Large 10hour 54minute MP4 audiobook conversion to MP3 rips but fails upon conversion at 45 minute : Bug or "Feature"?

[Turk303]

Describe the bug As per title

To Reproduce Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. drag & drop audio file to free:ac
2. select lame codec : begins ripping and complete @ 50%, part 2 conversion fails (though states completed) @ 6% aka 45minute MP3 as output.
3. No error just undesired result.

Expected behavior To end up with \a straight mp4 to mp3 conversion @320 CBR. Screenshots N/A

System (please complete the following information)

• OS: Win 10 Pro.
• CPU: Intel i5 8600k [basic o/c using bios's own auto set]
• RAM: 16GB DDR4

Additional context Is free:ac limited to file size? length [time]? or?

Unfortunately the file does not come with a cue file nor am I aware of chapters (without listening) - is it simply too large/long a file?

[enzo1982]

Hi, I'd suspect a broken MP4 file in this case. I tried converting 12 hour and 35 hour long MP4 files to MP3 and both are working fine.

Any chance you can provide the MP4 file for analysis? It's probably very large, but if you can upload it to a cloud drive and send the link to support@freac.org, I will have a look.

[Turk303]

it plays without fault regardless of player - i'm currently listening (2 hours in without glitch) via VLC but have played it with AIMP, Musicbee, XMP, LA, VU PLayer, Winyl & VU Player. I've retagged it using tagscanner and removed bloat tags, read it's meta data via Media Info, viewed its spectrumn via Spek (hard cut off at 15KHZ across the file which seems low for an mp4/AAC file...) but does read at 96khz/44.1 2 channels. Just can't convert it past 6%... But if you say fre:ac can handle the file size, I'll redownload & re attempt, as i'd like to listen to the next 8 hours via either phone &/or mp3 player when not at my pc.

If you'd like to check the file its on archive dot org

update : direct link sent via email

downloaded as the MPEG4 option.

Thanks for reply.

[enzo1982]

The link does not seem to be available any more.

So if you can make the file available to me by other means, that would be great.

[Turk303]

Ah pulled due to copyright... I was surprised to see it on archive org as it was just advertised by a large you tuber via an audible sponsorship.. :)

If I had an upload speed that wasn't snail pace I would reupload it privately and email you the file, alas my pc/connection would be tied up for half the day or more (1.5gb file) [tl;dr my download speeds are acceptable but upload at 250 kbps (often much less) very 56k un-fond memories.

• I'll chalk it up to a glitch of the file - if it occurs again or I reattempt with a different setting and re-codec doesn't fail, I'll return and refer to this comment.

• Thanks for your reply.

ps any chance of fre:ac displaying the set bitrate and k/hz output of the chosen codec in the UI without having to scramble through the last sessions filter settings or options in case 1 forgets to change back to a default 16/44 after using a HQ created preset? please :)

[Turk303]

update : i still have the original link stored in IDM - To avoid that being fully removed (as it appears live still) I'll email it to you as initially requested under the subject of this threads title.

[sjosfernandes72]

Todos os CDs originais, o programa deu como desconhecido, não consegui converter nenhuma música para MP3, usei todas as configurações. O programa parece não ser compatível com o Windows 11. Meu computador tem o Drive para CD/DVD, e funciona perfeitamente para reprodução.

[enzo1982]

@sjosfernandes72 Please check your Windows settings to see if you have Controlled Folder Access enabled. It can be found under Settings->Update & Security->Windows Security->Virus & threat protection. That feature is known to prevent access to the CD drive.

If it is enabled, either disable it or add an exception for fre:ac. You can also install fre:ac from the Microsoft store - that version should be allowed to access the CD drive in any case.

Also, please create a new issue next time instead of hijacking an unrelated one.

[Lee-Carre]

@Turk303

it plays without fault regardless of player

Does it, though? What does VLC's message log (especially with more verbose output) say, when playing the file (especially at the 45 minute mark)?

Keep in mind that media players have all sorts of error-tolerance (especially VLC), in order that non-tech users are able to play their media at all, even if it was badly encoded (since they usually can't control that part). Think about why VLC has the likes of aspect-ratio correction, and similar. Should never be needed with correctly encoded files, yet there are is whole bunch of questionable media out there. I have a DVD (factory pressed) of a piece of cinéma (featuring actors you've heard of) which holds a 4:3 image (pixel-array), which displays blackness other than a central ~16:9 (I forget the actual aspect ratio of the non-black pixels; probably anamorphic, so closer to 2·3:1). While that may have appeared OK on a 4:3 display, on a 16:9 display it doesn't fill the display, but remains a small rectangle in the centre (because of the various aspect-ration mismatches & cropping going on). JWZ posted a good write-up of this problem, but I can't seem to re-find it. Quite how did that happen, on such a DVD? I dread to think. Probably a series of kludges. Point being; I have no control over that (because even extracting the MPEG-2 stream, and re-encoding, may well count as copyright infringement, stupidly); and thus I must rely on VLC coming to the rescue, yet again, by cropping the image to the correct bounding-box, for it to then fill (albeit at a lower resolution than had it been encoded competently/correctly) a 16:9 display, and be watchable.

Postel's law also seems very apt; be liberal in what you accept, but conservative in what you emit. Quality software follows this principle.

Whereas, for transcoding, I can well imagine non-recoverable errors occurring, given the nature of the task.

Either way, ultimately, the source file is defective, and there's the cause of the problem. Demand better from those who produce such. Compare the Loudness War for CDDAs.