Currupt File Verifacation

[sbequette]

I bought hoster, and it has been a godsend saving me from lugging books of CDs around as well as keeping straight my singers queue. Probably like most of you, the second I bought it, I spent several long nights importing all of my CD+Gs and the existing backed up MP3+G files. This amounted to a LOT of songs. I spot checked quite a few of them, just too see how they played, and how they looked with the TV out interface on my computer. Low and behold after I got to my show, one of my requests, wouldn't play, and it said corrupted file. After the show, I started doing more spot checks and found another corrupted file from the same disc, and one from a differant disc. I understand that this could happen, but now I'm in a situation where I have imported something of the range of 1000 CDGs, but I can't trust the integrity of the data, meaning if my song list says I have the song, I had better have the song. This wouldn't be a big deal if I had noticed it on a particular CD, but now within a 1000 CDs, I don't know if I have any more bad files, and checking each one individually is not an option as it would take a lifetime. So the question I pose is; Is there a tool out there that can browse through all of the files and check whether they can load or not? If not, is there a chance it could be added to the new features request queue. It would certainly save me the fear of finding out I'm missing a song at showtime.

Thanks,
Steve

[bryant]

Only two nights to import 1000 Cd's?
Is this possible? I doubt it.
Most of us took three weeks or more
to import less than 1/2 of that.

[admin]

Try rebuilding your Songs Database.

Tools menu > Build Songs Database command : click the Build Songs Database button at the bottom left of the dialog box.

If I am right, this will find any files that are bad as it adds them... or not. Read the manual on this command (see under Tools menu) before you start. It gives you the filename where bad filenames are written to. You can then open this afterwards and see what files to re-import.

Power users out there, correct me if I'm wrong...

[sbequette]

Originally Posted by bryant

Only two nights to import 1000 Cd's?
Is this possible? I doubt it.
Most of us took three weeks or more
to import less than 1/2 of that.

OK, I love it when people reply without actually reading the post! Your post does nothing to help me, and it is actually a flame that there was no sense for, if you actually read my post. Please tell me were exactly in my post I said "two nights to import 1000 Cd's"? I assure you that my post says "Several nights". I also assume since your profile says you are in fact located in the US, that you have a grip on the English language. Never does several=two or any specific number for that matter. Reading through these posts, I see a lot of people flaming others and most of them are simply rude, with little detail paid to what the original poster said. If you are going to flame me, at least make sure you read the content of the actual post. I assure you, I have spent much more than two nights importing CDs and MP3+Gs.

Now, for those of you that are actually on here to help people, I will continue. I tried rebuilding the database but it did not help as I expected it wouldn't, because the files are actualy in fact corrupt. They are corrupt for reasons that had nothing to do with Hoster, they were simply corrupt before importing, and Hoster seemed to have made it through the import without verifying them. Probably because they we MP3+G that I backed up previously, and to the speed of that sort of import probably no verifacation happens which is fine. My question is not why these file are corrupt. I know this, but what I don't know is how many corrupt files I actually have. Hoster has the ability to determine this obviously because when I try to play the file, Hoster marks it as corrupt. So what I was wondering was if there was a tool, script or anything, that could go through the files, try to open them, and tell me which ones do not load correctly. One way to do this would be to add all songs in the database and let them continuously play, but this option is not a good one since the majority of songs are not corrupt and will actually play. With 3-4 minutes per valid song, this will take a very long time. I need something that will open one, if it opens ok, move on to the next one without playing the whole song. If this tool doesn't exist, it would be usefull to have in the future.

[Harryoke]

Might it be something to do with the MP3G imported files? I run Hoster, and use only the KMA files from ripping the discs. A friend came over who uses another program, and we hooked his external hard drive to my PC to see how Hoster would handle playing MP3G files in its newer incarnation.

It seemed to work fine, until we started getting our sing on and looking deeper in the catalog, finding files that would not play, saying they were corrupt.

This bugged me as well, but all my KMA ripped files have always played well. I would be reluctant, based on that experience, to use a catalog of MP3G files until I was certain that was not the problem. It could involve how the tracks may have been ripped to that format perhaps??

Just another thought to explore.

[gd123]

Hoster has always had problems Importing Mp3+Gs, whether in ZIP form or expanded form.

It's always the same song about the mp3 not being ripped at the correct compression, even though every Mp3 and Mp3+G Player in the known universe plays them perfectly.

