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Topic: Problems encoding with Monkey's Audio 4.11 in fb2k (Read 4005 times) previous topic - next topic
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Problems encoding with Monkey's Audio 4.11 in fb2k

The new version of Monkey's Audio (v4.11) is out, and I've been putting it through it's paces with foobar2000. The results? Not pretty.

In the transcodes I've done (FLAC to APE), there's always 1 to 3 files that won't encode correctly, and I end up getting that "Files converted with major problems, object not found" message. Transcoding the same exact files, though via command line (i.e via Multi-frontend) gives me the total opposite results. No problems at all. Even weirder, when I transcoded all the files of one album (literally) one at a time, the process went smoothly. And with another, trying to do the same brought back the same problems again.

The albums get two thumbs up via Accuraterip, and an md5 check shows no problems, so they're not the cause. What is?


1) Something in Monkey's Audio needs to be fixed?

2) foobar2000 has a problem with...

    a) The MA plugin?

    b) Lack of pipe support causing problems with conversions?


I vaguely remember having to do a transcode with TAK awhile back using temp wav and having problems. Switching back to pipe encoding made the problem go away. Could the problem be the result of foobar2000 not being that great with temp wav encoding?
ghostman

Problems encoding with Monkey's Audio 4.11 in fb2k

Reply #1
someone has already replied to your post in the main MA 4.11 thread....

I just converted three albums (50 files) from FLAC to APE with foobar2000 and had zero problems. The files have their md5 checksums visible in the Properties view and Integrity Verifier also reports all files to be fine. Monkey's Audio decoder doesn't need changes since nothing in the file format has changed.


perhaps you should post your encoder settings if you're expecting any more help....

Problems encoding with Monkey's Audio 4.11 in fb2k

Reply #2
Everything seems fine here.

Problems encoding with Monkey's Audio 4.11 in fb2k

Reply #3
It’s a bit of a long shot since you said that the same files can work in other cases, but do the affected files’ names contain any less common characters that may be interfering with the encoder?

Problems encoding with Monkey's Audio 4.11 in fb2k

Reply #4
File names are not an issue with foobar2000. It uses short temporary names with ascii characters and later renames output to proper names. This method allows non-unicode aware encoders to be used with unicode characters.
What can interfere with encoding are anti-virus programs that lock files, but foobar has precautions for these too. It retries file operations after a delay to give problematic scanners a chance to release handles. It's possible something locks files for too long and even the retries are not enough.
Another possible cause is that multiple source files try to take same output name. This would fail but I don't remember what messages it would give.

Problems encoding with Monkey's Audio 4.11 in fb2k

Reply #5
someone has already replied to your post in the main MA 4.11 thread....

I just converted three albums (50 files) from FLAC to APE with foobar2000 and had zero problems. The files have their md5 checksums visible in the Properties view and Integrity Verifier also reports all files to be fine. Monkey's Audio decoder doesn't need changes since nothing in the file format has changed.


perhaps you should post your encoder settings if you're expecting any more help....


%s %d -c2000

That's the way it's set up in foobar2000
ghostman

 

Problems encoding with Monkey's Audio 4.11 in fb2k

Reply #6
The whole anti-virus theory doesn't work in my case because I shut that off before I convert anything. And then I get a message like this"


Code: [Select]
2 out of 10 tracks converted with major problems.

Source: "C:\Downloads\U2 - 1983 - War (Island, 900167-2)_flac\03. New Year's Day.flac"
  An error occurred while finalizing the encoding process (Object not found) : "C:\Documents and Settings\RKA\My Documents\My Music\Converted\U2\1983 - War (Island 900167-2) [Target CD] (West Germany)\03. New Year's Day.ape"
  Conversion failed: Object not found
Source: "C:\Downloads\U2 - 1983 - War (Island, 900167-2)_flac\09. Surrender.flac"
  An error occurred while finalizing the encoding process (Object not found) : "C:\Documents and Settings\RKA\My Documents\My Music\Converted\U2\1983 - War (Island 900167-2) [Target CD] (West Germany)\09. Surrender.ape"
  Conversion failed: Object not found


That's just one version of this type of error message I've gotten converting the same album, because the amount of problem tracks always changes every single time. One, three, two...it's totally random.
ghostman

Problems encoding with Monkey's Audio 4.11 in fb2k

Reply #7
The whole anti-virus theory doesn't work in my case because I shut that off before I convert anything.

Shutting down or disabling anti-virus software does not always remove its interference.  The fact that the affected tracks changes each time points very strongly to AV or other software accessing the files.  The only way to be sure is to uninstall your AV completely. 

Do you have any other "security" software on your PC?  Remove them as well.

Problems encoding with Monkey's Audio 4.11 in fb2k

Reply #8
Maybe some problem with Windows configuration... Like disabling some system service... I got problem with deleting .exe files (I had to wait several minutes before they were seriously deleted) when I disabled Application Experience (AeLookupSvc) service... Maybe something with Windows Defender?

Problems encoding with Monkey's Audio 4.11 in fb2k

Reply #9
Actually, I kill all non-essential crap that runs in the background (via a specialized program) that takes care of all of that before I do each encode, so, again, that's not an issue with me.

I have, though, run additional tests, and have discovered that, apparently, foobar2000 needs more space than traditional command line encoding to do it's job. Found this out when, after playing a hunch, I deleted some stuff, did another encode with MA 4.11, and had every single file go from FLAC to APE with no mistakes. That would explain why, before, encoding via Multi-frontend worked every single time and didn't with fb2k until space increased.

Of course, pipe encoding, I think, would totally get around this type of stuff. But Matt can't be bothered to have it in there, even though the devs over at Rarewares have already figured out how to do it. Managed to find their MA version somewhere and have done some test encodes with it. It works perfectly. Too bad it's not compatible with fb2k.
ghostman

Problems encoding with Monkey's Audio 4.11 in fb2k

Reply #10
So you're saying your primary drive is completely full?

Problems encoding with Monkey's Audio 4.11 in fb2k

Reply #11
In the case of using a command-line encoder which doesn't support piped input, it requires the full size of a PCM WAV file for each converted file, until each file finishes converting. Multiply this by the number of encoding threads you have running, and this can be quite a bit of space.

If you don't like this, convince someone to implement piped input for Monkey's Audio encoder, or somehow start foobar2000 with the %temp% environment variable set to somewhere other than your primary drive, or use a different encoder, like FLAC or WavPack.