lose my ratings, playlists, etc., but also that there is a chance that some songs might not convert perfectly--as I have heard others talk about in the past.

jgreen · « **Reply #1 on:** July 09, 2006, 02:21:39 pm »

Ben--
If you can't wait you should convert it to something else. You've got to remember that FLAC support isn't native to MC (or WMP or itunes or WinAmp, etc), I guess because nobody's making any money off it.

At any rate, I've had almost none of the track change issues you're seeing, and I haven't seen it in ages. My first suggestion would be to try looking at your anti-virus/firewall, and see if it's slowing things down. Anti-virus is a common culprit with stuff like this. Try going to the latest version (if you haven't) or going back a few versions. Definitely, if you have other plugins try disabling them just to see. And fool with your output settings andyour track change settings (gapless/immediate, etc).

If this all seems like too much effort, imagine what scthom faces trying to track down an intermittent bug that most users don't experience. You've got to remember, scthom's a customer just like you and me, only smarter. Actually, I'm not sure how terribly smart it was for him to sign up for this kind of grief, but that's a whole other issue. But the point is, I wouldn't necessarily hold my breath on this one, unless you're trying to do us a favor.

APE tagging should handle your FLAC tags just fine. I'm not sure what conversion issues you're refering to, although if it was me I'd go slow and try it with a few tracks first and verify everything. Good luck!

Mr ChriZ · « **Reply #2 on:** July 09, 2006, 02:37:02 pm »

Converting 180GB's would definitley take a while.
Just to add to JGreens suggestions. Maybe split
your library into subsets for a while.
See if you can notice any pattern to the crashes.
Any particular files for instance?
If working with a particiular subset of your library
you don't get any crashes and with certain subsets you do
then you may find you have some dodgy files?

Only a suggestion. I've never used FLAC.
However at one time I did have some MP3's which
would take out MC, simply because they
were corrupt in some way. Since I've got
rid of them, everythings been hunky dorry!

Just takes a little patience =)

Robert Joe · « **Reply #3 on:** July 09, 2006, 04:14:07 pm »

Hmm, I use FLAC exclusively and have no problems. It has not crashed on me once since upgrading to 11.1.188. Before that with the demo version I got the occasional crash perhaps once in a 3 day period if I left it running for 24 hours.

benn600 · « **Reply #4 on:** July 09, 2006, 07:51:22 pm »

I totally understand and hate it when people complain about something that was free or released out of the goodness of someones heart. I will strongly consider converting everything to APE. Thanks!

mark_h · « **Reply #5 on:** July 10, 2006, 03:39:51 am »

Have been running FLAC for over a year without any issues...

Not that that helps you

hit_ny · « **Reply #6 on:** July 10, 2006, 05:54:09 am »

Could there be a problem with any of the flac files themselves ?

Are they any tools you can use to check the FLAC files first....before converting to another.

JONCAT · « **Reply #7 on:** July 10, 2006, 06:52:51 am »

I gave up on FLAC, I use MAC anyway so I converted my FLACs, mostly concerts, to MAC. Saved space, an intuitive gui w/ Verify function, & no 1899 in the Date field (at least once I edit them all out they will be gone forever!).

There are some posts in the 3rd party forum regaring error checking.

DC

benn600 · « **Reply #8 on:** July 10, 2006, 09:00:41 am »

I had secure reads, verify enabled, and single encoding at a time. I don't think there are many errors in my 7,100 files but I have already started the conversion to APE. I don't like how my processor never goes above 45% when converting, though, so it seems like it could easily go twice as fast but it may not be threaded to work on 2 processors. Anyway, it's been running for about 13 hours and it is about 35% complete. I'm thinking it should be ready tomorrow morning sometime. It looks like APE converts much faster than FLAC (I'm using extra high compression) because when I converted an APE to FLAC, it took a lot longer than the other way around. It also shows better compression by about 1-3Mb per song saved so I could end up saving around 20GB--that's quite nice!

Alex B · « **Reply #9 on:** July 10, 2006, 09:09:00 am »

IMHO, decompression of APE Extra High is quite slow. High decompresses faster and the file size difference is usually negligible.

jgreen · « **Reply #10 on:** July 10, 2006, 11:00:24 am »

Ben, I'm glad the APE conversion is working out for you. FWIW, the FLAC encoding is usually slower,although decoding (playback) is supposed to be easier on the CPU than APE. You might trying ecoding the same track to APE high and APE extra high, just to ensure your computer isn't struggling to decode the extra high compression.

Doc Cilantro: It seems from the (lack of) forum posts re/1899 date issue that I'm the only other persoin who sees that problem. However, I also saw it in other file formats, excepting mp3. So I think it's a library issue.

glynor · « **Reply #11 on:** July 10, 2006, 12:26:39 pm »

I haven't seen the date thing (might just not have ever looked -- I don't use the date (year) tag in any view schemes because I'm too lazy to make sure they're all reliably filled except for live show tapings), but I do get a huge number of tracks (both FLAC and MP3) that the track number == 33. Weird....

