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Networks and Remotes => Remotes => Topic started by: vigotone on July 18, 2015, 10:37:37 am

Title: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: vigotone on July 18, 2015, 10:37:37 am
I know some have reported a similar problem in the past, but it seems it was never resolved, so I am starting a new thread...

My entire library is in Apple Lossless on a Mac Mini server. There are several albums that are giving me an "Audio Streaming Error" when streamed to both my iPhone and iPad. There is absolutely NO difference between the albums that play and the albums that don't (same bit rate, etc.) The same files that don't stream on the iPhone also won't stream on the iPad, but I don't have any problems streaming to a laptop in MC.

The only way I can stream those problematic albums is to transcode to MP3, which I don't want to do.

Any idea what the problem could be? Other streaming programs play the files just fine.

Thanks!
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: JimH on July 18, 2015, 10:45:40 am
Are they old files purchase from the Apple store?  Can you play them in MC on the server without using Quicktime?

Did you try updating MC to the latest from the forum?
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: vigotone on July 18, 2015, 11:15:33 am
Hi Jim,

No, they're ripped from CDs, just like almost all my files (I don't buy from the iTunes store because it's lossy). And the files play just fine on Media Center locally on my Mac Mini and when streamed (without transcoding) to my MacBook Pro.

I've tried quitting and relaunching MC on the server, but no luck. And other streaming apps (like iSub) have no problem streaming (at full-res) the albums that JRemote refuses to.

But JRemote is far and away the BEST streamer I've ever used, so I'm hoping this can be figured out!
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: AndrewFG on July 18, 2015, 11:46:52 am
Is the album cover art actually embedded in the M4A files, or is it a meta data link to a separate iTunes image file stored (encrypted) in the local iTunes folders? The former should stream fine, but you may have problems with the latter...
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: vigotone on July 18, 2015, 11:48:22 am
All art is embedded with the files.

Oh, and definitely using the latest version of MC.
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: vigotone on July 20, 2015, 10:37:17 am
I'm still wracking my brain trying to figure out something that distinguishes files that stream from files that don't. But I can't! Certain entire albums will not stream thru JRemote in full quality (16/44.1), but will stream when transcoded down to MP3. Is there a place I can send a developer an example of a track that streams and one that doesn't so they can eradicate this problem? Apparently, I'm not the only one to experience it.
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: AndrewFG on July 20, 2015, 11:16:34 am
Are the tracks that won't play by any chance 5.1 channel tracks?

If so then I have the same issue as you; my stereo M4A ALAC tracks all play fine via JRemote on the iPad (play to this device), but (not surprisingly) my 5.1 channel M4A ALAC tracks result in streaming errors.

I guess it would be cool if JRemote and MC could detect this and transcode the 5.1 channels down to 2 channel as needed. (But don't hold your breath on JRiver fixing this soon, since it is similar to an issue "parsing SinkProtocolInfo to determine the target streaming format" which I have been pushing for them to do for years now. Yawn... )

Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: vigotone on July 20, 2015, 12:47:20 pm
Thanks for your reply, Andrew. No, I don't have any 5.1 files on my server, so that's not the differentiating factor.

Also, as noted, other streaming apps have no trouble playing these ALAC files at full-res. But JRemote is the best, so I'd love to figure this out!
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: AndrewFG on July 20, 2015, 01:43:39 pm
Thanks for your reply, Andrew. No, I don't have any 5.1 files on my server, so that's not the differentiating factor.

Can you upload one of the offending files to a dropbox or something similar? I would be happy to run a test on my setup.
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: vigotone on July 20, 2015, 02:33:44 pm
Thanks Andrew. I just PM'd you a link to one of the albums that refuses to stream at full-res through JRemote.
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: AndrewFG on July 21, 2015, 12:11:06 pm
I tried your album. And I can confirm that the tracks play fine on MC but they don't play on the iPad via JRemote. And I could not find any reasons for that either..
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: vigotone on July 21, 2015, 02:03:26 pm
Thank you for verifying that, Andrew. Can one of the developers please investigate? There must be something about certain rips that isn't playing well with JRemote...
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: adamt on July 21, 2015, 02:07:03 pm
Would you mind sending a link to the Dropbox?  adam at jriver dot com.
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: vigotone on July 21, 2015, 02:17:45 pm
Just emailed it to you, Adam. Thank you so much for taking a look.
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: derf on July 21, 2015, 02:56:53 pm
Hi,

I'm facing the exact same problem with the same configuration (alac files on macmini running JRiver + JRemote)

I even have one album where there is just one track going wrong, and it doesn't make any sense to me since the whole album was purchased on Qobuz with same artwork, path and file naming .. I also used "repair authorizations" and maintenance scripts but it doesn't help.

