Is there any way to automatically check MP3's are not corrupted?

Werewolf · 7 Sep 2009 at 11:15

Hi

Just wondering if there is any software that can run through a collection of MP3's and quickly/accurately check to find any that are slightly corrupted/out of spec?

I ask as my current MP3 player seems to crash occasionally whilst changing tracks (as did my previous one, a much older model), and I'm wondering if it's because one or more MP3's in my collection is slightly corrupted.
I would possibly try and listen to them all, but at several thousand mp3's (some going back 8-9 years) it would take rather a long time to listen to them all (and I'm not sure if the likes of WMP/Winamp are likely to be more forgiving of damaged/dodgy files than a portable player).

Thanks

Pulseammo · 7 Sep 2009 at 11:48

Yeah I use a program called MP3 checker. It'll check for stuff like repetition frames, frames that have the wrong length in the header (which would throw off a player by making it move the wrong offset for each frame).

If its doing it on track change though it could be corrupt ID3 tags, perhaps if whatever you use to write them doesn't use syncsafe integers like it should etc.

The program isn't entirely accurate though I've found, for instance I've ran the same track twice sometimes with different results. Surely if it was a corrupt track then it'd always happen with those specific tracks?

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/MP3_Checker.htm

Werewolf · 7 Sep 2009 at 13:48

Ah thanks, that's the sort of thing

I'm generally using Windows Media Player to do the ID3 tags these days (had to redo a lot of them as originally I used audiograbber for most of my mp3's and I don't think that did them right in the first place).

That programme seems to have spotted a few possible problem files (mainly older ones), i'll try using the scanned mp3's on the player for now

LostPhil · 7 Sep 2009 at 16:03

Werewolf said:
Ah thanks, that's the sort of thing

I'm generally using Windows Media Player to do the ID3 tags these days (had to redo a lot of them as originally I used audiograbber for most of my mp3's and I don't think that did them right in the first place).

That programme seems to have spotted a few possible problem files (mainly older ones), i'll try using the scanned mp3's on the player for now

To rule out tags, could you use Mp3tag to rewrite all of your tags to the same ID3 version? Shouldn't take too long to do, click a few buttons and let it do it's thing.

Saying that, I don't want you to accidently remove all of your tags... ha.