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Author Topic: JRiver doesn't read AIFF metadata  (Read 5969 times)

cgbissett

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JRiver doesn't read AIFF metadata
« on: September 13, 2012, 08:57:20 am »

I am using the latest version of JRiver 17.0185. I rip my CD's using dBpoweramp to Aiff for playback, I have been using both programs for a few years without issue. I haven't ripped for a few weeks, today I ripped El Camino by the Black keys, when imported into JRiver it was split, the last two tracks showing unassigned, and they were missing several tags.  I checked the folder directly, although all the tracks were in the correct folder, the last two were missing several tags.  I deleted the album and tried again, using Flac, when imported all tags were correct. I tried a third time using Aiff, this time I didn't import the album, but checked the tags directly in their folder, all was correct. When I imported it into JRiver, the last two songs were split and the data that was present before was now missing.  I don't think I've changed any settings recently, so any help would be appreciated.

Regards Craig
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ec5a

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Re: JRiver appears to be removing Metadata
« Reply #1 on: September 14, 2012, 07:49:43 pm »

Dear All MC Users,

I too have this problem,  The files will show up fine in iTunes but some how in MC it looks like this, would anyone be able to help me find a solution.



Thank you very much for all the help in advance.

Best Regards
William
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joethebus

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Re: JRiver appears to be removing Metadata
« Reply #2 on: February 13, 2013, 06:54:51 am »

I'm getting the same symptoms, which makes JRiver pretty much unuseable.

Are you not going to respond to these concerns?
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JimH

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Re: JRiver appears to be removing Metadata
« Reply #3 on: February 13, 2013, 06:58:27 am »

Are you using MC17?  Is it the latest version of MC17?  17.0.189 is available in the Old Versions topic on the wiki.

MC doesn't remove any tags unless you tell it to.

If you need more help, please provide some details.
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joethebus

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Re: JRiver appears to be removing Metadata
« Reply #4 on: February 14, 2013, 03:45:43 am »

I have now downloaded the latest version of version 17. The same fault occurs. The several CDs I have ripped onto the hard disc of my Windows 7 machine recently using dbPoweramp seem absolutely fine if I look at them in their music file in Windows, and will play with other programs such as Winamp, but JRiver has for some reason edited out one or more tracks when transferring them to the JRiver library.

This morning I ripped Bruce Springsteen Unplugged to AIFF. Tracks 1-10 and 12 are fine, 11 and 13 are missing. I did it again, the same thing happened, same tracks.

That looks to me exactly like the fault reported by the OP. Are we the only ones to whom it's happened, and not worth bothering about, or is there a fix?

You say if I want more help please provide more details - can you elaborate? I'm not technical so it's not obvious what other details you might need.

I'd be most grateful for help, I like using JRiver and have been recommending it to my friends - but being only able to play selected highlights (not even selected by me) makes it far less attractive than it was!
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Alex B

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Re: JRiver appears to be removing Metadata
« Reply #5 on: February 14, 2013, 04:52:37 am »

joethebus,

As a test, you could drag and drop the entire album into Playing Now (in the Standard View mode). Select the files in Windows Explorer and drag and drop them into an empty Playing Now list. Do the missing tracks appear as untagged (i.e. without any metadata, except the filename) or not at all? If they appear as untagged, do they still play normally?

Do the tags show up in Winamp? (I don't know if Winamp supports reading AIFF tags. In my experience, only iTunes, MC and dBpoweramp support AIFF tags on Windows PCs, but this may have changed.)
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InflatableMouse

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Re: JRiver appears to be removing Metadata
« Reply #6 on: February 14, 2013, 05:08:13 am »

I realize this is not a solution to the problem, but I'm wondering what benefit AIFF is offering over more common formats that do work fine? In other words, would it be viable for you to switch to another format for ripping your CD's?

Needless to say if there is an issue with MC it should ideally be solved or at least end up on some developers' TODO list :P.
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JimH

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Re: JRiver doesn't read AIFF metadata
« Reply #7 on: February 14, 2013, 06:40:25 am »

I believe AIFF tagging works fine in MC18.
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joethebus

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Re: JRiver doesn't read AIFF metadata any more
« Reply #8 on: February 14, 2013, 01:04:30 pm »

Well, this is all very disappointing. I was a bit of a JRiver fan up until now, there's a lot to like about it.