I was helping a friend last Monday with Importing ZIPs and we were getting quite a few ERRORs during Import.

I used MP3GToolz 3.0 to expand and Compress back to ZIP, used Winrar 3.42 to Convert the ZIP, and the Trk Imported correctly.

I suggested to my friend that, since the process of Expanding, Compressing, and Converting...leave alone having to make a note of which trks had errors in order to find them for repair later...BECAUSE HOSTER DOESN'T MAKE A LIST FOR YOU<---look...I'm yelling...I'm sorry...I just break up laughing every time I see some comment about Yelling...I wasn't aware that the ears could hear what the Eyes were seeing...man...that Yelling is just Offensive...ewweee...see...my Yelling got me side-tracked...sorry.

So, I suggested to him to do what I do, and, that is, to convert the ZIPs to BINs and Import as BINs. Actually, I take it one step further and rename the BINs to CDGs and Import as a HDCDG. I seem to recall a version that caused a catastrophe with EDITED/IMPORTED BINS upon rebuilding the DB. I had to re-import hundreds of Trks starting from a certain DATE.

BINs are so nice in that...hey...they're not Mp3+Gs so...no errors. Also, a little tidbit for those who have all kinds of comments in there Mp3 Headers. Converting to BINs and back to Mp3+Gs cleans all the HEADER info up.

But, the bottom line is, you don't need to listen to any KMAs generated from Mp3+G to check for Errors.

Now, I know this will be a lot of work. But, join the Hoster Club. You won't be the first to re-import to fix something.

[bryant]

Ouch, sorry about the flame, if that is the way you took it. We on the East coast consider several as usually meaning 2 or 3 or 4. However, three to four weeks might be construed as "many" long nights.

Once again, my mistake, just thought it was odd that
you could've typed that fast.

[ddouglass]

Originally Posted by GD123

I seem to recall a version that caused a catastrophe with EDITED/IMPORTED BINS upon rebuilding the DB. Actually, I take it one step further and rename the BINs to CDGs and Import as a HDCDG.

This was corrected as soon as it was found and no longer is an issue. In actuality the BIN and CDG are the same, so renaming isn't necessary.

MP3 is really the worst compression format ever devised. The loss of sound quality is not offset by the amount of storage space saved.

Steve, if those files came from original CDG discs and were not originally MP3+G zip format I would highly recommend you go back and import directly from the disc to get the best sound quality. If originally MP3+G then do as GD123 says and uncompress to BIN and import that way. Once you have them in KMA format then you can use that as your backup.

[gd123]

This was corrected as soon as it was found and no longer is an issue. In actuality the BIN and CDG are the same, so renaming isn't necessary.

As usuall, you missed the point.

And, the point is:

BIN was the problem...not CDG. Renaming an extension takes all of 1 sec.

Fool me once, shame on you...Fool me twice, shame on me.

With each version that comes out, I would have to TEST to make sure that what was being imported, as BIN, wasn't going to be hosed later by editing and rebuilding, etc. So, why should I go through all that testing for peace of mind?

I use a, known good, version to import with and will NEVER use any other version.

I ONLY use newer versions at shows. And, even that has stopped since v3.312, which is the last update that works 100%...screen redraw problems and all, since v3.313 to current.

My suggestion stands...Convert to BIN, rename to CDG, and Import under the CDG tab.

[ddouglass]

Originally Posted by gd123

As usuall, you missed the point.

And, the point is:

BIN was the problem...not CDG. Renaming an extension takes all of 1 sec.

Fool me once, shame on you...Fool me twice, shame on me.

With each version that comes out, I would have to TEST to make sure that what was being imported, as BIN, wasn't going to be hosed later by editing and rebuilding, etc. So, why should I go through all that testing for peace of mind?

I use a, known good, version to import with and will NEVER use any other version.

I ONLY use newer versions at shows. And, even that has stopped since v3.312, which is the last update that works 100%...screen redraw problems and all, since v3.313 to current.

My suggestion stands...Convert to BIN, rename to CDG, and Import under the CDG tab.

And mine still stands that the problem was corrected as quickly as it was discovered. And no one has reported the problem since that correction. MTU has done nothing but try to improve their software and to give us what we ask for in a karaoke hosting program.

