Unable to play certain MP3's

[Parm]

Here's a pickle for ya...

I have a nice collection of MP3's, and haven't in the past had a problem with any of them. Every CD my brother or I buy, we rip onto our PC's, and have done for years.
I've recently formatted both PC's and done a fresh install of everything on them. Both PC's are running Windows XP SP2 Pro.
Didn't notice any problems for a while, but now I've noticed that some of my MP3's don't seem to work. If memory serves, I think Nero was used to rip the MP3's in question.

When I load one of them, I get the message:

Windows Media Player cannot play the file. The player might not
support the file type or might not support the codec that was
used to compress the file.

However, if I load the file with the old media player, or any other media player (creative media player, or anything else) it seems to work fine.

When browsing my MP3's on my PC, they all show the information held in the tags, artist, album etc etc, however, the MP3's that don't play in the latest media player don't show this information.

Whats even more interesting, if these 'bad' files are changed from extension .mp3 to .wav, then voila, they work absolutely fine. Unfortunately, there are one to many that don't work, and I don't particularly fancy changing every extension...


Therefore, any ideas?

Parm

[Trippledence]

Never used nero for ripping before, are you sure it encoded them to mp3 corectly, Other media player might be more apt at seeking out the corect codec. You could get a codec pack for WMP. Which might solve the problem. I'm not sure if the mp3 codec ever changes like the WMA one.

[Parm]

Do you happen to know any codec packs I could try?
I'm pretty certain they're encoded properly. Firstly, they all work with other media players, and secondly on some albums, some tracks do work and some don't.

Odd.

[ajbrun]

Is there any reason you're using windows media player and not something like winamp? Could it be worth the change since it works on winamp?

[Parm]

The main reason is that I quite like WMP, I haven't had a problem with it before, and it's on all the PC's on the network, so it's really easy to maintain.

[Parm]

To show this problem properly, I've uploaded a problematic MP3 to my webspace.

The file can be downloaded here.

Please feel free to give this a go and report your feedback here.

[ajbrun]

I see what you mean now. I sometimes get that error message when people give a link to something on the internet (usually streaming). I generally just close and move to something else if I see that as I haven't found a way to fix it.

It says it might not support the codec used to compress the file. Are you sure you're using the same ripping program? Maybe you could try re-ripping that particular song. If that doesn't work, I stongley recommend using CDex to rip your CD's instead.

[directhex]

jms@minimoose:~$ file Desktop/ProblemTest.mp3
Desktop/ProblemTest.mp3: MP3 file with ID3 version 2.3.0 tag

[autopilot]

How large are the files that are named .mp3 but play when renamed to .wav? Are they much larger than most of your other MP3's? Are you sure the files played before the reformat?

Sounds more like Nero did a poor job. Often CD's are fisrt ripped to wav and then converted MP3. Could be that the files were not converted from WAV to MP3 but did get renamed. And remember that some software will ignor file extentions and just play the file. Some software is more fussy, making sure it the right file type.

I would get a proper dedicated ripper. Personally i recommend Audio Grabber or EAC. In conjuction with the LAME codec for MP3. Then use Winamp or media player classic.

[Parm]

The files are the same filesize as most mp3's, so I'm as certain as can be that they're not wav files.

Some of the problem files were ripped a while back. I now use EAC and LAME to rip all my stuff. Unfortunately, I don't fancy re-ripping everything.

The most annoying thing is that they do load absolutely fine on the 'old' windows media player. gah.

[Trippledence]

Didnt work for me ether. However it opend in Adobe Audition fine.

Filename: ProblemTest.mp3
Folder: C:\Documents and Settings\TrippleDence\Desktop
File Type: 44100Hz, 16-bit, Stereo
Uncompressed Size: 6.88 MB (7,224,000 bytes)
File Format: mp3PRO® (FhG)
MPEG Layer-3, 128 Kbps (Stereo)
Size on Disk: 640 KB (655,366.00 bytes)
Last Written (local): 3/8/2005 18:42:10.000
Length: 0:40.952
1,806,000 samples

Whats FGH on the file formatt anyone?

[autopilot]

Whats FGH on the file formatt anyone?

Fraunhofer Institute, the people who invented MP3 and MP3 pro.

[directhex]

ooh, mp3PRO, that might be the problem

mp3PRO is a broken, twisted version of mp3, which claims to give it the same quality-per-meg attributes as vorbis or wma (but only work as such in one player, and should play as normal mp3 in all other players).

[Parm]

oooh, I feel we're making progress here!

[Trippledence]

I supose you could re encode everything using a batch prosesser, like Advanced WMA wizard. Presuming it will read them ok.

[ArmagoN]

did you have licensing on when you ripped them with nero... ??