'AIFF tagging works fine in MC18', does it Jim, at a further $27 a pop? That's a bit of a cynical move, isn't it? So the software I bought just a year ago has now been rendered obsolete because you're selling a new version? I have to put my hand in my pocket again to be able play music on a system that previously worked fine.

Thanks a lot!

I know. I should go off and design my own software ...

Keeping the West safe    from whom I wonder?

Thanks anyway, for letting me know what my options are.

Joe
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JimH

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Re: JRiver doesn't read AIFF metadata
« Reply #9 on: February 14, 2013, 01:23:46 pm »

Joe,
The entire digital media business moves very fast.  We do our best to keep up with it.  I'm sorry that you view our need to be compensated as a negative.

I was only suggesting a (possible) solution to the problem you raised.  Perhaps I should have stayed out of it.

AIFF support was first added in MC17.  I'm sorry if our work for MC17 was imperfect.

Jim
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InflatableMouse

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Re: JRiver doesn't read AIFF metadata any more
« Reply #10 on: February 14, 2013, 02:02:39 pm »

Thanks anyway, for letting me know what my options are.

JimH's suggestion was only one of the options. You seem to have ignored the other help that has been offered ... for free I might add. But I guess it's up to you to ignore that and rant about one reply that you can take offense at and to be perfectly frank with you, doesn't get you anywhere.
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Alex B

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Re: JRiver doesn't read AIFF metadata
« Reply #11 on: February 14, 2013, 03:17:33 pm »

Here is the only announced AIFF-related change in MC18:

Quote
18.0.94 (12/11/2012)

7. Fixed: Remove Tags did not work for AIFF files.

This fixed regression in MC18. MC17 can remove AIFF tags.

I just encoded and tagged a 17-track AIFF album with iTunes. MC17's Auto-Import imported all tracks and read the tags (including embedded cover art) just fine. I wouldn't say that the AIFF support in MC17 has any fundamental flaws.

The questions in my earlier post were meant to aid the troubleshooting process. Depending on the answers and following discussion, I intended to provide further help, like investigating provided sample files etc.
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joethebus

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Re: JRiver doesn't read AIFF metadata
« Reply #12 on: February 15, 2013, 12:17:01 pm »

Yeah OK I'm sorry. I shouldn't have reacted angrily, the rant was not appropriate. Truly I'm sorry. I don't say you shouldn't be compensated, just that it seems a bit mean to offer a facility in 17 then withdraw it so customers have to buy 18. But that's maybe not what's happened, so I'm sorry I suggested it without knowing. I expect it'll turn out that it's all my fault and related to the fact I tried to listen to music in February, a month which has two rs in it or some such!

I appreciate the suggestion I should drag and drop the tracks into playing now, Alex B, and thank you for your help. I have tried that, after first loading the latest version of 17 as suggested by Jim, but it seems to make matters worse. Some tracks won't play still - but not necessarily the same ones. For Sinead O'Connor, Throw Down Your Arms, tracks 1-12 are all in the Windows music file and seem to be intact. When I drag and drop them into playing now tracks 1-5 and 8,9&10 are there and will play. If I look under Artists, then click on the album title, tracks 1,6,7,8,11&12 are shown in the list, but only tracks 1&8 will play. There are various missing bits of info, the ones that still have track duration seem to be the ones that will play.

The other help offered was the suggestion I might like to re-rip into a JRiver/Windows friendly format. The snag with that is that I have both Apple and Windows machines and want to be able to play music on both; the whole point of ripping to AIFF in the first place was that JRiver 17 supported it and so does the Apple (Pure Music) software so my main library and back-ups
can all be in the same format and adding material will be fairly straightforward rather than a full time task for someone.

Now, moving on, what do I do now, do you suggest! Do you really think that if I upgrade to MC18 the player will start working properly again? Is that really what the note :- '7. Fixed: Remove Tags did not work for AIFF files.' - means do you think?

Will there be any new, unexpected and unpleasantly surprising consequences if I go to 18, do you think? I'm afraid I'm a bit wary of computer software, I don't really like to change anything if I don't have to! can anyone wholehearted recommend the move? If so I'll do it and move on.

