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[chrisgreen]

I have a number of FLAC files that play in MC27, but they do not play properly. They have little skips where small bits of audio seem to be missing. I think this may be related to my metadata tagging activity. If so, I want to figure out if I can fix these files, and also how to make sure I don't repeat this kind of problem. If the corruption has some other cause, I hope to figure out what it is.

When I send any of these files to Adobe Audition, Audition generates an error stating 'An error was encountered during the conforming process: Unable to read or decode the file.' I have run a set of these files through xAct for verification and receive a series of errors, most of which say FLAC_STREAM_DECODER_ERROR_STATUS_LOST_SYNC

Any ideas on sorting this out?

[bob]

I have a number of FLAC files that play in MC27, but they do not play properly. They have little skips where small bits of audio seem to be missing. I think this may be related to my metadata tagging activity. If so, I want to figure out if I can fix these files, and also how to make sure I don't repeat this kind of problem. If the corruption has some other cause, I hope to figure out what it is.

When I send any of these files to Adobe Audition, Audition generates an error stating 'An error was encountered during the conforming process: Unable to read or decode the file.' I have run a set of these files through xAct for verification and receive a series of errors, most of which say FLAC_STREAM_DECODER_ERROR_STATUS_LOST_SYNC

Any ideas on sorting this out?

That sounds more like a disk corruption issue.
What were you tagging the files with?
Do you have a backup of any of them to compare to?

[chrisgreen]

I tagged the files using MC. I have been reading about tagging issues and FLAC corruption, so that has me thinking.

I have backups, but probably nothing pre-tagging. I am looking now.

[syndromeofadown]

If the files were obtained by some form of internet download it's possible the download never finished. Or they could have been corrupted to begin with from the download source. The only time I have had tagging software (it wasn't MC) corrupt a file is when my PC shut down mid tagging, and even then it was just one track.

[chrisgreen]

I checked the backup drive, and I find the same errors. Those files have the same tags. I run a backup every night, and the routine prunes the versions regularly. The pre-tag versions are long gone.

Yes, these files are typically downloaded via BitTorrent (live ROIO's). I have considered the files were not completely downloaded or were corrupt in the source, but I am not sure how to determine. The original DL source is no longer available to download. The BT client confirmed the download when I first pulled it, for what that's worth.

I should mention that I tend to do a lot of tagging, and I wonder if I am causing some trouble using non-standard fields or perhaps too many fields. It sounds like FLAC files don't like ID3 fields being added. Whether or not I can fix existing corrupted files, I would love to know that my tagging practices conform to some sort of best practice.

[syndromeofadown]

Here is a guide to check and fix ID3 tags in FLAC. I can confirm it works.
https://community.bose.com/t5/SoundTouch-Archive/FLAC-Files-With-ID3-Tags-Workaround/td-p/8395

MC is very forgiving with corrupt music files. The only time I find corrupt files is when MC won't play them correctly with DLNA/UPnP. I see this is in the mac section but using Windows you try playing the files with foobar, it will give an error with the time code of the issue. If you have DBPoweramp installed there should be an error that comes up when trying to copy the files. Something about failed permissions. It has nothing to do with permissions, it just happens with corrupted files during copying.

[chrisgreen]

I have done more reading and experimenting, and I think I understand the tagging issue a bit better. Let me see if I have this understood correctly...

MC maps metadata fields to different file format 'frames' (I hope I am using the term 'frame' correctly, I picked it up studying Kid3). Metadata is mapped to Vorbis 'frames' for FLAC files. Correct? It seems that MC does not write metadata to ID3 'frames' when tagging a FLAC file, but does write to ID3 'frames' for some other file types (MP3, for example).

In theory, MC should not corrupt a FLAC file when writing metadata. Is this correct? Are there instances when MC could corrupt a FLAC file when writing metadata?

One more question, can MC identify a FLAC file that is missing some pieces (e.g. a BitTorrent download that was not completed?). I don't see these files getting flagged by MC when I run Analyze Audio. Am I missing something?