Author Topic: Losing my Music (to Auto-Truncation)  (Read 4336 times)

Music Noumon

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When I scan iTunes folders for new files to enter into MusicBee,
some of those music files get truncated near the end.

There seems to be a bug that eliminates the end part of the songs.
What happens is that the song plays normally for awhile but then
suddenly there is a screeching electronic noise and the song goes
dead.    The progress bar and seconds counter continue to work
normally but the music is gone.

There is a bug that causes auto-truncation.
And it also affects play in iTunes and when I sync!
So I'm progressively losing my music!

I already lost 10 songs to this bug.
I don't know how many I will lose?
Perhaps there is a way to recover the lost data?
I hope so.
I don't want to redownload all the music I lost.

Can you please give me some feedback on this as soon as possible?

psychoadept

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Well, MusicBee doesn't do anything with the audio in the files unless you use the file converter, so whatever the issue is, I doubt it's caused by MusicBee.  What file type are they? AAC?
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sveakul

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First of all, I don't have iTunes.  But some general comments following up on what psychoadept said:

1.  Be sure to keep a full original backup of all your music files somewhere other than your work folders, preferably on a separate removable drive.  Then you never have to worry about losing them if some operation goes wrong.

2.  Do the iTunes files have Digital Rights Management baked in, or are they 24-bit Apple Lossless by any chance?  Can you upload one of the affected files somewhere so we could take a look at it (https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=28365.msg157327#msg157327)?

3.  How have you set up MusicBee to transfer the files?  A screenshot would help (https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=28168.0).  Are you doing any re-encoding (if so from what format to what)?

4.  What type (Windows Store, Portable, Installer) of MusicBee are you using, and what version?

Music Noumon

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I'm using the Windows installer version 3.2.6760 for Windows.
Yep, the files are AAC.
I bought them all from the iTunes Store.

I'm not doing any special file conversion.
I just use the scan the files option in MusicBee.

I'm using iTunes 10.6.3
Maybe this older version of iTunes is causing the problem?

Maybe the files are not corrupted?
There might just be something wrong with the playback and timer?
There seems to be some electronic interference judging from the noise it makes.

sveakul

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Are you hearing the noise in both the iTunes player AND MusicBee?

Check if the AAC files contain DRM;  a couple of methods:  https://www.technipages.com/windows-how-to-check-if-a-video-or-music-file-is-drm-protected , https://www.technipages.com/itunes-how-to-tell-which-songs-are-drm-protected .

Again, if you can upload one of the files that has the noises to a file-share site, so that we can download and test it, that would help too.

Music Noumon

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iTunes says it's a "Purchased AAC audio file"
I'm using an older version of iTunes that doesn't specify the DRM.

However, when I use Windows to check the file properties and details,
it says it's an MPEG-4 file and that it's not protected.
AAC is part of the MPEG-4 standard.


I'm hearing noises with the MusicBee player.
But iTunes doesn't make noise.
It just stops.    At the same time segment when MusicBee made noise.

Music Noumon

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I uploaded one of the corrupted AAC music files to  http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=66772267805723556195
I hope this will give you the information you need.

phred

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I'm hearing noises with the MusicBee player.
But iTunes doesn't make noise.
It just stops.    At the same time segment when MusicBee made noise.
You've got issues with both players. One makes noise and the other stops at same point where the other makes noise. Your files are corrupt.
Download the latest MusicBee v3.5 or 3.6 patch from here.
Unzip into your MusicBee directory and overwrite existing files.

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sveakul

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I uploaded one of the corrupted AAC music files to  http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=66772267805723556195
I hope this will give you the information you need.

Thank you for uploading the file!

I threw 3 different players using wasapi-exclusive at it, and every one shows a sudden stop around 30 seconds before the "end."  MusicBee produced no strange noises, just a clean break like the others.  Spek.exe shows a spectrogram with the waveform cutting off at the same time.  This is a corrupted file, as phred observed, displaying the same results in any player.

How the file(s) initially became corrupted is anybody's guess, but my own is from an incomplete download when the file was initially acquired.

So it's not MusicBee's fault, but I'm sorry you ended up with them.  If I were you I would see if you can re-download them from iTunes, there must be some kind of option for that if you paid for but received incomplete files.

Music Noumon

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It's true sometimes the iTunes store doesn't download songs completely.
But I'm certain this wasn't the case with these songs.
I don't remember the files having been downloaded as incomplete.

I remember enjoying these songs in their entirety.
Even on MusicBee!
What happened was that successive scans corrupted the files.
I make changes a lot so I do a lot of scans.

I have another song that does make some noise at  http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=71070574731659788781
I have some proof there is some noise.

Take another crack at it!
Solve what could be happening.

Music Noumon

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By the way, I'm only using iTunes and MusicBee.
No other music players.
I used iTunes for years and never had problems like this.
It's only once I started using MusicBee that this happened.

The more scans I do successively, the more songs get corrupted.
Especially the ones I didn't play for awhile.
The older and longer songs seem most affected.

This is a very serious bug when content is destroyed.
We must solve this.

redwing

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Are you saying scanning with MB corrupts a file?
So a song sounds normal and if you scan the song with MB then it suddenly gets corrupted?
Is this what you're saying and can you reproduce it?

Music Noumon

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I'm only telling you what I'm experiencing.
The MB scan seems to corrupt the music files.
That's how it seems to me.
Whether MB is the cause I'm not sure.

Can I reproduce it?
What proof do you need?
I'll tell you all the conditions involved with my setup.

I'm using Windows 7 and iTunes 10.6.3
Maybe this older software is causing the trouble?
It might just be interference between two programs.


redwing

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Are you using auto-organization setting with MB?
So if you scan a file with MB, does it get moved to another folder?

Music Noumon

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It stays in the iTunes folder.
But the MB folder has all sorts of metadata files.
I don't see any music files in the MB folder.