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[eyore]

I presume you mean the program to burn the files toCD, if so Nero

[Wizzard419]

Ok, so now one step closer.

Was Nero installed before or after you went to Win 10?

[pixelated]

I wonder if foobar is having trouble with a loop of over an hour and just not seeing it. I hate things with no logic to them.

I have 5+ hours of music queued up in foobar2000 right now and foobar2000 is working fine.  If foobar2000 had problems with queuing more than an hour of music, it would have affected many users and they would have filed bug reports with the developers.

It was the free upgrade to Win 10 but there seem to have been some recent updates which seem to be messing up what opens what.

Did you upgrade to Windows 10 by installing it over your existing OS?
I did that on my desktop (upgraded to Win10 on top of Win7) and I immediately noticed some minor things were dodgy.  The Start Menu wasn't fully populated, etc.  Eventually the little annoyances became bigger headaches so I wiped the system hard drive and did a fresh clean install of Windows 10.  The PC is working much, much better now.

Maybe I should reinstall foobar (system is clean by the way). I do hate a conundrum.

Uninstalling/reinstalling software usually does not delete or undo all the configuration files and/or registry entries that the software creates or uses.  Some thoughtful developers give you an option to remove or revert all the changes caused by installing & using their software, but I don't think the foobar2000 developers give you that choice.

[eyore]

Ok, so now one step closer.

Was Nero installed before or after you went to Win 10?

Well before (when I bought the new PC and it's been working fine up to a few days ago and still is). It's only foobar that refuses to autoplay the CDs with these particular files on ) I'll assume hat there is some corruption on the files themselves which makes them unplayable.in foobar but OK everywhere else.

[eyore]

I wonder if foobar is having trouble with a loop of over an hour and just not seeing it. I hate things with no logic to them.

I have 5+ hours of music queued up in foobar2000 right now and foobar2000 is working fine.  If foobar2000 had problems with queuing more than an hour of music, it would have affected many users and they would have filed bug reports with the developers.

It was the free upgrade to Win 10 but there seem to have been some recent updates which seem to be messing up what opens what.

Did you upgrade to Windows 10 by installing it over your existing OS?
I did that on my desktop (upgraded to Win10 on top of Win7) and I immediately noticed some minor things were dodgy.  The Start Menu wasn't fully populated, etc.  Eventually the little annoyances became bigger headaches so I wiped the system hard drive and did a fresh clean install of Windows 10.  The PC is working much, much better now.

Maybe I should reinstall foobar (system is clean by the way). I do hate a conundrum.

Uninstalling/reinstalling software usually does not delete or undo all the configuration files and/or registry entries that the software creates or uses.  Some thoughtful developers give you an option to remove or revert all the changes caused by installing & using their software, but I don't think the foobar2000 developers give you that choice.

It refuses to "see" the full loop but can see the individual split file fine (mind you, it may be the wma file of Chante c'est noel that I converted to mp3 128 kbps that's causing the problem - those are the only two files on the CDs that won't autoplay - that and the full Main Street Christmas loop DLRP.

Yes, it was over Win 7

I usually run a program that seeks out everything connected to a program I uninstall as I'd had problems before with odd bits still remaining somewhere on the hard drive that caused an earlier version of Nero to no longer work. (Revo unistaller Pro).

As I say, I've come to the conclusion that it must be one of the two files that's causing the problem. The fact that foobar is opening must mean the autoplay is working but as it doesn't see any files on the disc, it shows a blank window. If the individual cda file is selected via explorer (from the file menu). it sees it and plays it. It's not a burning fault as every other CD player sees then without a problem. Don't see a problem in media tab

Complete name               : C:\Users\Colin\Desktop\01 Chante, c'est noël! [Original].mp3
Format                      : MPEG Audio
File size                   : 7.85 MB
Duration (ms)               : 4mn 17s
Total bitrate               : 256 Kbps
Encoded library             : Lavf52.32.0 / LAME3.98.2

===================== Audio =====================
Format                      : MPEG Audio
Format version              : Version 1
Format profile              : Layer 3
Format settings mode        : Joint stereo
Format settings mode extens : MS Stereo
Duration (ms)               : 4mn 17s
Bitrate mode                : Constant
Bitrate                     : 256 Kbps
Channel(s)                  : 2 channels
Sampling rate               : 44.1 KHz
Stream size                 : 7.85 MB (100%)
Encoded library             : LAME3.98.2


Complete name               : C:\Users\Colin\Desktop\Disneyland Paris - Main Street USA - Christmas BGM Loop.mp3
Format                      : MPEG Audio
File size                   : 57.0 MB
Duration (ms)               : 1h 2mn
Total bitrate               : 128 Kbps
Album                       : Disneyland Resort Paris
Track name                  : Christmas Area BGM Loop
Track position              : 1
Total tracks                : 1
Performer                   : Main Street, USA
Genre                       : Disney Park Audio
Recorded_Date               : 2002
iTunNORM                    :  0000046E 00000420 0000202B 00002179 00099D35 00099D35 00005648 000056AC 00099D35 00099D35

===================== Audio =====================
Format                      : MPEG Audio
Format version              : Version 1
Format profile              : Layer 3
Duration (ms)               : 1h 2mn
Bitrate mode                : Constant
Bitrate                     : 128 Kbps
Channel(s)                  : 2 channels
Sampling rate               : 44.1 KHz
Stream size                 : 57.0 MB (100%)

[pixelated]

Ah, you've narrowed it down to 2 particular MP3 files.  Good sleuthing!
I see that those files are also in your Windows Desktop folder.  Just to check, does foobar2000 also have problems playing those two files from that folder?