The problem does occur the same way on different terminals (iphone and ipad)

It occurs only when I select "this device" for the output but it does not when I select a upnp streamer for the output

Best regards
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: arjunluthra on July 22, 2015, 02:35:17 am
I have this problem with WMA lossless files but if I convert the file to FLAC it works fine. I checked by converting a single file to FLAC.

This is probably related to the ALAC problem, does this help isolate the issue?

For folks who are seeing this issue in with ALAC, can you try converting one file to FLAC and see what happens?
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: AndrewFG on July 22, 2015, 11:00:59 am
I have this problem with WMA lossless files but if I convert the file to FLAC it works fine. I checked by converting a single file to FLAC.

This is probably related to the ALAC problem, does this help isolate the issue?

For folks who are seeing this issue in with ALAC, can you try converting one file to FLAC and see what happens?

Personally I would expect JRemote running on an Apple device to be able to play Apple formats (M4A ALAC/MP3/AAC) much better, and that it would rather have problems with non Apple formats (FLAC, WMA). So converting ALAC to FLAC seems entirely counter intuitive to me.

Rather what I would suggest trying is converting ALAC => WAV => ALAC and see if the new ALAC plays Ok. You might lose the tags in the process (although I think MC does append ID3v2 tags even onto WAV files, so perhaps even the tags would survive the process.. )

PS what application did you use to rip the CDs? (I use dbPowerAmp and I do recall that about a year ago they did have an issue with their ALAC encoder, where I had to re-rip some tracks again).
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: vigotone on July 22, 2015, 11:58:28 am
Thanks guys. All my rips were done with either Max or XLD. I'll try converting to WAV and back and see what that does. But that would be a lot of work if even 1% of my albums don't stream!
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: AndrewFG on July 22, 2015, 02:05:34 pm
Thanks guys. All my rips were done with either Max or XLD. I'll try converting to WAV and back and see what that does. But that would be a lot of work if even 1% of my albums don't stream!

My guess is that the ripper app may have inserted a non standard MPEG4 "box" in the M4A file, that kills the iPad play engine. The convert to WAV and back would probably strip that box out. Then by doing a delta on the original and reconverted file we might find out which was the bad box...
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: vigotone on July 23, 2015, 01:47:47 pm
I've just found a whole bunch of albums that won't stream which were NOT ripped form CD. I am a big Phish fan and have many of their concerts on my server. These were downloaded as 24/48 FLAC and converted to 24/48 ALAC. Some of the shows play, some do not, but there is NO differentiation between the ones that do and don't!
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: adamt on July 23, 2015, 04:01:34 pm
Confirmed here.  Thanks for the files.  Not sure yet what's causing it though...
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: vigotone on July 23, 2015, 10:34:38 pm
Thanks Adam. Is there any way to find out? Let me know if you need any further info. Every day I'm discovering more and more albums that won't stream.
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: AndrewFG on July 24, 2015, 02:59:51 am
Is there any way to find out? Let me know if you need any further info. Every day I'm discovering more and more albums that won't stream.

There is an application called AtomicParsley that can be used to analyze and modify MPEG4 files (such as the Apple M4A format) which you can get here http://sourceforge.net/projects/atomicparsley/

To run the app (on Windows), open a CMD.exe window and run the command line AtomicParsley.Exe YourTrack.m4a -T

This command will show you a map of the MPEG4 "boxes" within your track (see example screenshot).

I suggest to run this on some files that do play in JRemote and some that don't, in order to see if there are any obvious differences in the box structure.

Warning: the -T switch is an analysis (read only) command; take care not to use any other switches because some are write commands that might mess up the tags embedded in the track.
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: vigotone on July 24, 2015, 09:40:29 am
Thanks Andrew. I don't see a way to open in in Mac (even though the download page says it's compatible). Also, I'm not very command line savvy! Could someone else try this?
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: AndrewFG on July 25, 2015, 04:13:29 am
Two reports attached. Track A does not play on JRemote. Track B does play on JRemote. Any thoughts ??
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: glynor on July 25, 2015, 09:10:45 am
Thanks Adam. Is there any way to find out? Let me know if you need any further info. Every day I'm discovering more and more albums that won't stream.

