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Topic: EAC returning external compression error on select files (Read 24440 times) previous topic - next topic
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EAC returning external compression error on select files

I've just set up EAC Version 1.0 beta 1 according to this guide (http://blowfish.be/eac/index.html) on my new Windows 7 32-bit Home Premium, and I've been experiencing some weird issues.

I've been using EAC for many years now, mostly ripping CDs to MP3s on Win XP ... I've very little experience with Windows 7 at the moment. Basically, I'm re-ripping my entire CD collection to FLAC. Tonight I was ripping Billy Joel's Greatest Hits, and on the second disc, all the tracks were extracted accurately (i.e. the wav files were fine) and all but one track were encoded to FLAC. For that one file, EAC returned an external compressor error. I loaded the wav file of that track into Foobar and converted it to FLAC with the same FLAC encoder without any errors. I deleted the wav and tried re-ripping the track alone with EAC and this time it didn't return any errors.

Then a repeated the error when ripping The Black Crowe's Greatest Hits. With the Billy Joel disc it was track 11, but this time it was track 2 - so I guess it doesn't have anything to do with the position of the track. Of the 5 CDs I ripped tonight, I encountered the problem with 2.

This is the error scene I get :



I've attached a screenshot of the my compression options page :



Aand this is the command line I'm using :

-V -8 -T "artist=%a" -T "title=%t" -T "album=%g" -T "date=%y" -T "tracknumber=%n" -T "genre=%m" %s

If I have the set-up completely wrong, then EAC will give me errors on every rip. I was playing music in the background with Foobar, for what it's worth. Maybe I shouldn't? I've never had problems with this before ...

In all my years of using EAC on Win XP, it has never done this to me. And I've ripped over 2000 CDs to MP3s. But I'm new to FLAC and this is a newer version of EAC that didn't let me load my old / saved profiles, so what's the deal? Is something wrong with my set-up?

EAC returning external compression error on select files

Reply #1 –
Was getting the exact same problem.  I was trying to rip CD's from the fast computer in the office onto the HTPC's HD in the living room via wired home network.  I now rip onto the local drive and then transfer the FLAC's to the HTPC once I'm finished.  No more errors with FLAC.  Hope this helps.

K-Ron

EAC returning external compression error on select files

Reply #2 –
Quote from: Propboy on
Was getting the exact same problem.  I was trying to rip CD's from the fast computer in the office onto the HTPC's HD in the living room via wired home network.  I now rip onto the local drive and then transfer the FLAC's to the HTPC once I'm finished.  No more errors with FLAC.  Hope this helps.

K-Ron


Nice to get a reply, somehow threads I start often go dead quickly    Thanks.

Well, I'm already ripping to a local drive, so that really shouldn't be the problem. What I do now is delete the WAV file that failed to be encoded to FLAC, and re-rip just the one track. The second has always worked for me, though it is a bit of a nuisance.

What I can't understand is that the 2nd rip has worked 100% of the time (so far).  I assume it can't be a "fatal" flaw with either the optical drive, EAC setup or the disc, otherwise the problem should be persistent. This didn't happen to me when I was using Win XP but I recently upgraded to Win 7 with the exact same hardware, and this problem started popping up.

EAC returning external compression error on select files

Reply #3 –
I don't know if this will help or not, however on Windows XP I don't think FLAC likes too long of a path name as it will complain in the Command Prompt window if the path is too long.

What I've did is move my extraction/encode folder closer to the root of the hard disk, i.e.;
C:\Ripped

Another solution if it is the length of the path/names is to rip to a shorter filename, i.e.:
C:\Ripped\Artist\Year - Album\01 - Track Title.***

EAC returning external compression error on select files

Reply #4 –
Quote from: Andavari on
I don't know if this will help or not, however on Windows XP I don't think FLAC likes too long of a path name as it will complain in the Command Prompt window if the path is too long.

What I've did is move my extraction/encode folder closer to the root of the hard disk, i.e.;
C:\Ripped

Another solution if it is the length of the path/names is to rip to a shorter filename, i.e.:
C:\Ripped\Artist\Year - Album\01 - Track Title.***


Well, I'm on Win 7 but thanks for the heads up. Think I'll pay more attention next time it happens to see if the path length is longer than the rest of the ripped tracks from the same album.

EAC returning external compression error on select files

Reply #5 –
Same issue.

I get errors however

-V -8 -T "artist=%a" -T "title=%t" -T "album=%g" -T "date=%y" -T "tracknumber=%n" -T "genre=%m" %s

it won't let me enter the full thing.


Also the output is still .wav and not .flac

Help :{

 

EAC returning external compression error on select files

Reply #6 –
Try disabling (unchecking) the following option:
[blockquote]EAC Menu -> EAC Options (F9) -> Tools ->
On extraction, start external compressors queued in the background[/blockquote]

I was having the same issue occasionally, on random tracks which always changed.

I'm not sure if it is a hardware issue (maybe a bottleneck somewhere), or software (maybe a conflict), or what, but disabling background compression seemed to stop it from happening.

Having the compressor running in the background only saved me about 5-6 seconds per track (or 1 minute per album), so it wasn't worth the headaches.

EAC returning external compression error on select files

Reply #7 –
I have to add something only tangentially important:  I recommend against encoding at -8 in FLAC.  I've done benchmarks and encoding time goes up exponentially for -7 and -8, and -8 in some test cases returned files which were actually larger than ones encoded at -6.  You're not altering the quality or bitrate, just the extreme optimizations the encoder uses to squeeze extra data into less space.

