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Topic: Issues with playing FLAC files in a Mazda (Read 13629 times) previous topic - next topic
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Issues with playing FLAC files in a Mazda

Hello!

I have a Mazda car with infotainment system which originally does not support FLAC playback, however the system is easily customizable and one guy added support of FLAC playback. It was working fine in one of the previous firmware versions, than I got my system updated and FLAC support tweak stopped working until that guy made another tweak to support it in the newer firmware version. In this FW there is an easier way to add its support, however now some files won't simply play in my car.

Now I try to figure out the reason why those files don't play. I have tried removing all tags, renaming the files, moving them to the root of the USB flash disk, using another USB flash disk - does not help.
One thing I noticed - if a song from particular album doesn't play - none of the other songs from the same album will play.
I thought maybe it's related to FLAC encoder version. I compared files that play with those that don't - but there were files in both groups with same encoder versions, so that for example files encoded with 1.3.1 were both playing and not.
Then I also tried to convert one of the problematic files from FLAC to FLAC using CMD and latest FLAC.exe - also did not help.
Out of 3700 files - 861 do not work.

Also I thought that bit depth or Sample rate, or simply size could be the reason, but there are files as heavy as 24/96 that do work, so that's also out of question.

I'm out of ideas what could be the reason. What else could be specific about a group of FLAC files that differs them from another group of files? How can I check it?

Re: Issues with playing FLAC files in a Mazda

Reply #1
Possibly ask the guy who did the firmware tweaks why, what he's changed etc?

Re: Issues with playing FLAC files in a Mazda

Reply #2
The only thing I can conjecture up is different "compression" levels.
Maybe 5 does play and 8 don't.
It is a rare but I know in the past some streamers had difficulties with 8
TheWellTemperedComputer.com

Re: Issues with playing FLAC files in a Mazda

Reply #3
Perhaps the embedded album art is too big.

Re: Issues with playing FLAC files in a Mazda

Reply #4
Perhaps the embedded album art is too big.

That's definitely not the reason, as I remove all embedded art.

Possibly ask the guy who did the firmware tweaks why, what he's changed etc?

He rarely responds. Hard to get in touch with him.

The only thing I can conjecture up is different "compression" levels.
Maybe 5 does play and 8 don't.
It is a rare but I know in the past some streamers had difficulties with 8

Hmm, that's an option. I should test it today.

Re: Issues with playing FLAC files in a Mazda

Reply #5
Yeah, a developer would be more likely to test the default than anything else.  Of course it won't hurt to bring nine files written with -0 to -8 to test.
And, try to remove album art before converting. Otherwise, it may be replaced by padding of the same size, and if it has issues with album art size, then you cannot rule out that what it really does not like, is the size of the metadata section.


Re: Issues with playing FLAC files in a Mazda

Reply #7
http://mazda3revolution.com/forums/2014-2017-mazda-3-skyactiv-audio-electronics/207938-android-auto-bluetooth-call-issue-fixed.html

There is a lot of info on the tweak you are mentioning on this thread.  I have a 2016 Mazda 3 and was reading up on it a while back.
JXL

I don't see how it's related.
Linked thread is about Android Auto, and I'm talking about FLAC support tweak, which is not a part of AIO as of now.
And FLAC tweak was not written by Trezdog44 (developer of current AIO version), so it makes even less sense for me :)


Re: Issues with playing FLAC files in a Mazda

Reply #8
AIO has FLAC support built into their installer and I thought you could use it.... my bad. 

I saw the thread discussing this tweak by Diorcity and your posts.  You may be better off just picking a new format that the infotainment system can handle natively and get rid of the tweak.

Using a lossless format in the car is a bit overkill anyways.  I transcode my FLAC files to AAC with TVBR at 256 kb/s using qaac and I consider that to even be a bit of overkill.  Transparency can be achieved at much lower bitrates.
JXL

Re: Issues with playing FLAC files in a Mazda

Reply #9
Can you link the firmware modification you're testing?

Re: Issues with playing FLAC files in a Mazda

Reply #10
Using a lossless format in the car is a bit overkill anyways.  I transcode my FLAC files to AAC with TVBR at 256 kb/s using qaac and I consider that to even be a bit of overkill.  Transparency can be achieved at much lower bitrates.
Not the point.
Can you link the firmware modification you're testing?
I was about to ask this in fact.

Re: Issues with playing FLAC files in a Mazda

Reply #11
Can you link the firmware modification you're testing?

Here's the original post with the modification files: http://mazda3revolution.com/forums/2014-2017-mazda-3-skyactiv-audio-electronics/117162-media-flac-support-track-ordering-3.html#post2124234

In order to install them in the car, few more files are needed.


Today I tested compression level.
Once again I used FLAC 1.3.2 from https://xiph.org/flac/.
First I decoded the original problematic file to wav.
Then I encoded it again using all 8 levels separately.