If Adam has a sample and confirmed it wouldn't play, I'm sure they'll figure it out.
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: AndrewFG on July 25, 2015, 04:55:18 pm
Two things:

1. I did not find anything obviously different between the box (atom) structure of tracks that play and those that don't..

2. I tried converting one of the OPs unplayable tracks to wav and then back to alac, and it still would not play. This means that either whatever is preventing playing is in the media stream data itself, or alternatively there is something in the tags that kills the play process. My next trial will be to strip the tags, and see if it plays after that..

Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: AndrewFG on July 26, 2015, 06:08:20 am
I found the problem.

It is due to a problem with the Album Art embedded in the M4A file.

If you run the command "AtomicParsley /path/your.m4a --artwork REMOVE_ALL" on one of your bad tracks, that will remove the art work, and after that the track plays fine on JRemote.

I don't know what aspect of the album art it is that causes JRemote to choke (maybe it is just too large), but anyway I think the JRiver / JRemote guys have to look into a fix for that.

Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: vigotone on July 26, 2015, 11:57:40 am
Thank you Andrew!

That's really strange though, since my embedded artwork varies greatly in size across different albums. Some have large artwork, some small. Is this something that can be fixed by the developers?
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: AndrewFG on July 26, 2015, 12:21:22 pm
Is this something that can be fixed by the developers?

I would hope so. Principally the player should ignore all the embedded meta data (because JRemote gets that another way). However I think the question is perhaps whether the issue is inside JRemote's code or in the iOS media play support code...

Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: vigotone on July 26, 2015, 12:31:01 pm
Well, for what it's worth, no other streaming app has a problem with these files, including iSub, Audiotap, StreamToMe and Plex. But as I said, JRemote is by FAR the superior app, so it would be great to have all my files play.
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: AndrewFG on July 26, 2015, 02:09:23 pm
Just for info: in one of your "bad" tracks the cover art was 24MB in size, whereas in one of my "good" tracks it was only 1.2MB ..
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: vigotone on July 26, 2015, 03:07:04 pm
Are you sure? I just looked at the site where I downloaded the artwork from and it was 1.3mb! Could something have artificially inflated the size of the artwork? I would never embed an image that large!
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: AndrewFG on July 27, 2015, 12:52:21 am
What application are you using for ripping an tagging.
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: vigotone on July 27, 2015, 01:15:43 am
I use either Max or XLD for all my ripping.
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: AndrewFG on July 27, 2015, 02:42:29 am
Oops. I think I made a mistake in my earlier post about the cover art size.
I was looking at the following cover art image atom in your first "Aeroplane" track


    Atom covr @ 7277 of size: 1747863, ends @ 1755140
        Atom data @ 7285 of size: 1747855, ends @ 1755140


I thought that the size figure 1747855 was a Hex number (that would indeed be 24MB) but in retrospect I think it is a Decimal number (so only 1.7MB).
And by the way, the image in that "Aeroplane" track is a 900 x 900 image which is entirely consistent with a 1.7MB size.

Nevertheless I did the exercise of stripping out all the cover art from the tracks of your album, and replaced them all with a 500 x 500 image that I found on Google images. And whereas the original tracks did not play on JRemote the modified versions all did play fine.

Note, in case anyone is interested: On the first few tracks I used the aforementioned "AtomicParsley /path/your.m4a --artwork REMOVE_ALL" command to strip the old images, and then I used iTunes to add the new images. But actually for the rest of the tracks I just used iTunes to both delete the existing cover art, and then to add the new image.

Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: vigotone on July 27, 2015, 10:36:50 am
You're right, Andrew. I replaced the artwork on that file with a 532k file, and it streams now. But I have thousands of albums that won't stream where the artwork is only about 800k. It would take a year to go through them all and replace them with smaller files. Do you think the JRemote developers could figure out a workaround?
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: AndrewFG on July 27, 2015, 05:20:57 pm
Yes. I think the ball is indeed now in the hands of the JRiver developers.
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: adamt on July 28, 2015, 08:33:23 am
Thanks for all the information AndrewFG and vigotone, this will be very helpful.
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: derf on August 31, 2015, 12:26:09 pm
Hi,

Any news ?

Thanks
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: theriverlethe on February 27, 2016, 03:04:01 pm
Has there been any work on this?  I'm having the same issue with some files, for no apparent reason.  It does not appear to be related to bit-depth or sample rate, as similar files play just fine, but some files will only work if I "transcode audio."