Regarding the error discussed in this thread: you might try enabling the option which allows the encoder to open in a separate window as the tracks are ripping.  Then you can see each track being encoded (briefly) and get a sense of the timing.  It sounds to me almost as if the program is mis-timing the way it renames the .wav to a temp file for encoding, which it then renames back to the real filename after it's encoded.  It's hard to tell.

EAC returning external compression error on select files

Reply #8 –
With the last EAC beta (1.02) i use this settings without any problems :

-6 -V -T "ARTIST=%artist%" -T "TITLE=%title%" -T "ALBUM=%albumtitle%" -T "DATE=%year%" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%tracknr%" -T "GENRE=%genre%" %source% -o %dest%

The 'test encoder' button in the 'compression options' work fine .
Byez.

EAC returning external compression error on select files

Reply #9 –
I realize that this thread is about 8 months old, but I came across a somewhat similar external compressor error message (SEE IMAGE BELOW).  Being that it is not exactly the same as the thread-starter's error message, my solution may or may not pertain to his situation.

Here is some short background info on me:
- I have previously ripped hundreds of CDs with EAC and never had the external compressor return an error.
- I'm using "Exact Audio Copy V1.0 beta 2 from 29. April 2011".

The first track of the CD ripped "Test & Copy" without any problems up to the point when the temporary WAV file was to be converted to FLAC.  At that point, EAC failed to compress the WAV file to FLAC and the external compressor error message popped up.  After the error window popped up, I clicked on "Cancel" to cancel ripping the rest of the CD.  I looked in my rip destination folder (SEE IMAGE BELOW) and saw the temporary WAV file (not yet converted to FLAC), the .log file (ripping log), the .m3u file (playlist file), and the album art file.  The only thing unusual (aside from the temporary WAV file still being there - instead of the finalized/converted FLAC file) was that the album art file was in BMP format.  For the hundreds of CDs I have previously ripped, the album art files have always been JPGs.  I opened the .log file to see if it might give any additional details as to why I would have received the external compressor error message, but it looked as it would normally look for a perfect rip of the first track of a CD (only the first track, because I had canceled the rest of the tracks after getting the external compressor error message).  The .log file showed that the track had ripped without errors and that the track was confirmed as accurate by AccurateRip (SEE .LOG FILE EXCERPT BELOW).  I deleted the destination folder so that I could re-rip the CD starting from scratch.  First, I tried ripping in the exact same way, except that I used my second CD Drive.  At the same point in this second rip attempt, I received the same external compressor error message and found the same files in the destination folder.  Once again, I canceled the ripping of the rest of the CD and deleted the destination folder to start over again.

SOLUTION:  To get the track (and the rest of the CD) to rip and convert properly, I clicked the freeDB Button ("Get CD Information From Metadata Provider") and chose a different image (than the one I had previously chosen) from the various images matching my CD's album art that the album art search engine found.  I wasn't sure if there was a way to check the format of the images found by the album art search engine, but I just hoped that it would be a JPG.  After changing the album art image, I proceeded to rip the CD as I normally would and all of the tracks ripped (and converted to FLAC) without any issues.


EXTERNAL COMPRESSOR ERROR MESSAGE



Uploaded with ImageShack.us


RIP DESTINATION FOLDER



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

EXCERPT FROM .LOG FILE:

Track  1

    Filename F:\EACrips\Corinne Bailey Rae\The Sea\01 Are You Here.wav

    Pre-gap length  0:00:02.00

    Peak level 100.0 %
    Extraction speed 6.0 X
    Track quality 100.0 %
    Test CRC 54481203
    Copy CRC 54481203
    Accurately ripped (confidence 29)  [D49B868E]  (AR v2)
    Copy OK


All tracks accurately ripped

No errors occurred

End of status report



Mongo like candy.

Re: EAC returning external compression error on select files

Reply #10 –
June 2022
Windows10
Tried multiple suggestions from various threads to no avail, including updating the version of Flac.exe.
I checked Protection History under Windows Security – no  recent  notices.
Rebooted,  Ran EAC to compress to FLAC as before reboot - and Windows now notifies that the folder was blocked.  It seems Windows blocked the folder access but did not register a notification until after reboot.
Works fine after updating Win 10 Controlled Folder access settings.

Re: EAC returning external compression error on select files

Reply #11 –
Quote from: chb on
Try disabling (unchecking) the following option:
[blockquote]EAC Menu -> EAC Options (F9) -> Tools ->
On extraction, start external compressors queued in the background[/blockquote]

I was having the same issue occasionally, on random tracks which always changed.

I'm not sure if it is a hardware issue (maybe a bottleneck somewhere), or software (maybe a conflict), or what, but disabling background compression seemed to stop it from happening.

Having the compressor running in the background only saved me about 5-6 seconds per track (or 1 minute per album), so it wasn't worth the headaches.
I know I am now writing this on 31 Aug 2022, but this may help others.
I'm running Windows 10 Pro x64, version 21H2; EAC 1.6 (but same happens in 1.3)
Hardware is Intel Core i7-3930K CPU @ 3.20 GHz; 32 GB RAM; SSDs for storage - so quite quick.

I was getting the external compressor error every time I tried to compress. This despite the 'Test Encoder' button working AND the fact that I could run flac, lame manually from BAT files using the same command lines as EAC was passing without error.

The fix for me was one thing:
EAC Options dialog > Tools tab
- DO NOT OPEN EXTERNAL COMPRESSOR WINDOW: UNCHECKED

i.e. allow EAC to show the external compressor window.

After that, EAC worked fine. HTH someone.

chb's point about background external compressors made no difference for me: turning that on/off did not help.