Fixed WAV file doesn't burn correctly

2022-01-29 23:05:20

I have a CD ripped to image+cue where the last few samples at the end of the last track were damaged. CUETools is able to repair it. After the repair CUETools verifies it as all tracks accurately ripped (confidence > 200), but when I write a CD using the repaired CUE+WAV file EAC reports a sync error near the end of the CD. EAC wav compare "sees" the repairs. I have tried writing the file on different media, with different software (ImgBurn and EAC) and with different burners all with the same result (and the identical track CRC).

Other images I burn to the same disk (CD-RW) do not have this issue. It seems limited to this particular WAV file. I have tried deleting the repaired WAV file and doing it again with the identical result. I even get the same track CRC from EAC again, but it still reports a sync error and track could not be confirmed as accurate.

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong? Or how is it possible for a WAV to be constructed in such a way that it causes a synchronization error on a CD-R?

Re: Fixed WAV file doesn't burn correctly

Reply #1 – 2022-01-30 03:07:44

Just to confirm there's something funky with the WAV file I extracted the last track from the WAV+CUE that CUETools created when it corrected the errors in the original using FB2K and burned a CD using only that track. EAC still reports a sync error near the end of the track. That means it's not related to the physical position on the disk itself or the cue file. Since the sync error happens whether the WAV+CUE is burned with ImgBurn or EAC, it probably isn't some error with the burning software. Lastly, since other WAV+CUE files can be burned to the very same CD-RW disc using EAC or ImgBurn without errors, it's something peculiar to this particular WAV.

Something else I noticed is that the original un-repaired WAV has the same problem. Whatever it is was not corrected by CUETools even though it reported successfully fixing the file.

I tried libsndfile, Adobe Audition, and Audacity to see if there was something wrong with the WAV file itself, but all of them found nothing wrong with it. There's no whacky out of bounds values or anything obvious like that. I even tried opening the WAV and exporting from each application and still the same result. I checked to see if there was an issue with frame boundaries, but the WAV is 14,825,244 samples, or 25,213 frames exactly. I'm outta ideas.

Re: Fixed WAV file doesn't burn correctly

Reply #2 – 2022-01-30 06:45:58

Turns out I'm the idiot on this one. I had overread into Lead-in/Lead-out checked. For some reason this doesn't affect some recordings, but does affect others.