Topic: Damaged APE file (Read 6285 times)

newmaidumosa · « **on:** March 01, 2009, 06:00:27 pm »

Hi All,

don't know if anyone has posted this, but I have a problem with some APE files. I ripped about 1000 CDs a while back and basically almost all of them have problems where the file is damaged from about 3 seconds from the end (there is a silence and then either a loud hiss or a loud click)

Its kinda depressing thinking that all those ripped files are damaged.

Does anyone know if there is anyway of fixing these files ...??

thanks for your help

JimH · « **Reply #1 on:** March 01, 2009, 06:07:45 pm »

That's probably just a sound card driver issue. You could try updating the driver.

Moving a file or two to a different machine might ease your mind.

Switching playback between Direct Sound and Wave Out might also work.

newmaidumosa · « **Reply #2 on:** March 01, 2009, 07:16:48 pm »

Hi Jim,

thanks for your quick response.

I have tried all 3 and it is still the same thing. Any other ideas?

thanks a lot .. really appreciate it (very desperate

)

JimH · « **Reply #3 on:** March 01, 2009, 07:25:42 pm »

What did you use to rip?

It's hard to understand how you could rip 1000 CD's and just notice it now.

Has anything changed?

Did you move files to another machine and see the same problem?

newmaidumosa · « **Reply #4 on:** March 01, 2009, 07:35:44 pm »

Hi Jim
I have ripped over 4000 CDs ... all with MC ... I think this batch was done with MC9. I cant remember (maybe it isnt a thousand that are doing this but its over 500 and its not on every song). The thing is I have noticed it on some tracks before but I thought they were just a few and also I am pretty sure I have listened to some these tracks that are having problems and they were fine.

I tried another PC ... same problem.

I have tried with other players.

Windows Media Player - same problem
VLC - it seems to play to the end without the noise (but VLC seek bar doesnt work properly with APE files)
Foobar - it does seem to play to the end without the noise but I get this

"Decoding failure at 3:27.167 (Unsupported format or corrupted file):filename" as an example

EDIT: the tracks are not playing to the end on foobar or vlc.. just maybe 1 second more than on MC before stopping

JimH · « **Reply #5 on:** March 01, 2009, 08:35:46 pm »

I don't believe WMP plays APE files, does it?

What version of MC are you using?

newmaidumosa · « **Reply #6 on:** March 02, 2009, 02:07:10 am »

I am using MC13

and WMP complains about the selected file extension but plays anyway

ThoBar · « **Reply #7 on:** March 02, 2009, 05:38:57 am »

you may be using a directshow filter to play back the APE files. Given that you're able to playback from WMP, this certainly seems likely.

In MC, check that you're NOT using directshow for the playback. MC has it's own APE plugin, which I suspect is a lot more reliable.

ThoBar · « **Reply #8 on:** March 02, 2009, 06:04:46 am »

FWIW, I just realised I had some UGLY CPU usage playing back some FLACs. I had to change from using Automatic (DirectShow filters) to the JRiver internal plugin, and went from ~50% CPU to ~2%.

Matt · « **Reply #9 on:** March 02, 2009, 11:45:35 am »

Use the Monkey's Audio program (www.monkeysaudio.com) to check the validity of your files by running them through the program in Verify mode.

A hardware failure is the only cause I've ever heard of for APE file corruption.

Good luck.

hit_ny · « **Reply #10 on:** March 02, 2009, 12:27:49 pm »

Quote from: confishy on March 02, 2009, 06:04:46 am

FWIW, I just realised I had some UGLY CPU usage playing back some FLACs. I had to change from using Automatic (DirectShow filters) to the JRiver internal plugin, and went from ~50% CPU to ~2%.

Where do you configure that ?

I can see where it is for video but audio ?

Did not know there was a JRiver internal plugin for FLAC.

newmaidumosa · « **Reply #11 on:** March 02, 2009, 01:23:34 pm »

Quote from: Matt on March 02, 2009, 11:45:35 am

Use the Monkey's Audio program (www.monkeysaudio.com) to check the validity of your files by running them through the program in Verify mode.

A hardware failure is the only cause I've ever heard of for APE file corruption.

Good luck.

Hi Matt ...

thanks, I tried and i get invalid checksum for the files with the problem. Do you know if this is fatal??

Matt · « **Reply #12 on:** March 02, 2009, 01:55:05 pm »

Quote from: newmaidumosa on March 02, 2009, 01:23:34 pm

Hi Matt ...

thanks, I tried and i get invalid checksum for the files with the problem. Do you know if this is fatal??

It's not good. It means something has changed your files.

Bad system memory is the most likely cause of this. It could also be a software bug with some tagger you used, although JRiver Media Center has never had an APE corruption bug.

A virus is another possibility.

How are your backups?

newmaidumosa · « **Reply #13 on:** March 02, 2009, 04:52:05 pm »

Quote from: Matt on March 02, 2009, 01:55:05 pm

It's not good. It means something has changed your files.