Not for the faint hearted, is it, this file based music caper?
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InflatableMouse

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Re: JRiver doesn't read AIFF metadata
« Reply #13 on: February 15, 2013, 12:29:42 pm »

Now, moving on, what do I do now, do you suggest! Do you really think that if I upgrade to MC18 the player will start working properly again? Is that really what the note :- '7. Fixed: Remove Tags did not work for AIFF files.' - means do you think?

I think it does but you can trail version of MC 18 and test it. Then you'll know how it works for you and whether you think its worth the money.

With version 18 ALAC is supported as well so if you're going to test it you might want to experiment with ALAC as well as it drops the filesize by ~40% and since its lossless compression its the same quality the uncompressed AIFF files offer.
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Alex B

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Re: JRiver doesn't read AIFF metadata
« Reply #14 on: February 15, 2013, 03:06:22 pm »

I appreciate the suggestion I should drag and drop the tracks into playing now, Alex B, and thank you for your help. I have tried that, after first loading the latest version of 17 as suggested by Jim, but it seems to make matters worse. Some tracks won't play still - but not necessarily the same ones. For Sinead O'Connor, Throw Down Your Arms, tracks 1-12 are all in the Windows music file and seem to be intact. When I drag and drop them into playing now tracks 1-5 and 8,9&10 are there and will play. If I look under Artists, then click on the album title, tracks 1,6,7,8,11&12 are shown in the list, but only tracks 1&8 will play. There are various missing bits of info, the ones that still have track duration seem to be the ones that will play.

For some reason MC has problems in reading some of the files correctly. The AIFF format that dBpoweramp produces could be somehow incompatible, but then I'd expect to see more consistent behavior. The incompatible files should always be the same.

Quote
The other help offered was the suggestion I might like to re-rip into a JRiver/Windows friendly format. The snag with that is that I have both Apple and Windows machines and want to be able to play music on both; the whole point of ripping to AIFF in the first place was that JRiver 17 supported it and so does the Apple (Pure Music) software so my main library and back-ups
can all be in the same format and adding material will be fairly straightforward rather than a full time task for someone.

Another possible cause could be a file access problem that sometimes occurs at the moment when MC tries to read the format info.

Selecting some of the problem files inside MC and doing "right-click > Library Tools > Update Library (from tags)" might help in determining if the problem is caused by something else than format incompatibility. If this can fix individual files the format is probably OK.

Actually, where are you storing the files? If they are on a server/NAS/etc, could you copy a bunch of problem files to a simple path like C:\Test\ and try importing and playback from there?

Quote
Now, moving on, what do I do now, do you suggest! Do you really think that if I upgrade to MC18 the player will start working properly again? Is that really what the note :- '7. Fixed: Remove Tags did not work for AIFF files.' - means do you think?

It just means that only one minor AIFF change was announced in the MC18 change log. However, many parts of MC18 have completely new program code and it is possible that various things work better in MC18.

Quote
Will there be any new, unexpected and unpleasantly surprising consequences if I go to 18, do you think? I'm afraid I'm a bit wary of computer software, I don't really like to change anything if I don't have to! can anyone wholehearted recommend the move? If so I'll do it and move on.

You don't need to move. Just install it and try. MC17 will remain installed separately.

MC18 may load a copy of your MC17 library (aka database), but for testing these things properly, you should clear the copied library and start from the scratch. (File > Library > Clear Library...)

If MC18 has similar problems we can continue the troubleshooting process and if necessary, the developers can implement changes because they are actively working on the v.18.

EDIT

a problem file a bunch of problem files
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joethebus

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Re: JRiver doesn't read AIFF metadata
« Reply #15 on: February 19, 2013, 06:19:07 pm »

Hi Alex

Well, I have tried to do all you suggested within my limited understanding anyway, and depressingly there's no change. I have downloaded MC18 and cleaned out then reloaded the library but the Sinead O'Connor stuff refuses to be listed properly.

Do you have other suggestions or am I beaten?

Many thanks for your patience.

Joe
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Alex B

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Re: JRiver doesn't read AIFF metadata
« Reply #16 on: February 19, 2013, 06:34:45 pm »

Could you upload a sample file somewhere and send a link by PM?

Edit: I don't know if PM is immediately available to new forum members. If PM is not yet available to you, you can send the link to aiff-sample@yopmail.com (this is a temporary address).
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