I placed all 10 files on USB disk: 8 new FLAC files, WAV file and old FLAC file.
All files except the old FLAC are working just fine.

AIO has FLAC support built into their installer and I thought you could use it.... my bad. 
If you want to know the full story, here it is:
I had a 56.00.511 firmware version. AIO had FLAC tweak back then. I used it and it worked pretty good, but it used a method of patching a system file of a head unit. I had one issue that kept bothering me from time to time - start of playback from first track after starting a car, so that it did not continue playback from the last track where it stopped, but restart from first.
I updated my FW to 59.00.443 hoping it will be fixed, but AIO started having some issues with FLAC tweak for that and some other versions. People kept getting bootloops of their headunit, and eventually Trezdog44 removed the support of that FLAC tweak from AIO. I was left without FLAC support, until a new version of FW was released - 59.00.502, with a changed mediaplayer and had some other major fixes. Original FLAC tweak writer, diorcety, came out of a shadow again, saying that now it's easier to add FLAC support, as it does not require patching the system file. So I decided to upgrade my FW to this version and use this new tweak. And now I have this problem with some files, that did work on 56.00.511 just fine - are not working now on 59.00.502, and on top of that - the first track problem is much much worse, as it keeps popping up almost each time. I e-mailed Mazda support about it, and they say that issue is known and they will release a fix soon (which probably they hoped to be fixed in all of the previous versions).
And also I can't go back to previous FW versions from 59.00.502.

I saw the thread discussing this tweak by Diorcity and your posts.  You may be better off just picking a new format that the infotainment system can handle natively and get rid of the tweak.

Using a lossless format in the car is a bit overkill anyways.  I transcode my FLAC files to AAC with TVBR at 256 kb/s using qaac and I consider that to even be a bit of overkill.  Transparency can be achieved at much lower bitrates.
JXL
Yeah, that's not an interesting way out of the problem. And I don't want to convert all of my music specifically for the car.

Re: Issues with playing FLAC files in a Mazda

Reply #12
Doublepost :(

Re: Issues with playing FLAC files in a Mazda

Reply #13
Today I tested compression level.
Once again I used FLAC 1.3.2 from https://xiph.org/flac/.
First I decoded the original problematic file to wav.
Then I encoded it again using all 8 levels separately.

I placed all 10 files on USB disk: 8 new FLAC files, WAV file and old FLAC file.
All files except the old FLAC are working just fine.

So ... now it is even harder to understand why the old FLAC does not work? (It was created with 1.3.1?)

By the way, there are nine levels. -0 to -8.

Re: Issues with playing FLAC files in a Mazda

Reply #14
SergSlim, can you run mataflac.exe --list file.flac on problematic file and post console output here?

Re: Issues with playing FLAC files in a Mazda

Reply #15
SergSlim, can you run mataflac.exe --list file.flac on problematic file and post console output here?

METADATA block #0
  type: 0 (STREAMINFO)
  is last: false
  length: 34
  minimum blocksize: 4608 samples
  maximum blocksize: 4608 samples
  minimum framesize: 16 bytes
  maximum framesize: 25132 bytes
  sample_rate: 44100 Hz
  channels: 2
  bits-per-sample: 24
  total samples: 9453413
  MD5 signature: 76c29045ad161336b8ce21dcfd08fb46
METADATA block #1
  type: 4 (VORBIS_COMMENT)
  is last: false
  length: 222
  vendor string:
  comments: 9
    comment[0]: TITLE=Invisible
    comment[1]: TOTALTRACKS=10
    comment[2]: CONTENTGROUP=Alternatif Et Indé
    comment[3]: COPYRIGHT=2017 Warner Bros. Records Inc.
    comment[4]: BAND=Linkin Park
    comment[5]: Album=One More Light
    comment[6]: Artist=Linkin Park
    comment[7]: DATE=2017
    comment[8]: TRACKNUMBER=05
METADATA block #2
  type: 1 (PADDING)
  is last: true
  length: 266058

Re: Issues with playing FLAC files in a Mazda

Reply #16
UPDATE:
OK, removing just Padding seems to have fixed the issue. Tested on this particular file, and I still have to test it on all of the other files to be sure.
I did not find a way to list all FLAC files in GUI with padding info. I mean, for example, opening all files in MP3TAG, and adding a Padding column to be able to sort by size. Is there any such utility?
Trying to remove padding from all problematic files. We'll see if it will make all of those files working.

Also those files that do work also have padding. At least some of them. I checked just few, but padding size is much smaller.

Re: Issues with playing FLAC files in a Mazda

Reply #17
You can use foobar2000 to remove padding. Add all problematic files to playlist, select all, then right click->Utilities->Optimize file layout + minimize file size

Re: Issues with playing FLAC files in a Mazda

Reply #18
Already did it using bat file and metaflac :)