Bad system memory is the most likely cause of this. It could also be a software bug with some tagger you used, although JRiver Media Center has never had an APE corruption bug.

A virus is another possibility.

How are your backups?

my backups are the CDs that I have stowed away .... that sux ....

anyway thanks for your help guys... back to ripping

Alex B · « **Reply #14 on:** March 02, 2009, 05:01:37 pm »

The problem is obviously NOT caused by the selected ripping options, but when/if you start reripping remember to use the secure ripping mode. Here's an old, but still useful thread:

"How can I ensure quality of a ripped music file"
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=29157.0

Matt · « **Reply #15 on:** March 02, 2009, 05:07:15 pm »

If you can provide a damaged APE file to matt at jriver dot com, I'll see if I can see what might be wrong with it.

For all your files to error at the end sort of points to a bad tagger (since tags are at the end of the files). I really don't think it's Media Center since I've never heard of or seen this problem before. Quite a few of us here use APE to store our music.

newmaidumosa · « **Reply #16 on:** March 03, 2009, 04:43:25 am »

Quote from: Matt on March 02, 2009, 05:07:15 pm

If you can provide a damaged APE file to matt at jriver dot com, I'll see if I can see what might be wrong with it.

For all your files to error at the end sort of points to a bad tagger (since tags are at the end of the files). I really don't think it's Media Center since I've never heard of or seen this problem before. Quite a few of us here use APE to store our music.

ok matt thanks.. will send this evening when i get home

Sarane · « **Reply #17 on:** March 03, 2009, 09:28:01 pm »

Used to tag my APE files with Abander TagControl who seems to be the culprit for my APE corruption. Was never able to recover from that type of corruption. I still have some, so if you find a way, let me know.

Cheers,
Sar.

Matt · « **Reply #18 on:** March 04, 2009, 09:12:01 am »

I spent quite a bit of time with some files sent to me by newmaidumosa. They were Monkey's Audio 3.97 Extra High files.

As far as I can tell, something cropped some bytes off the end of them. The likely culprit is a buggy tagger, like Sarane mentioned. I have no reason to believe this is a Media Center bug, since it has always used the reference Monkey's Audio tagging code. I couldn't reproduce this in any way using Monkey's Audio 3.97 on my machine, and is not something I had heard before.

Once data has been deleted by a bug like that, the Monkey's Audio decoder will correctly detect a CRC error on the last frame. This is a strong argument for why built-in error detection like APE has is a good idea. With a gunked up WAV, you'd never know you had a problem.

There was a little glitch in that the goal of the Monkey's Audio decoder is to output silence when a CRC error frame is detected. With extra high files, it could output static for part of the frame instead. This will be fixed.

As a reminder, run your APE files through the Verify function in Monkey's Audio once in a while. And of course, keep a backup so a virus or bad memory or whatever else can't cause you too much grief.

-Matt (author of Monkey's Audio)

AoXoMoXoA · « **Reply #19 on:** March 04, 2009, 09:42:51 am »

Hi Matt,
Thanks for that info on the corrupted files. I am always concerned about files becoming damaged and I expect no format is exempt from the chance of this ocurring.

Is there any reason to expect that ape files might be more immune than another lossless codec such as flac?

Mr ChriZ · « **Reply #20 on:** March 04, 2009, 09:45:30 am »

I'd love to see the abillity for MC to check APE files as it plays them

newmaidumosa · « **Reply #21 on:** March 04, 2009, 10:29:14 am »

hi matt

once again thanks for your help.

I would just like to ask? is the data that is cropped off at the end significant? Ie does it actually eat into the music data or is it just the tagging info that is damaged?

Thanks

Matt · « **Reply #22 on:** March 04, 2009, 10:38:17 am »

Quote from: newmaidumosa on March 04, 2009, 10:29:14 am

hi matt

once again thanks for your help.

I would just like to ask? is the data that is cropped off at the end significant? Ie does it actually eat into the music data or is it just the tagging info that is damaged?

Thanks

The actual audio data has been cropped off. It's hard to know exactly how much but I'd guess 10 to 30 bytes. MAC 3.97 and MAC 3.98 will decode the final frame but the last little bit (milliseconds) will be undefined. MAC 3.99 and later will (correctly) report a CRC error. Media Center, in a coming build, will output silence for the entire last frame which is two seconds or so with extra high compression.

I'm still curious if you could give any details about what tagger you might have used that caused this. Does "Abander TagControl" mentioned by Sarane ring a bell?

newmaidumosa · « **Reply #23 on:** March 05, 2009, 08:04:47 am »

Quote from: Matt on March 04, 2009, 10:38:17 am

The actual audio data has been cropped off. It's hard to know exactly how much but I'd guess 10 to 30 bytes. MAC 3.97 and MAC 3.98 will decode the final frame but the last little bit (milliseconds) will be undefined. MAC 3.99 and later will (correctly) report a CRC error. Media Center, in a coming build, will output silence for the entire last frame which is two seconds or so with extra high compression.