JONCAT · « **Reply #12 on:** July 10, 2006, 01:37:33 pm »

I have some .apes with 1899 but they could have previously been FLACs....I'll keep an eye open. Frustrating to make the effort to tag with date (year) & find that dang 1899 popping up everywhere...

DC

scthom · « **Reply #13 on:** July 11, 2006, 10:22:32 pm »

I know it isn't much consolation...

I've been able to reproduce the crash-when-hit-next-or-previous-too-fast bug (and verified it didn't happen with mp3 or wma), but according to the log files, there was nothing wrong that I could find with the plugin. I tried some changes to the threading and memory but couldn't locate the problem. I know it's still there and one day it may be fixed. The code is open source so if you think you can find it and fix it, be my guest.

Same for the 1899 bug, except I could never duplicate it.

This was not a rant

benn600 · « **Reply #14 on:** July 12, 2006, 08:30:33 am »

I actually saw another user somewhere (I'm helpful, aren't I) who described the crashing bug precisely how I have experienced it with detailed information on exactly when it will or will not crash. I did do a simple FLAC & MP3 test where I built a huge library of MP3 & FLAC and then Arrow Down + Enter SO FAST (with them sorted by file type) and as soon as I hit FLAC, it crashes.

By the way, I stopped converting to APE. After about 35% I realized that there is a chance my Xbox media center won't play these nor would my computers be able to play them, it seems, because Video Lan cannot even play them. That's quite strange that the player that can play everything can't play APE.

This has been a presentation from your friends at BenN600 studios in cooperation with MC

hit_ny · « **Reply #15 on:** July 12, 2006, 09:19:11 am »

Quote from: benn600 on July 12, 2006, 08:30:33 am

I realized that there is a chance my Xbox media center won't play these nor would my computers be able to play them, it seems, because Video Lan cannot even play them. That's quite strange that the player that can play everything can't play APE.

Might that have anything to do with APE not being streamable ?

jgreen · « **Reply #16 on:** July 12, 2006, 03:15:38 pm »

Er--yes, Ben. As Hit so wryly points out, life is full of choices. APE isn't streamable. I guess your ultimate choice in formats will depend on what's most important to you.

So WAV isn't taggable, APE isn't streamable, and currently FLAC doesn't bounce back and forth between tracks as fast as you want, although it works fine for most of us.

Plan B: Attempt a QC of your audio PC. I think the key to this track change thing lies in the anti-virus software, not the FLAC implementation. If you told me you have Norton/Syantec antivirus I would jump up from the couch shouting "eureka!" I have not seen this track thing since I escorted Norton to the dumpster, in favor of AVG.

benn600 · « **Reply #17 on:** July 12, 2006, 04:03:46 pm »

I have absolutely no anti-virus/anti-spyware/firewall/security software running on my computers. I also have absolutely no viruses or spyware. My system is also very slimmed down with very little running in the background other than LogMeIn, Activesync, and that's about it which could be conflicting.

I'm confused about the not being streamable thing. Does that mean that data for the first second of audio is contained in more than the first 800Kb or something? First of all, I am not really streaming this considering I would be accessing from my Xbox exactly how I do on my desktop--over a shared network drive and APE plays fine on my desktop.

JimH · « **Reply #18 on:** July 12, 2006, 04:23:19 pm »

Are the files all on a local hard drive? Any network drive or USB drive involved?

benn600 · « **Reply #19 on:** July 12, 2006, 11:16:42 pm »

Yes to both. The files are stored on a server w/ 500GB USB drive attached and then shared over the network and I have no trouble playing these files on my desktop. This question is irrelevent at the moment because I am going to just hold out on FLAC and I doubt others really care about this strange question which I think has little backing and is confusing at best.

Doof · « **Reply #20 on:** July 13, 2006, 03:46:33 pm »

Out of curiosity... if you have no anti-virus or anti-spyware aps on your PCs, then how do you know you don't have any viruses or spyware?

I wish I could learn that trick.

Also, the Xbox may not be able to play APE because it just can't play APE. Not all devices are going to support all file formats.

Wildcat · « **Reply #21 on:** July 14, 2006, 09:01:48 am »

This problem has plagued my set up for some time now and although I finally decided to "just put up with it" I feel Ben has legitimate complaint.

I also feel Scthom has tried to address this and other problems the best he can and has done a fine job (w/out getting paid) So it's hard to continue to complain to him.

This problem now shows up on other forms as MC having bugs. Found this problem being the reason people don't use MC. I know 5 FLAC users to every 1 .ape user.

It's not just the occasional crash but it's the loss of work when it does crash.

Even though Oblong's plug-in does not have this issue, I'm sticking with Scot and his plug-ins for future support and in hopes that JRiver steps up and helps out or supports FLAC outright.