If you have the time to read through this somewhat lengthy blog post about validating MP3 files, you could check those two MP3 files with the various utils mentioned by the author.
Verifying or Validating MP3 Files: MP3-Check, MP3val, MP3 Diags, Foobar2000, and Others
https://raywoodcockslatest.wordpress.com/2014/12/02/checking-mp3s/

MediaInfo, Windows Explorer, etc. only read the MP3s' metadata so they won't detect issues with the audio content of the file.  Hence those MP3 verification apps.

[eyore]

No problems, it plays them from the desktop and the orignal folders and backup copies.
Bear in mind, grossly out of my depth but using the utilities/properties by right clicking the mp3 file in foobar, the metadata is blank bar the encoder (I converted this from a wma file using a paid for program (Ultra mp4 converter) which is pretty reliable. The wma file shows plenty of information. I wonder if that's the culprit? (the original is a rip of the CD Chante c'est noel with the 5 different versions. Now, should I bite the bullet and burn another disc with just that track on it? Hmmm

[pixelated]

I can open them going the long way around and select the drive and highlight the files and press OK which, to me, rules out disc faults or file faults.

You are selecting the drive through the foobar2000 main menu with File -> Open audio CD..., correct?

I've split the loop into separate files and  burned the files onto another disc and foobarr sees them (eventually) if I use the internal PC player and plays them but second one doesn't open foobar now.

You mean foobar2000 will now plays all the individual tracks in the loop after you split the loop up?

What do you mean by "doesn't open foobar2000"?  That the AutoPlay function does not open foobar2000 if you double-click on the external drive icon?

Can you create ISO images of the original problematic audio CDs and upload that to a file sharing site?  I obviously can't look over your shoulder while you work on troubleshooting this and short of having you record your screen while you work, having the disc images is the next best option to see for myself what is going on.

[wcool]

...I obviously can't look over your shoulder while you work on troubleshooting this...

Yes you can, actually, with TeamViewer (http://teamviewer.com). I use it quite a lot in the IT to do some remote adjustments on Windows servers which are more than a 300km drive (linux is just a good ol' terminal, so not needed there) Of course, it could be a bit of 'invading one's privacy', so only use it if you feel comfortable and are confident about that person to access your PC. On launch (it can even run without installing) you get an ID and a password (password changes on every start of the app) and so you can automatically only allow people you trust to access your PC or only let them view your screen. If you close the app, then everything is back to how it was (that is, if you ran it without installing, which is an option you can easily select).

Even better, the app is free for non-commercial use

Hope this explanation is clear enough.

[pixelated]

Thanks wcool but eyore is in Liverpool and I'm in Los Angeles on a cheap and slow network connection.  The network latency would likely be too much to make using Windows Remote Desktop, TeamViewer, VNC, etc. feasible.

[wcool]

Well, it does accommodate (is this right?) to the available bandwidth automatically, so a try would always be possible. The bigger issue would be to find the right time I guess due to the time difference? In my tests (quite a while ago) Teamviewer handles most connections the best (partially updating the image etc).

edit: Now you make me curious what down- and upstream bandwidth you all have (and latency of course).

[pixelated]

It's up to eyore.  I might spot something by just observing but it's more likely that I would need to resort to installing & running some of the Systernals utilities like Process Monitor to see in finer detail what is going on when foobar2000 has problems.
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/processmonitor.aspx

[wcool]

Yes, of course it's up to eyore, hence the mentions of comfortable and confidence earlier. For some it is quite a big privacy intrusion to do something like this and thus (also in my professional field) one must take that into consideration as to whether it is even appropriate to mention an app like this.

edit: What I'm trying to say is that working on the 'faulty' system is most of the time the best way of spotting errors, but it mustn't be the case that someone feels awkward about giving access to their system to do so

Ah, the good ol' SysInternals, rescued systems and apps more than once, but now I don't use 'em anymore due to the wonderful open penguin O/S (Linux) and it's tech goodies. But I digress...

[pixelated]

Linux is great *if* the hardware is qualified to run it.

My old self-built desktop (X3220) was running Ubuntu 12.04 LTS OK (couldn't find a proper NVIDIA driver so the screen flickered) until a system update caused my incremental backup software to just stop running.  I could see the error in the software's log but I couldn't realistically do anything about it since I didn't know which part of which update caused the problem.

I tried Ubuntu 14.04 LTS on my Lenovo Core i7 laptop but the Elan touchpad kept locking up the machine.  I knew it was the touchpad because if I disabled it, the laptop wouldn't lock up.  But the Unity desktop would freeze at least once a day.  I had processes running in terminal windows so I knew from stdout messages that the machine itself wasn't frozen.

The desktop and laptop are now both running Windows 10 without problems.  C'est la guerre.

The Linux desktops I've used at various companies worked very well but that's because their systems departments spent the time (usually several months) testing and qualifying various machine configurations and tweaking the Linux distro to get the most stable systems.

[wcool]

Sorry to hear that you had issues, but I always buy 'generic hardware' computers (heck, even a hackintosh has run on that beautifully). So, typically it's Intel with iGFX and synaptics touchpad etc. Then it does work beautifully. The biggest thing of why I've switched is that I'd like to take a look in the source as to how things are 'wired up' as opposed to Windows where you have to guess how it is all wired in the kernel, drivers and such. Still, every O/S has it's good and bad sides and that'll never change, for sure As long as you enjoy the stuff you work with, really boosts productivity imho.