Edit: Converting from ALAC to FLAC worked with one album, but not another one.
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: SOO JONG YOO on March 19, 2016, 09:54:50 pm
Any enhancement progress?   I' have the same issue with some ALAC files when streaming  to my IPad device with JRemote, but All works well when "transcode audio mode."
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: AndrewFG on March 20, 2016, 03:29:37 am
Any enhancement progress?   I' have the same issue with some ALAC files when streaming  to my IPad device with JRemote, but All works well when "transcode audio mode."

The problem is because the embedded artwork images in your files are too large. The work around is to delete the large images and replace with smaller scale ones. Around 600x600 should be Ok.

Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: SOO JONG YOO on March 20, 2016, 10:44:05 am
Hi, AndrewFG, thank for your reply.

I tried & followed your recommendation - I replaced artwork with smaller one, and even removed artwork for the ALAC files,
but still happened the same problem with my iPad device streaming ( Message: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote )
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: derf on March 26, 2016, 06:53:08 am
I tried & followed your recommendation - I replaced artwork with smaller one, and even removed artwork for the ALAC files,
but still happened the same problem with my iPad device streaming ( Message: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote )

I tried it too, it doesn't work either
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: nachocheese70 on May 05, 2016, 08:43:40 am
I believe I have found a solution (at least in my case).  I had a few dozen albums that no songs can be streamed.

On my MC server, I went to COVER ART -> SAVE COVER ART TO EXTERNAL LOCATION SPECIFIED IN OPTIONS

I check the artwork for all the songs/albums that could not be streamed, and noticed they are all > 1 MB size.  I went ahead and used MS Paint "edit" function to resize to 75%, and then all the cover art files became 200-500 KB.

I then went back to my MC server, and for all of the albums, I used REMOVE COVER ART, and then COVER ART -> ADD FROM FILE (using the reduced file).  Note, in my case, I made a duplicate (actually, I did a convert with DSP turned on, Output Format reduced to below 96 kHz, PEQ, added my favorite TB_ISONE ... etc, so the converted audio had the audio the way I wanted), so deleting the higher rez art was no biggie.  In my case, I have two separate folders of music with two separate libraries.

Anyways, when I replaced all of the COVER ART with <500 KB files, 100% of all my music will stream fine with JRemote.  I hope this helps everyone.  Of course, the best solution is for JRiver to fix this specific bug.
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: CWillCalho on January 09, 2017, 08:59:10 pm
I switched the files to Flac 24/96 and they played.  Removing cover art did nothing.  These were ripped from Blu Ray by the way.  Smaller m4a bit rates fare better.
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: jedx02 on April 16, 2017, 09:17:38 am
Has anyone found a solution?
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: Afrosheen on July 23, 2017, 04:39:04 pm
Can we get a status report on the priority of this?  Is there a way to troubleshoot a non-streaming track within an album where the other tracks are capable of being streamed?
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: donkrell on January 22, 2020, 07:15:10 pm
It looks like I have stumbled into an old problem.  I am having failures attempting to play SOME albums ripped to m4a files.  The problem occurs on an iPhone XR, a late model of the iPad mini, and also on a late model of the full size iPad.  The same albums fail on all 3 of the devices.  I have hundreds of albums in m4a format and most play OK.  The problem albums play just fine on an android phone (using Gizmo) and on any other device I have tried.

I removed some of the larger album art files and that did not help.  I finally converted on album from m4a to mp3 and (of course) it now plays just fine.

It looks like this issue was raised several years ago with no solution found.  Is that still the case?
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: bob on April 02, 2020, 05:35:32 pm
It is the cover art size and it's failing in the stream open to play to the device with a file format error.
I'm checking to see if the ones I have will play natively on the device to try and narrow down where the fault is, update they work as files on the device.
Looking into it more...


Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: AndrewFG on April 03, 2020, 07:15:38 am
Last time I saw this issue, it was simply that the cover art box was too big. But it occurs to me that the order of the boxes in an m4a file is not formally fixed, so it might be that having a large cover art box at the start of the file might cause the audio box to run out of space to play. So I would look at reducing the size of the art, and or moving it to the end of the file...
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: xeroian on April 03, 2020, 11:05:17 am
I don’t believe it should be incumbent on me to resize embedded artwork since the albums I have problems with have all been purchased from HDTracks and downloaded using JRiver written software! I have never noticed this problem with Qobuz downloads.

I always buy the ALAC version for compatibility with my iDevices but often I find that JRemote gives me the streaming error and refuses to play. If I convert the album to FLAC using JRiver it works okay. If I convert it back to ALAC using JRiver it bombs again.