LonWar · « **Reply #22 on:** July 14, 2006, 09:13:06 am »

Since this is a widely used format, why not support it? Would it actually be that hard to implement? I don't use it, but just curious as to why a free format wouldn't be supported.....

JimH · « **Reply #23 on:** July 14, 2006, 09:15:39 am »

Quote from: benn600 on July 12, 2006, 11:16:42 pm

Yes to both. The files are stored on a server w/ 500GB USB drive attached and then shared over the network and I have no trouble playing these files on my desktop.

There are definitely bugs in drive software and in network software. Have you tried updating?

Can you reproduce the problem if the files are only on the local PC's hard drive? We can't rule out the possibility of a FLAC plug-in bug, but it would help to test locally to rule out the network and USB drive.

Here's just one example:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=28233.0

This thread has a lot of strange problems:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=24031.0

hit_ny · « **Reply #24 on:** July 14, 2006, 10:09:25 am »

Quote from: jgreen on July 12, 2006, 03:15:38 pm

APE isn't streamable.

Does media server deal with this ?

There are lots of ppl with APE libraries, is it possible to hear APE using media server over a lan and by extension the internet.

Matt · « **Reply #25 on:** July 14, 2006, 10:29:04 am »

Quote from: hit_ny on July 14, 2006, 10:09:25 am

Does media server deal with this ?

There are lots of ppl with APE libraries, is it possible to hear APE using media server over a lan and by extension the internet.

Yes, APE can be streamed with Media Server or any other server. (it's not a packet format meaning you need the beginning of the file to play the file, but this is only relevant in some streaming radio applications)

MrC · « **Reply #26 on:** July 14, 2006, 02:02:55 pm »

FWIW, I didn't really think too much about the crashes at the time, but I've seen the next/prev crash a couple of times - all files local, HD based flac.

Wildcat · « **Reply #27 on:** July 14, 2006, 09:05:32 pm »

Quote from: imjustagamer on July 14, 2006, 09:13:06 am

Since this is a widely used format, why not support it? Would it actually be that hard to implement? I don't use it, but just curious as to why a free format wouldn't be supported.....

HEAR HEAR!
Must be personal reason.

Doof · « **Reply #28 on:** July 14, 2006, 10:52:53 pm »

Quote from: Matt on July 14, 2006, 10:29:04 am

Yes, APE can be streamed with Media Server or any other server. (it's not a packet format meaning you need the beginning of the file to play the file, but this is only relevant in some streaming radio applications)

It can? How come when I tried to get this to work, I was told that Media Server couldn't stream APE? It was pretty much the entire reason I abanonded Media Server and went with network shares...

benn600 · « **Reply #29 on:** July 16, 2006, 11:42:44 pm »

My setup has been the following for a while with iTunes but I now use MC.

I store all my songs on a server and create 4 databases (one for each family member). I then setup each comp w/ all 4 accounts and link each account to the correct database location (fyi: I do the same thing for my docs, firefox profile, thunderbird profile, & the my music/pictures folders are the same for all 4 family members).

On my drive, I use some top level folders that may be useful for others:

Backups
Discs (CD Space Images)
Documents (4 + Shared docs)
Installers (Desktop, PocketPC)
Music (Artist > Album)
Pictures (2001, 2002, ...)
Podcasts (Audio, Video)
Profiles (Email, Internet, Music)
Video (Television, Movies, Internet, ...)
Web Site (cgi-bin, public, ...)

I have been spending many hours over the past few days and weeks carefully organizing all of my data. Every file I have is carefully inspected to ensure I am not wasting space. I finally took the time to offload a lot of archive data to DVD. I actually run off a single 500GB drive which is mirrored on two other drives for onsite/offsite backup so I need to keep my data organized and condensed so I don't run out of space.

At one point I was down to 60GB free. I went through and cleaned up/archived some stuff to DVD and got up to 120GB free.

QUESTION: I like to use the 2 complete backups solution so I have 3 total guaranteed copies of my data. I am wondering if I could get by with only 1 complete copy. If I did, I could buy another 500GB drive and have two running drives and therefore, 1 TB. I just have to keep in mind that this data cannot be lost! It has family memories, expensive software I've purchased, documents, etc. I also have around 100 DVDs of family video from my life that I keep but I only have two sets of them. The first set was made around April and the second set was created from the first around July. Only 1 DVD had a problem and I used a free trial program to ignore the error and keep copying (Cyclic rendancy error) so I ended up with a copy which seems perfectly fine. I'm thinking I'll make a 3rd set in a year or two. I don't want to make a bunch right away so close together.

BartMan01 · « **Reply #30 on:** July 17, 2006, 08:20:33 am »

Quote from: hit_ny on July 12, 2006, 09:19:11 am

Might that have anything to do with APE not being streamable ?

That link also shows that APE has no 'robust' error handling. What do they mean by that? I was under the impression that error handling WAS in Monkey's Audio.
I also like how 'no lossy option' is a con for lossless compressors.

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Author Topic: Flac problem? (Read 5045 times)

JONCAT

JONCAT