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Corrupt Music Files / Artwork Not Modifiable / Itunes Won't Play Music

Hello everyone,

I have had this problem for some time and it keeps getting worse, so I am trying to get a firm answer on this once and for all. I will try to be as complete as possible with the configuration I am working with do avoid "what ifs" and such. Thank you for your help in advance!

Setup: Windows XP Pro / Media Center Edition
Itunes 6.0.5.20 (Didn't upgrade because of everyones posted problems)
Quicktime 7.1.3

The Problem: Over time I have noticed that certain MP3s that I have in my library have become unreadable by Itunes. If they are in my library they get an "artwork not modifiable" error in the art box, and if I try to add such a file, itunes will simply not do it or play it at all. If I try and open these files in Quicktime I get "Error -2048: the file is not a movie file." However, if I open it in windows media player the world is fine and my music plays no problem.

Itunes / Quicktime Setup: All MP3s (the whole library) v2.4 ID3 tags
Manual Music Handling (I organize better than the program can IMO)
Default Music Player is WMP (but I never use it with my library)

Extended Information: This has been happening steadily for over about 8 months, but recently I have noticed a large amount of my favorites being rendered useless so I want to take care of it. I normally do NOT edit the music tags in Windows Explorer once I add the files to Itunes library (as this normally results in a similar problem). I have reinstalled Itunes, Quicktime, and Windows from scratch many times with the same result. I have not synced my Ipod Photo in 2 months because if I do I will lose the music my Ipod still sees as good, but Itunes does not. I have deleted my Itunes Library and repopulated it by selecting the whole main music directory and got the same result of those select files not being able to be added to the library.

Thats everything I can think of. I'm simply out of ideas, options and patience with this ... the Zune is looking better and better by the day. That is unless of of you helpful readers have some input for me 🙂.

Thanks again!

Matt

Custom PC - Athlon XP w/ ASUS mobo, Windows XP Pro

Posted on Oct 4, 2006 9:25 PM

5 replies

Oct 4, 2006 10:40 PM in response to Community User

Well I'll try to go over everything in basic form. When you have a song in iTUnes, and it stops playing, you can not modify artwork/tags, and after removing it from iTunes you can not add it back, it means the songs tags OR the song/file itself is corrupt.

It gets confusing for the user when this happes for 2 main reasons.

1) Its confusing because iTunes give NO error message at all, or clue as what the heck is going on.

2) What makes it MORE confusing in some cases where there is corruption is iTunes won't play it BUT Windows media player (WMP) will. Most Main stream players on Windows Like WMP or Winamp are good at playing "Slightly" corrupt files without giving the user any error message or notification that the file is slightly corrupt. iTunes is very picky tho so when it gets a corrupt file, it just flat out refuses to play it (If File Was added before corruption) or add the file (If its corrupt before you added it)

One of the things that causes corrupt tags is SOMETIMES WMP or adware. WMP will alter tags in the background even if the player is not open. To stop this open WMP goto Tools>options>library tab UNCHECK "Retrieve additional info off the net" and hit OK.

Things that cause corrupt files can be pretty much anything.

To Try and figure out if its corrupt tags OR corrupt files, take one file already in iTUnes you know is having issues and remove it from iTUnes list (Not to the recycle bin). Now search google for a program called "TidyMP3" and use it to Strip/remove the tag from the song you removed from iTunes.

Once done try adding the file back to itunes, if it does add play it and see if you still have the issue

Oct 7, 2006 7:47 AM in response to pac_80

Pac_80

Sorry I have not had a chance to get back on the forum and post a reply or even spend more time on this issue in the past week. Thank you for posting! I will be sure to try out your idea/solution. Although, I can't help but think that this will be an exteme PITA because:

1) I have to retag 1/2 my database just to make Itunes "happy"

2) Itunes doesn't even report on which of my 10,000+ MP3s it doesnt want to import .... So I have to look over it all, manually, entry-by-entry OR decide on taking the time to batch erase all the tags and start all over again with the headache that is retagging. Neither of which makes me very happy to be an Ipod owner and Itunes user at this point.

Any other ideas on this problem or solutions to the tagging dilemma I will probably have will be much appreciated.

Thanks to you all

Nov 8, 2006 2:19 PM in response to MacGeek1814

Well, I went the route of retagging it all. What a hassle 🙂 But, after using tidyMP3 I did see some fragmentation that was there extracted. So I guess all in all I have a better Library cause of it.

This time I'm burning DVDs so I never have to deal with it again 🙂

NOTE: For people that happen across this thread in the future that wipe out their MP3 tags and start over use this tagger with an internet connection and your time with be a fraction of doing it by hand. Especially if you have mostly complete albums. If you get your album info using this program from Amazon it will embed the artwork in the files for you. If you use the freedb database you can just use Itunes 7.0 to get it after importing it.
MP3Tag


Corrupt Music Files / Artwork Not Modifiable / Itunes Won't Play Music

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