My latest example of this is Robbie Robertson’s Sinematic purchased last weekend.

The crazy thing is that if I have JRiver running as a server on one Windows machine and have JRiver on a second machine accessing the DLNA server then I can use JRemote to play music via the second machine and it works perfectly.

Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: bob on April 03, 2020, 11:15:40 am
I don’t believe it should be incumbent on me to resize embedded artwork since the albums I have problems with have all been purchased from HDTracks and downloaded using JRiver written software! I have never noticed this problem with Qobuz downloads.

I always buy the ALAC version for compatibility with my iDevices but often I find that JRemote gives me the streaming error and refuses to play. If I convert the album to FLAC using JRiver it works okay. If I convert it back to ALAC using JRiver it bombs again.

My latest example of this is Robbie Robertson’s Sinematic purchased last weekend.

The crazy thing is that if I have JRiver running as a server on one Windows machine and have JRiver on a second machine accessing the DLNA server then I can use JRemote to play music via the second machine and it works perfectly.
The problem appears to be in the library we are using. I've sent a test file to the author.
I also noticed that FLAC with the same cover art works, the path is different because it has to get converted by a plugin first then it goes to the same library.

The reason it works through the chained servers is that you are not in that case using the original cover art. It might not actually even be a ALAC file by that point.
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: xeroian on April 03, 2020, 11:51:07 am
Bob, Thanks for confirming. This forum needs a thumbs up button.
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: bob on April 03, 2020, 12:42:16 pm
Got it. It will be fixed in the next release.
If anyone wants to beta test it drop me a PM.
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: yenibahar on January 03, 2021, 03:23:34 pm
I have the same problem. Until recently I always used iTunes to rip my CDs into ALAC, discarding iTunes' cover art and instead appending manually one cover art in the 900x900 pix dimensions. JRemote never had a problem reading these files when streaming from Media Center.

However, I recently switched to a bit-perfect ripping solution EAC (Exact Audio Copy) to improve the quality of my rips. Now for the first time ever JRemote is not playing my ALAC files that have been ripped with EAC software that uses FFMpeg as external encoder for ALAC. After the ripping/ALAC conversion, I embed in the files the cover art manually using iTunes, in a 900X900 size (typically ~300-350kb). The files play perfectly fine on my PC in JRiver Media Center (and any other PC audio app) as well as PlexAmp on my iPhone but JRemote gives the streaming error. I even tried to reduce the size of the embedded cover art into 600x600pix. No change. It's a pity. Unless there is a fix for JRemote, I think I am retiring JRemote and switching to PlexAmp for streaming onto my iPhone... :-(
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: bob on January 04, 2021, 09:04:02 am
I have the same problem. Until recently I always used iTunes to rip my CDs into ALAC, discarding iTunes' cover art and instead appending manually one cover art in the 900x900 pix dimensions. JRemote never had a problem reading these files when streaming from Media Center.

However, I recently switched to a bit-perfect ripping solution EAC (Exact Audio Copy) to improve the quality of my rips. Now for the first time ever JRemote is not playing my ALAC files that have been ripped with EAC software that uses FFMpeg as external encoder for ALAC. After the ripping/ALAC conversion, I embed in the files the cover art manually using iTunes, in a 900X900 size (typically ~300-350kb). The files play perfectly fine on my PC in JRiver Media Center (and any other PC audio app) as well as PlexAmp on my iPhone but JRemote gives the streaming error. I even tried to reduce the size of the embedded cover art into 600x600pix. No change. It's a pity. Unless there is a fix for JRemote, I think I am retiring JRemote and switching to PlexAmp for streaming onto my iPhone... :-(
The cover art size limitation was fixed quite a while ago. Are you running the current version of JRemote?
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: yenibahar on January 04, 2021, 12:10:44 pm
I suspect it is not the cover size issue since I have already tried with smaller cover size. In fact, just in case, I upgraded yesterday from my v.26 to 27 and unfortunately the problem with JRemote continues.
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: yenibahar on January 04, 2021, 12:18:33 pm
Is there a way to send one of the non-working music files for review/diagnosis?
Title: Re: Audio Streaming Error in JRemote
Post by: bob on January 04, 2021, 03:23:23 pm
Is there a way to send one of the non-working music files for review/diagnosis?
You could email one of the smallest ones you have to bob (at) jriver.com.

I expect that something weird is being added to the tags somewhere along the way.
You could test by adding the cover art in MC as opposed to iTunes.