MP3 Playlist Limitations? Many MP3's don't play

from Stardock Forums
I have a winamp playlist that obviously works in winamp ;) . But in the game only certain ones work. Specifically mp3's I've made of my CDs. I'm thinking it's because either the filename or directory names are too long, or a combination of both. The ones I've downloaded from the internet usually have small names just the name of the song and I have them in a separate directory. However the ones I've made include the Artist, album name, song number and song name as the filename, not to mention it's in the My Music directory that is actually really far down in the directory structure. These mp3's were made using LAME 3.93.1. They also include ID3v1 and ID3v2 tags.

Here is an example of one that does not play, here is the directory name and name of the file.

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\My Music\Tsueno Imahori_Trigun Spicy Stewed Donut_06_Cynical Pink.mp3

~SDC~
321 views 10 replies
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
I wonder if there's a problem with spaces in the path/file name. My entire list doesn't play. The file names just endlessly rapid-cycle down at the bottom of the screen during play. No idea what the problem is, but might be related to your problem.
Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
The playlist I'm currently using is full of songs with spaces in their names, as well as all being very long filenames. The only difference I can think of is the underscore "_" that you have in that mp3s filename.

That may be the cause of your problems, but I could also be very wrong. :)
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
AStott that is exactly what I get with the songs that don't play, the names rapid cycle down until it comes to one that will play and those are the downloaded ones, not the ones I've made.

~SDC~
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Check the bitrate of your MP3s. The GalCiv MP3 player won't play MP3s with bitrates higher than 160 kbps.

~SDC~
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
All my MP3s are 128 constant bit rate, not variable bit rate. And all the ones that I've downloaded and work are also 128 constant bit rate.

~SDC~
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
AStott: if it can't find your files, it does that rapid cycle thing because it keeps trying to play the next one. If you're saving from winamp, you should save it directly to your playlist directory so that it will save all the path information instead of just the relative information.

If you just renamed a Windows Media Player playlist to .m3u, it can't handle all the tags and stuff in the version that is currently available. I've written some initial code that will convert Windows Media Player playlists to m3u format (which is basically just the filenames with their paths), but it hasn't been tested much.

Delric: that filename looks fine. I've had longer ones, with underscores as well. Are you saying that your mp3s have extended information listed in your winamp playlist? If you e-mail it to me, I'll run it through the debugger and see why it isn't parsing it correctly.
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
CariElf taking your advice to AStott I opened up the .m3u lists from Winamp in notepad and I saw what you are talking about it had relative information b/c I make the playlists in My Documents and since My Music is in My Documents that was causing the problems. I saved the list in the GalCiv Playlist directory and the mp3s now play. I also looked at the list in Notepad and it still is a relative list since it doesn't have C: at the beginning of the mp3 entries but it works. The other mp3s worked because they were on another harddrive F: and that info was correctly inputted in the playlist. Those files had full pathnames. Wish they'd make Winamp always make FULL pathnames so this wouldn't happen.

Long story short problem solved for me. Thanks CariElf

~SDC~