I'm still curious if you could give any details about what tagger you might have used that caused this. Does "Abander TagControl" mentioned by Sarane ring a bell?

all tagging was done with MC

JimH · « **Reply #24 on:** March 05, 2009, 08:22:49 am »

What version of Windows do you use? And in the past?

Is the data stored on a local drive? Or a USB drive, etc.

Here's a similar problem (probably not the same one) caused by a Windows bug. It damaged MP3 files.

There were also some corruption problems with Windows Home Server last year that resulted in data loss.

newmaidumosa · « **Reply #25 on:** March 06, 2009, 03:58:20 am »

Quote from: Matt on March 04, 2009, 10:38:17 am

The actual audio data has been cropped off. It's hard to know exactly how much but I'd guess 10 to 30 bytes. MAC 3.97 and MAC 3.98 will decode the final frame but the last little bit (milliseconds) will be undefined. MAC 3.99 and later will (correctly) report a CRC error. Media Center, in a coming build, will output silence for the entire last frame which is two seconds or so with extra high compression.

Matt, Just a thought; if it is indeed only milliseconds of audio missing (I can't tell that there is audio missing, from the the files I have managed to convert, just by listening) wouldn't it be better to allow media center to play through the last frame, as 3.97 would, instead of silencing a whole 2 seconds of music.

Quote from: JimH on March 05, 2009, 08:22:49 am

What version of Windows do you use? And in the past?

I am using 13 now. I think those files were done with 9.

Quote

Is the data stored on a local drive? Or a USB drive, etc.

Those file were initally stored locally. Then moved on to USB drive and are now on NAS drives. Interestingly as Matt pointed out the problem is only with the files encoded at "very high" with Monkey's Audio 3.7. (and not all are corrupted).
perhaps in the transfer process from drive to drive something happened to them. [I never touch my music files, for tagging and moving etc, with anything other than MC]

JimH · « **Reply #26 on:** March 06, 2009, 06:59:45 am »

Quote from: newmaidumosa on March 06, 2009, 03:58:20 am

Those file were initally stored locally. Then moved on to USB drive and are now on NAS drives. Interestingly as Matt pointed out the problem is only with the files encoded at "very high" with Monkey's Audio 3.7. (and not all are corrupted).
perhaps in the transfer process from drive to drive something happened to them. [I never touch my music files, for tagging and moving etc, with anything other than MC]

Do you have any of the original files?

JustinChase · « **Reply #27 on:** April 13, 2009, 09:56:37 pm »

I just ran across this thread, but I found it quite interesting.

I also have my music stored on an external USB drive, and had started getting error messages, I think related to the (poorly timed) removal of that drive, either intentionally (unplug the wrong USB cable) or otherwise (windows crashing). I have managed to get most of them copied to an internal drive, and have them all (I hope) backed up on another external drive.

Windows Vista died on me and upon reboot it gave me an error message about the hard drive having issues (not the USB drive, the main internal windows partition drive), and that I should scan, which it did on startup. I specifically told it to check the C drive and nothing else, but it checked the USB drive also and "fixed" LOTS of files. The result is the loss of about 1/3 of my music files and I have no idea how many (if any) photos, and newly discovered damage to other files. Again, I have a backup, but I'm nervous, really nervous.

This is when I copied the remaining files to the internal drive and then copied the files from the backup to the same drive telling it not to overwrite any of the files that are already there (thinking I didn't want to overwrite any tag or cover art changes) and that NOT overwriting gives mo more options later.

Now, I have some version of all the music files (I think) on the internal drive and I'm happier. But, I synced to my phone after this was all done and noticed some serious errors. some/much of my ape files either don't play at all, or play then stop at some point, or play, then at some point go to static (seriously mood changing for the worse when this happened!!)

Now so far I don't know that any of this is related to the above, but the going to static and the fact that I encoded on the high mode for most of my files (may have been extra high, I don't remember as it's been several years and a couple of versions since encoding most of my music) leads me to believe we might have related issues. I also have never used any other tagger since discovering MC about a dozen or so years ago.

The biggest thing though was that before any of this happened, I was very freaked out that some of my music would skip the last 2 seconds of songs when played in Windows Mobile Media player on my phone. The songs sounded fine in MC, but windows media would skip 2 seconds of music, just cut it off. i switched to a different player for the phone, and that has gone away.

anyway, I'm not sure any of this is relevant, but it sounded familiar and I thought it noteworthy.

Apart from that, anyone got any ideas how to figure out which songs are corrupted/bad/missing to figure out what to delete so I can copy those back over from the backup? I'm going to download Monkey's Audio stand alone right now, but I wanted to post this first.

Finally, having the validity checker in MC would be cool, but I do understand that Matt wants to keep some of his goodies for himself

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Author Topic: Damaged APE file (Read 6285 times)