Serious File Selector and MusicConverter bug (FLAC-->OGG conversion)

[flips]

I'm using File Selector to convert FLAC files to OGG. I did it once without deleting source files before I bought the Power Pack. Then I now wanted to convert a lot of FLAC files into OGG's, and choosing them in FileSelector works fine, until I select "Convert To", then it suddenly, for some strange reason claim I need to install flac support (which is already installed). If I try "Convert To" again, it does not work at all (the timeglass just appears and disappears quickly). If I then lauch the MusicConverter directly, it works. And then I can again try from FileSelector, and get the same fail all over again.

So I gave up FileSelector and did use MusicConverter Directly. It the did seriously screw up filenames, and it even lost a file. (I had chosen to delete source file, since the purpose is to free up space.)

I chose MUSIC\Zeromancer\Eurotrash\*.flac to be converted, and to use the same folder. The converted files (with one file lost forever) was renamed into MUSIC\Zeromancer\Eurotrash\16 Horsepower\Low Estate\*.ogg,
with the * here representing the titles of songs of that particular 16 HP album. I guess there was some really unfortunate (mis)communication between the still active FileSelector app (which I had'n shut down, and it probably was located somewhere in my 16 Horsepower directory).

I would call this an UGLY bug, and I hope I will not experience such misfortune later on. I did try to find software updates, but I guess I would have to wait for the registration to be active in a database. So I'm running dMC-r11.5-Registered.exe and the FLAC and OGG plugins of 7th of January.

-F-

[Deano]

Re: Serious File Selector and MusicConverter bug (FLAC-->OGG conversion)

Have you tried uninstalling and resinstalling dbPowerAMP and its appropriate plugins?

[flips]

Re: Serious File Selector and MusicConverter bug (FLAC-->OGG conversion)

Have you tried uninstalling and resinstalling dbPowerAMP and its appropriate plugins?

First I tried de- and reinstalling just the FLAC plugin. And I tried de- and reinstalling everything (with both rebooting and registry cleanup in between). Nothing of that made a difference.
But I seem to have isolated the problem a little. I suspected filenames or something like that to cause the bug, and started renaming files with special characters (like ' ) in them. I'm not sure if that is the problem, but if I skip marking this folder in DMCFileSelector: MUSIC\16_Horsepower\Secret_South, I don't get the error (saying flac plugin is not installed but can be found at Codec Central).

I don't find anything particular about the filenames in that directory, since I have removed special characters. The only difference I can find, is that the m3u playlist has a single quote at the beginning and end of each line/entry. Might that be the cause? (I'll test more later, but now I really have to go to bed, and the DMC is busy converting.)

I also just discovered another bug, if I use the right-click on (flac-)files in a directory and choose to convert them to OGG, the dMc somehow gets all the filenames twice. I just chose 10 files, and it said "Converting # of 20", and after converting the 10 files it reported that the original 10 flac files were non-existing. Not a big problem, but probably something one should get rid of.

(I'm using the standard OGG codec, since the codec central page states that it is needed for creating ID tags. Can I install more than one OGG codec to get better performance -- as in encoding with Ogg Vorbis aoTuV B4 SSE2 and then letting the Standard Ogg codec create the ID tags, or something like that?
I also think oggenc2 is out, so I hope the v2 will show up soon.)

-F-

[LtData]

Re: Serious File Selector and MusicConverter bug (FLAC-->OGG conversion)

If you install the aoTuV codecs, they only encode the files quicker than the standard Ogg Codec, while the standard Ogg codec handles all of the decoding and tagging duties.

[Spoon]

Re: Serious File Selector and MusicConverter bug (FLAC-->OGG conversion)

The process you describe is possible (if the files are no picked up because of a problem / error, then the next conversion will pick up those files - BUT it does not confuse the names, those names are the ones that would have been done through fileselector, it is not blending different conversions!).

If your audio files are important, NEVER use the delete source option until the files have been verified.

BTW that design is changing for dmc r12, a design change that is very elegant (in that if 1 file of 10,000 causes a crash, conversions will continue).

[flips]

Re: Serious File Selector and MusicConverter bug (FLAC-->OGG conversion)

The process you describe is possible (if the files are no picked up because of a problem / error, then the next conversion will pick up those files - BUT it does not confuse the names, those names are the ones that would have been done through fileselector, it is not blending different conversions!).

I got it confirmed. The file that caused the "missing flac codec" message when FileSelector launched the DMC, was the playlist.m3u where every line/entry had a single quote character ( ' ) at both the beginning and the end. If I had not selected the m3u files in the first places, I would have avoided the problem (DMC doesn't change the m3u entries from .flac to .ogg anyway, so I guess it's no point in selecting them in this setting/operation.) I also confirmed that it worked when I removed the single quotes from every line in the file.

If your audio files are important, NEVER use the delete source option until the files have been verified.

Of course! I realized that before checking the delete files, so the file I lost is not a big deal, I can get a new copy if I really want it. I guess the real bug causing all the other mishappenings was the M3U file or the handling of it. (I have no idea why that M3U file was different from all the other M3U files.)

BTW that design is changing for dmc r12, a design change that is very elegant (in that if 1 file of 10,000 causes a crash, conversions will continue).

That's a nice change.

-F-

[flips]

Re: Serious File Selector and MusicConverter bug (FLAC-->OGG conversion)

If you install the aoTuV codecs, they only encode the files quicker than the standard Ogg Codec, while the standard Ogg codec handles all of the decoding and tagging duties.

Cool. Is the aoTuV just optimized for speed, or is it also better compression and stuff? Like I suppose oggenc2 does a better job than oggenc 1.x? (Not that I have researched this any further.)

-F-

[flips]

Re: Serious File Selector and MusicConverter bug (FLAC-->OGG conversion)

Cool. Is the aoTuV just optimized for speed, or is it also better compression and stuff? Like I suppose oggenc2 does a better job than oggenc 1.x? (Not that I have researched this any further.)

Hm, wait a minute. I took a look in the Compression\Ogg Vorbis aoTuV b4 SSE2 folder, and it looks like this one uses oggenc2. I found a little bug, though. I had to change the path in the options.txt file to reflect that I have installed in another directory than the default. (Choosing the path to oggenc2 from the program itselft was not enough.)

But after that was fixed, I have a very nice working setup, converting the files to OGG at maximum speed and best quality, preserving the tags and everything. Thanks!

-F- :komisch12