[admin]

Originally Posted by sbequette

Now, for those of you that are actually on here to help people, I will continue. I tried rebuilding the database but it did not help as I expected it wouldn't, because the files are actualy in fact corrupt. They are corrupt for reasons that had nothing to do with Hoster, they were simply corrupt before importing, and Hoster seemed to have made it through the import without verifying them. Probably because they we MP3+G that I backed up previously, and to the speed of that sort of import probably no verifacation happens which is fine. My question is not why these file are corrupt. I know this, but what I don't know is how many corrupt files I actually have. Hoster has the ability to determine this obviously because when I try to play the file, Hoster marks it as corrupt. So what I was wondering was if there was a tool, script or anything, that could go through the files, try to open them, and tell me which ones do not load correctly. One way to do this would be to add all songs in the database and let them continuously play, but this option is not a good one since the majority of songs are not corrupt and will actually play. With 3-4 minutes per valid song, this will take a very long time. I need something that will open one, if it opens ok, move on to the next one without playing the whole song. If this tool doesn't exist, it would be usefull to have in the future.

sbequette, I understand your point above, and agree it is a pain. However, it is my understanding that rebuilding the database will error check your files, which is why I suggested that. I went back and read the manual, and there is a log file created of all duplicate BookIDs when the Build Songs Database command is run. My bad! I'm not on the primary support team... and normally off in the next or second next releases to come.

I'll have our lead programmer check the Build Songs Database command. If it doesn't verify the MP3 portion of HDMP3G or HDZIP files, then I'll see if we can add that to provide an "error check" after importing, and log the bad files in the .log file.

As to MP3G/ZIP files, we have 8 error traps in the Import Hard Drive Files screen that process when converting MP3G and ZIP files to KMAs. I'm shocked that any error got through.

If you would email one of the files that displays error when played to support@mtu.com, we'll find what's wrong and add a 9th error trap in the next release. If you email it, please reference this Thread URL (get it from the Address line above when viewing the posts here).

Thanks for reporting it.

[admin]

Originally Posted by gd123

Hoster has always had problems Importing Mp3+Gs, whether in ZIP form or expanded form.

It's always the same song about the mp3 not being ripped at the correct compression, even though every Mp3 and Mp3+G Player in the known universe plays them perfectly.

Acutally, for years MTU REFUSED to support the MP3+G format as it was designed as a THEFT tool to illegally distribute karaoke files over the Internet. Finally when enough honest users convinced us to add MP3G and ZIP support, we did so. We wish we never had due to all the bad files out there, and I don't mean just Max Compression files. That's why we have EIGHT error traps for MP3G and ZIP files. We have so far identified that many types of problems, and block their importing.

Every 6 months or so we check the Internet for the latest versions of UNZIP available. Maybe we're missing something that others are using. However, the "Max Compression" that is NOT SUPPORTED in ANY of the available code we have reviewed is indicative that this format has no valid use. We DO HAVE error traps to prevent Max files from being processed. We have spent a fortune trying to capture all the junk that floats around in MP3G and ZIP files. These were NOT designed by a professional, and were NEVER intended to prevent problems. So MANY users who are unaware of what they are doing, use the faulty toolz etc. and create at least 8 types of bad files.

Originally Posted by gd123

As usuall, you missed the point.

And, the point is:

BIN was the problem...not CDG. Renaming an extension takes all of 1 sec.

Fool me once, shame on you...Fool me twice, shame on me.

With each version that comes out, I would have to TEST to make sure that what was being imported, as BIN, wasn't going to be hosed later by editing and rebuilding, etc. So, why should I go through all that testing for peace of mind?

I use a, known good, version to import with and will NEVER use any other version.

gd123, ddouglass is correct, so drop the attitude if you want help. If you want to just complain, expect your posts to be deleted in the future. This is a HELP forum. The problem with BIN files was immediately fixed once it was discovered.

If you are not able to run higher than 3.312, then it is your computer/windows causing it. We have thousands of users running above 3.312. Instead of assuming it is Hoster, consider creating a Support Ticket and ask for help. If you do, please read the instructions on asking for help to give us clear facts. Emotions never solve problems; facts allow a solution to be found.

As to your NEVER using a higher version, well 3.316 has the best error correction code available at any price, even superior to the hardware error correction chips. Thus, importing with 3.316 will give you FAR superior imported files with no or very few graphic errors. Your choice, but now you know.