Confusion about Audiobook Chapters

[Muldini]

Hi all, I'm wondering if someone can explain this to me:

Musicbee is my favorite manager and player for audiobooks. I specifically love the support for chapters. However, I don't quite understand how these are actually handled.

I have most of my audiobooks in m4b format, as a single file with chapters. Yet even though they are the same format, Musicbee seems to handle some of them differently, and I would like to find out why so I can adjust my files accordingly.

Two examples for this:

Example 1:


With this book, the main window of Musicbee shows the book as just one "track", and the playbar also displays the full length of the audiobook. The track contains chapters, these are only shown within the play bar and I can skip forward/backwards.

Example 2:


Here, Musicbee shows all the individual chapters in the main window and in the track list in the right panel. The playbar only displays the individual chapters with the playtime of that individual chapter.

To confuse things further, I recently encountered the issue that for the book in the second example, Musicbee seemingly "forgot" it had chapters and didn't display them anywhere, resulting in just the one full length file with no option to skip forward/backwards and I had to carefully drag the play bar to find the right spot in a 12 hour file. This issue remained after closing and restarting Musicbee, but it somehow rectified itself after a reboot the next day, so I am not sure what exactly caused this behaviour, or if it even was the reboot that "fixed" it.

Anyway, so the "error" is gone, but I still don't know how Musicbee decides on how to display chaptered books, and if I can influence this behavior in any way. I would prefer the individual chapters like in the second example of course, so if there is a setting that causes this, I would really like to know.

FYI, I do have cue files in these folders, if that makes a difference - but I also have several audiobooks without cue files, and these still show chapters too, so I am not sure if having them has any effect whatsoever.

Can anyone provide some insights?

[Steven]

MB treats cue files differently to files with an internal chapter tag. I dont think there is a solid reason for that so add a wish-list request if its important to you

[Muldini]

Thanks for your reply, yet the more I test it out, the less I think cue files have anything to do with it. I have deleted the cue files from the directories, rescanned the library and it seems to behave in the exact same way.

The one differencde I found is in how Musicbee recognizes the "chapter" info in the file itself.

The first book, which ignores the chapters, shows this info like it is one long audio file:




Yet, the second (working) book shows the same fields as "mixed", so it recognizes that there are multiple chapters in different lengths:





Now you might think that the first file just does not contain any chapter info - but that's not the case. If I open the exact same book in a different player, in this case Audibly, it still shows and plays individual chapters (again, with no cue files involved):




So I'm really not sure what causes this behaviour. I feel it's rather a bug than an issue for the wishlist - but I don't understand how this bug would come to exist and if it's possible to circumvent it? I mean, the chapters work with most files, just not all of them. There might be one setting that I overlooked - I'm still hoping someone knows the answer?

Thanks again.

[hiccup]

Thanks for your reply, yet the more I test it out, the less I think cue files have anything to do with it. I have deleted the cue files from the directories, rescanned the library and it seems to behave in the exact same way.

I vaguely recall chapter/cue information (also) being stored in MB's database.
Simply using rescan may not suffice here.
Try removing the file from the library, then 'compress library', and then add the file back to the library?
(restarting MB inbetween these steps just to be sure)

[Steven]

a cuesheet can be stored as a file tag as well as an external file

[hiccup]

a cuesheet can be stored as a file tag as well as an external file

Yeah, I know.
But that in itself does not explain the issue the OP is currently reporting/experiencing.
But to be honest, I'm not sure my 'solution' would solve it either.
Perhaps it's 'the other player' that has cached some chapter info that still appears after the cue file was removed?
Or, the file indeed has chapters stored in a way that MusicBee does not recognise?

Confused? You won't be, after the next episode of…

[Muldini]

Or, the file indeed has chapters stored in a way that MusicBee does not recognise?

It's definitly something like this.

I only downloaded the other player (Audibly) to test out the chapter issue, never used it before or after, so there is no cache.
I can copy the non-working file to a new folder, without cue sheet, and then open it with Audibly and it will have chapters.

So, the m4b file clearly does have chapters stored in the file info somewhere. Musicbee does not recognize this (to be clear for SOME files, not all). The cue file does not seem to make any difference.

I repeated this exact test with a different, brand new audio book that showed the same issue. When I right-click the file in Musicbee and look at the File/Edit/Settings tab, it will only show one time in the "Start Time"/"End Time" fields. "Working/chaptered" audio books will show "Mixed" in these fields.




That exact same file - opened, for the first time and without cue file present - in the other player, will have the dropdown for the individual chapters:



I am tempted to classify this as a bug, unless I am still missing a setting or feature somewhere. There are so many settings and options in Musicbee that I might just miss something, that's why I posted in "Questions" in the first place.

[Steven]

Can you send a link to the file that shows no chapters. I arent clear if you are saying there is also a cuesheet with that file, and if yes, then send that as well

[Muldini]

Can you send a link to the file that shows no chapters. I arent clear if you are saying there is also a cuesheet with that file, and if yes, then send that as well

PM sent

[Steven]

The file you sent works fine for me with the internal chapter tag ie. added to MB as one file but player bar shows each chapter as the track plays.
Are you using v3.6?
Perhaps try right click/ send to/ rescan files
The cuesheet has an extra space after the dash so doesnt match with the music file

[Muldini]

I did as you asked (send to/rescan) and the player bar indeed seems to work with chapters with this file, while still not listing the chapters in the main window. This might just be a coincidencw however because:

It still does not seem to fix the main issue - I tried this with other files with the same problem and in those cases, it has no effect at all. It must be another problem. I have even deleted/compressed the library and added/rescanned ALL my files again to see if that helps.

I have sent you (via PM) another m4b file that is completely unaffected by the rescan and still has the central problem: it has chapters in Audibly, but just one long file in Musicbee, and this one will not skip any chapters in the player bar. Something different is the issue.

It also doesn't even have a cue file (you were right with the double space - thanks - but again, having a cue file makes no difference to the problem).

Oh, and as I wrote in my last PM: I'm using Version 3.6.9202.

Plus: Thanks so much for looking into this.

[Steven]

There is an issue with the 2nd file you sent. This fixes that
https://getmusicbee.com/patches/MusicBee36_Patched.zip
unzip and replace the existing musicbee application files

[Muldini]

Hey,

thanks a lot, the patch worked! I have rescanned all my 500+ audio books files and can't find any further issues.

Yes, I still don't know why the main window doesn't display the chapters with the "problematic" titles, but the play bar works fine with skipping from chapter to chapter, so that helps a lot in navigating books that are often many hours long.



This quick fix is a life saver

Best regards
Muldini