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[benn600]

I've been trying to figure out why MC crashes so much for me.  I tried a few things and here's what I came up with:

1. I imported my part of my old MP3 collection & most of my new FLAC collection.
2. I then searched for an artist and brought up one CD from an artist.
3. Sorted by file type.
4. Selected bottom song (MP3), enter...then very quickly pushed UP - ENTER, over and over.
5. It never has problems on MP3's, even if I go down, back up, etc...just rock solid.
6. By the time I get to FLAC, I can't make it more than half way through the list and it crashes.

Therefore, it seems obvious that it is the FLAC plugin which is causing MC to crash on every computer I use this on.  What would you guys suggest?  Is there an older version that won't crash on me?  Newer one?  Are the open-source people for FLAC writing this plugin or is it an independent?  Thanks!

by the way...apparently for crashing, MP3 is better, but FLAC wins in quality.

[scthom]

The flac plugins are 3rd party.  This bug has been previously discussed (search the forums).  I have been unable to determine the cause of this bug.  The apparant solution is to go a bit more slowly.

[benn600]

That right there is a good reason to use APE but I'm not going to convert 7K songs to it.  I wish the bug could be fixed.  Are there previous versions of the plugin available?  This could solve the problem.

[Sundog_AK]

benn600,

I have had the same problem.  It is definitely the FLAC encoded files when selected quickly result in MC crashing.  I have tried the same thing with APE/MP3 files with no similar result.  Quickly selecting, playing, then selecting another and playing..etc...will eventually crash MC if they are FLAC files or going back and forth between MP3 and FLAC.  Unfortunately, the pattern is hard to pin point.  I have done it times where it took a long time of doing the above procedure to crash MC, other times it will be the first time I switch to a song.  I want to say that it is great that SCTHOM made a plugin (Thanks!) since I would have been out of luck for several utilities that I like to use for music tagging, etc. that only support FLAC and not APE.  I had used APE for a long time with no problems, but converted all of them to FLAC once SCTHOM made the plugin. Up to that point, there was NO support from MC on FLAC files. 

Anyway.  Some builds of the FLAC plugin seem to result in this issue more than others. I will say the later builds are much better.  It used to crash consistently almost every time you did the above procedure after one or two songs.  Later builds seem to be spotty on the crashing, but I can always crash MC at some point.  This may be some weird interaction with various new builds of MC, which makes it harder to pinpoint the code that is at fault.  The first 30 seconds or so seem to be the "danger" area where it is prone to crashing MC if it is a FLAC song and the next is selected.  In pure "listening" mode where I listen to songs straight through to the next, I have never had it crash MC with FLAC files.  However, if you are doing tagging of FLAC files /modifications of files within MC and are doing quick skips to the next song, it will eventually crash. 

Once it crashes , it seems to result in very frequent crashes from that point until a reboot.  If you have LAST.FM audioscrobbler plugin, this will result in more frequent crashing of MC with quick selections.  Also, I have tried nuking the MC database and various other things and it still happens.  Winamp seems to work fine with the same set of music files (flac/MP3 mix). 

For me, I will stick with FLAC in MC, even though it can very annoying at times.  Like you, I hope that at some point it will get resolved. 

[KingSparta]

That right there is a good reason to use APE but I'm not going to convert 7K songs to it.  I wish the bug could be fixed.  Are there previous versions of the plugin available?  This could solve the problem.

What Would Be The Point In Converting Mp3s To Ape Or FLAC?

1. It Would Not Improve the Sound Since The MP3 Format Already Cut the Quality Out.
2. It Would Waste Space

The Only Way To Do It Correctly Would be To Re-Rip All CD's Using Ape Or Flac. I See No Point In Flac If Ape Does The Same Thing And It May Do It Better Than Flac.

[glynor]

What Would Be The Point In Converting Mp3s To Ape Or FLAC?

I think he meant that he already had about 7000 FLACs that he didn't want to convert to APE.  He was considering doing so because of the problem with MC crashing when quickly selecting files (related to Scthom's FLAC plugin).

That's how I read it anyway.

I wouldn't convert to APE from FLAC either.  FLAC is supported much more widely.  If you ever want to be able to trade the files (which is completely legit for many live recordings by the way), or on the outside chance that you want to move away from MC (or use the files on a Linux or Mac computer).

[KingSparta]

I Read This Part

MP3 vs. FLAC (which is better)

[benn600]

Controversy gets people interested and it helped with my responses.

I agree 100% with the above description of crashing.  Absolutely every word said has been proven by my tests with FLAC crashing.  I hope the problem can be fixed soon, if possible, because that would be great.

Thanks!