Lister / Viewer can't play MP3 files with ID3v2.4 tags

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Petibite
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Lister / Viewer can't play MP3 files with ID3v2.4 tags

Post by *Petibite »

Hi there,

Cheers for this great application.
TC can play MP3 files automatically when I press F3 on them but I realized that it can't in some cases. I successfully identified the root cause of these cases. TC can play MP3 files if they have ID3v2.3 tags. TC can't play MP3 files if they do not have ID3v2.3 tags but only ID3v2.4 tags.
  • ID3v2.4 usually comes with UTF-8 encoding.
  • ID3v2.3 can come with UTF-16 and ISO-8859-1 encoding too.
Is it possible to fix/solve it? :)

Thank you very much!

Péter
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Usher
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Re: Lister / Viewer can't play MP3 files with ID3v2.4 tags

Post by *Usher »

Could you provide links to some files with such tags for tests, please?
I suspect that you should just install better codecs and register them systemwide using regsrv32.exe.
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Re: Lister / Viewer can't play MP3 files with ID3v2.4 tags

Post by *elgonzo »

Here on my Win7 box, TC's lister plays MP3s with ID3v2.4 tags only without any problems. No lister plug-in involved in the playback. (I am running TC 9.51 x64)

Make sure you are using the current version of TC (9.51 as of writing this post).
Make sure you don't use any lister plug-in for MP3 playback, but really only use TC's built-in media playback capabilities.

If you use a lister plug-in for MP3 playback, and you want keep using this plug-in, then look in the "Plugins and addons: devel.+support" forum section, if there is already a discussion/thread about this plug-in. See, if your problem has already been discussed and solved in this thread. If not, ask about your plug-in problem in that thread or create a new thread in the "Plugins and addons: devel.+support" forum section.

If you have double-checked that your problem is not related to any possibly installed lister plug-in [***], tell us which TC version and bitness and which OS version you are using.



[***] To check whether the problem is related to a lister plug-in or not, start TC with the commandline parameter /i, like:

Code: Select all

<PathToTotalCommanderExe> "/I=%TEMP%\test.ini"
This will create a new TC ini file in %TEMP% with default settings, and thus start a TC instance with default settings and without plug-ins being used. (Don't worry, your normal TC configuration and ini file(s) will not be lost nor altered). Try to playback your MP3 then with F3/lister. (To go back to your normal TC, close this TC instance and start TC as usual without the /I parameter.)
Begrudgingly back to Windows... now 11... sigh... but i have no nerve for Linux desktop anymore...
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Re: Lister / Viewer can't play MP3 files with ID3v2.4 tags

Post by *Dalai »

elgonzo wrote: 2020-12-05, 14:21 UTC Here on my Win7 box, TC's lister plays MP3s with ID3v2.4 tags only without any problems. No lister plug-in involved in the playback.
Same here. I tried MP3s that only contain ID3v2.4 as well as ones that contain both ID3v1 and ID3v2.4 and all of them are played just fine in TC 8.52a and 9.51 (32-bit). The only thing that stood out was that files with VBR are shown with an incorrect (much longer) runtime, but that's another topic and probably due to some shortcomings of the media interface used by TC.

PS: I used MP3Tag to find files which have the appropriate ID3 tags.

Regards
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Re: Lister / Viewer can't play MP3 files with ID3v2.4 tags

Post by *miskox »

I have same problems as original author. Some play fine, some don't play.

Here is a sample file (it will be deleted in 24 hours) which doesn't play.

www.kockarna.si/doesntplay.zip

Saso

TC 9.51, XP pro, 32-bit
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Re: Lister / Viewer can't play MP3 files with ID3v2.4 tags

Post by *Usher »

2miskox
Works for me in Windows XP.
It's not a problem with ID3 version, I think. You may have problems if the full path with filename is very long. There may be different limits in MCI and in installed codecs/players registered for specific extensions. For me *.flac and *.webm play up to 120 characters while *.mp3 files play up to 259 characters. Other people reported limit 128 characters for mp3.
You should use shorter directory names or flatten your subdirectory tree.
Last edited by Usher on 2021-01-04, 01:25 UTC, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Lister / Viewer can't play MP3 files with ID3v2.4 tags

Post by *miskox »

@usher: thanks for the tip. I moved this file to the root. Does not play at all.
(this file was created by a record company so this is why I will delete it soon. It was a legal download.)


Thanks.
Saso
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Re: Lister / Viewer can't play MP3 files with ID3v2.4 tags

Post by *Horst.Epp »

miskox wrote: 2021-01-02, 20:20 UTC I have same problems as original author. Some play fine, some don't play.

Here is a sample file (it will be deleted in 24 hours) which doesn't play.

www.kockarna.si/doesntplay.zip

Saso

TC 9.51, XP pro, 32-bit
This plays nice in Lister without any plugins
Windows 11 Home x64 Version 23H2 (OS Build 22631.3296)
TC 11.03 x64 / x86
Everything 1.5.0.1371a (x64), Everything Toolbar 1.3.2, Listary Pro 6.3.0.69
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Usher
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Re: Lister / Viewer can't play MP3 files with ID3v2.4 tags

Post by *Usher »

miskox wrote: 2021-01-03, 11:14 UTC @usher: thanks for the tip. I moved this file to the root. Does not play at all.
Strange. It should play directly in Lister with no plugins, if you have fully updated Windows XP (with Windows Media Player installed and updated as well). Maybe you have uninstalled some media player or codecs and the uninstall unregistered mp3 support.
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Re: Lister / Viewer can't play MP3 files with ID3v2.4 tags

Post by *Usher »

2miskox
Some more remarks and hints.
1. TC plugins tell that it's ID3 v.2.3, so it's not a problem described in the very first message in this topic.
2. Your file is saved as 320 kbps VBR stream. Old system codecs (for example, in Windows 9x/2000) have problems with such settings. They work OK for bitrate 128 kbps and lower with CBR (constant bitrate), for other files the old codecs either show improper playing time or don't play such files at all.
3. This file contain a pretty big jpg cover (300 KB, 700x700 pixels) in ID3 metadata. Old codecs may skip small thumbnails (several KB in size), but they may have problems with such large pictures. You can use some player or another tool to strip pictures or all ID3 tags and test file without tags.
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Re: Lister / Viewer can't play MP3 files with ID3v2.4 tags

Post by *sqa_wizard »

Usher: Great! You got it.
Tried to play mp3 of doesntplay.zip by fresh TC with no success.

Deleting cover from mp3 plays smoothly then.
Reducing the cover from 700x700 px (300 KB) to 340x340 px (60 KB) plays smoothly too.
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Re: Lister / Viewer can't play MP3 files with ID3v2.4 tags

Post by *miskox »

Thank you all. Now I rememeber that bitrate might have to do something with the problem. But I never thought of the embedded cover...

For such files I use VLC. (though I prefer F3).

Maybe Christian can update/fix the TC if this is fixable within TC?

Thanks again.

Saso
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Re: Lister / Viewer can't play MP3 files with ID3v2.4 tags

Post by *ghisler(Author) »

I'm currently moving the internal player from using VfW to using DirectShow. I hope that it will handle your file, I missed the 24 hour period to download it.
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Re: Lister / Viewer can't play MP3 files with ID3v2.4 tags

Post by *miskox »

@ghisler: PM sent.

Thanks.
Saso
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Re: Lister / Viewer can't play MP3 files with ID3v2.4 tags

Post by *ghisler(Author) »

Thanks, got them. So far they are all playing via DirectShow.
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