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Thread: skips or truncated mp3 files

  1. #1

    skips or truncated mp3 files

    Hello,
    I'm on a quest to convert all of stuff to digital format, I've been at it for over a year now so far, but I am having issues I'm not sure how to solve.
    I am ripping with EAC and using secure mode with double passes, and I rip to lossless FLAC.
    When I use the batch converter (with lame encoder), i set at CBR 320, and when I playback the mp3's, someones i find one that either skips in the middle of the song, or sometimes the end is cut completely off ending early. I verify the FLAC source, and it's good. If I re-encode them again, everything is fine... it's like it just randomly once in a while does something like this. I can't possibly listen to every song after I encode them to check, I have boxes and boxes of CD's to get through, and more come in from the fle markets or whenever at times.
    I have a 4 core Xeon machine @ 3Ghz, I do all my conversion work on a 500BG SATA SSD drive. I've even tried locking the process to a single core using the "multi-CPU force" dsp option just for fun, but no result.
    Is thee a way at least where I can do a double pass on each encode to ensure that it is complete?
    I also find that when I do large batches (almost always), it sometimes skips entire files for some reason that I can't pin down.
    Im using release 16.6 (x64)
    Any suggestions would really be appreciated a lot.
    As a side note, I'm far more interested in high quality, perfect encodes than I am speed.

  2. #2
    dBpoweramp Guru
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    Re: skips or truncated mp3 files

    Are you converting to a folder that is being monitored by any other software?

  3. #3

    Re: skips or truncated mp3 files

    Quote Originally Posted by mville View Post
    Are you converting to a folder that is being monitored by any other software?
    no, I don't even have antivirus on the machine I am using to do encoding, I've disabled real-time scanning with defender as well.
    I'm not sure what else could be monitoring it

  4. #4
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    Re: skips or truncated mp3 files

    Quote Originally Posted by ForgedCrank View Post
    I'm not sure what else could be monitoring it
    iTunes, Windows Media Player?

    It isn't only security/ant-virus software that can cause problems.
    Last edited by mville; 01-03-2021 at 09:14 AM.

  5. #5

    Re: skips or truncated mp3 files

    Quote Originally Posted by mville View Post
    iTunes, Windows Media Player?

    It isn't only security/ant-virus software that can cause problems.
    I don't use these on this machine at all. There isn't much else installed on this PC either, it's mostly only used for this purpose. It just sits there most times until I go back to it to swap CD's a few times a day while I'm on a ripping binge. I never rip and encode at the same time, I collect batches of FLAC files from ripping, then I create the tags, then I encode them in large batches, then I do the file naming, then copy them all to my archive on the network stores.
    Is there any DSP or anything else I can use to do a verification pass when I'm doing the MP3 encoding process? I've been trying to solve the skipping thing for like a year and suspected something with the disc, so that was my primary focus, but I just can't see what would be saturating the SATA bus so much that the files couldn't be written. Switching to an SSD was also one of the things I did during all this trying to solve the problem. The machine has 32GB of RAM in it, so I'm not hurting there either. And it doesn't happen constantly, I just find one here and there during playback. Fortunately I also archive all the FLAC rips so I can always re-do the ones I find, but it's difficult keeping notepad with me and remembering to go back and redo the ones I find on occasion. I'd rather just give up this wild goose chase and use verification of some sort, but I can't figure out if it's possible, all I can really find is info on the ripping process, and that isn't where this is happening.
    I remembered reading that windows does some weird thing with audio and video files when they are accessed, sometimes locking them, but all I could figure out how to change was disabling indexing (which I have also done).

  6. #6
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    Re: skips or truncated mp3 files

    Firstly, I would run Test Conversion on all the flac files.

    What player is exhibiting these skips/truncation issues?

    Please can you provide more info on your playback system, and where the flac archive and mp3 files are in your setup?
    Last edited by mville; 01-03-2021 at 10:24 AM.

  7. #7

    Re: skips or truncated mp3 files

    For playback, I use winamp on the PC, and in the car I am just using the Ford sync system with USB sticks. I also play them from my Sonos system at home. I don't do wireless anything outside of the Sonos remote speakers. All of these play the same if I find a bad file. The skips are there in the files, and re-encoding and replacing them results in a file that doesn't skip.
    My archives are stored on a Windows 2008 server via a standard network share.

  8. #8
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    Re: skips or truncated mp3 files

    What OS is running on the Xeon machine with the 500GB SSD drive?

    Where is dBpoweramp installed?

    Where is EAC installed?
    Last edited by mville; 01-03-2021 at 10:53 AM.

  9. #9

    Re: skips or truncated mp3 files

    The OS and software are installed on the C drive, which is the SSD.
    At this point due to the amount of RAM I have, I've also disabled disk paging as well, but that never made any difference either.
    so at this point I'm starting to think there is no way to run multiple passes on the encoding for verification?

  10. #10
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    Re: skips or truncated mp3 files

    Quote Originally Posted by ForgedCrank View Post
    The OS and software are installed on the C drive, which is the SSD.
    Which OS?

  11. #11
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    Re: skips or truncated mp3 files

    Bring the files to the local computer before converting, it is possible network issues are interfering.

  12. #12

    Re: skips or truncated mp3 files

    Quote Originally Posted by Spoon View Post
    Bring the files to the local computer before converting, it is possible network issues are interfering.
    yes i already do that, as I explained, it's all processed on local SSD

  13. #13
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    Re: skips or truncated mp3 files

    Quote Originally Posted by ForgedCrank View Post
    yes i already do that, as I explained, it's all processed on local SSD
    If there is no network involved, it's difficult to know what is going wrong with the batch conversion, with the sketchy info provided here. You could at least run Test Conversion on the flac files, pre-conversion and Test Conversion on the mp3 files, post conversion.

    However, with the issue being intermittent, it appears the Xeon PC is unreliable which would worry me and I would want to try the same process with another PC.

    Also, I would check the Xeon PC event viewer for clues and run DISM and SFC.

  14. #14
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    Re: skips or truncated mp3 files

    If you can try another PC, and try another player to rule that out also, foobar2000.

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