Minor and Major issues with File Merge

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mightypile
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Joined: Fri Jul 22, 2005 1:23 pm

Minor and Major issues with File Merge

Post by mightypile »

I first want to extend my sincere Thanks for implementing the File Merge. Since its inclusion, it's been one of my most used commands.

A couple of minor issues, nice to fix, but not a big deal:
1. When adding files, make the path of the last added file the default file...open path. When I do a File...Open, it remembers where I opened the last file for next time. When I do a merge, I have to browser all over the place even if I'm merging in the same folder.
2. When I select files to merge, they all show up in order except that the last file selected is always first in the list. I started just dragging it to the bottom every time, then realized I could select one extra file to merge, and then remove it from the list. Either option seems to be a bit of a kludge. Either auto-ordering the list of files or entering them in the order selected would be a help.

A major issue:
1. Goldwave occasionally hangs on my computer, and I've worked around it. Happily, Windows will complain that it has crashed, but if I wait to click OK, Goldwave will successfully finish its job, then I can allow Winodws to kill it. Recently, I have encountered a set of files that kills Goldwave every time I merge them. Sometimes it will pop up a bunch of illegal memory access dialog boxes that I can't click away, and sometimes, Goldwave will simply disappear with no trace of ever having been there. If you'd like, I can help you test this by giving you addresses mentioned in the dialogs, but I assumed that my addresses would certainly only be valid on my machine so I never wrote them down. While usually merging dozens of files, I have posted two mp3s that cause this to happen online if you'd like to download them and test the merge on them. The files play on my mp3 player with no trouble and I can even open them in Goldwave and copy/paste with no problem. It's only the merge that seems to have trouble.

The files are at http://channelmike.com/mp3/1776-1.mp3
and http://channelmike.com/mp3/1776-2.mp3

Thanks,
Mike
GoldWave Inc.
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Re: Minor and Major issues with File Merge

Post by GoldWave Inc. »

The path will be updated in the next version.

The order of the files you mentioned is related to the way Microsoft designed the Open window. The order shown in the "File name" box on the Open Sound window is the order they will appear in the File Merger list. If you click-and-drag (in an open area in the file list) to make a selection rectangle or select a group of files by choosing the last file first and the first file last, the order will be correct when you choose the Open button.

I am not able to recreate the crash/hang problem you mentioned. I ran a number of tests with those files, merging in different order and multiple copies, but no errors or problems occurred. What settings are you using for the final file? I'm tempted to blame thermal failure.

Chris
mightypile
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Joined: Fri Jul 22, 2005 1:23 pm

Post by mightypile »

Thanks for taking the time to look at my issues.

I am encoding these to mp3, "Layer-3, 22050 Hz, 32 kbps, mono" as they are spoken word, not music or instrumental or anything. I must admit, I didn't even attempt different formats because I've had this as my default format for some time now, and used it on several different collections of files with no problem. As a note of reference for this thread, the original format of the files I'm merging together is "Layer-3, 22050 Hz, 64kbps, joint stereo" according to Goldwave's status bar when I open the file.

I will experiment with different formats and post back to this forum if I find anything intriguing, and/or a solution to the problem.

Thanks again,
Mike Schmidt
mightypile
Posts: 8
Joined: Fri Jul 22, 2005 1:23 pm

Post by mightypile »

I tried again, just to be sure, and found that I still could not merge directly from '64k 22050 Hz stereo mp3' to '32k 22050 Hz mono mp3'. Goldwave simply disappeared and was gone.

Some various results, including the above, follow:

'64kbps 22050 Hz stereo mp3' to '32kbps 22050 Hz mono mp3' choked.
'64kbps 22050 Hz stereo mp3' to 'wav' worked!!
'64kbps 22050 Hz stereo mp3' to '128kbps 22050 Hz mono mp3' choked.
'64kbps 22050 Hz stereo mp3' to '128kbps 44100 Hz mono mp3' worked!!
'64kbps 22050 Hz stereo mp3' to '32kbps 44100 Hz mono mp3' worked!!
'64kbps 22050 Hz stereo mp3' to '64kbps 32000 Hz mono mp3' worked!!
'64kbps 22050 Hz stereo mp3' to '64kbps 16000 Hz mono mp3' worked!!

I then ran every successfully merged file in the previous test through batch processing to achieve my goal of '32kbps 22050 Hz mono mp3' and every file was converted successfully.

This leads me to believe that keeping the mp3 at 22050 somehow choked it. Moving the frequency either up or down all seemed OK. Different bitrates all worked.

Just for fun, I ran the files (no merging, just converting one file) through lame directly on the command line. They all worked, but there are so many command line options, I don't know whether I'm replicating what Goldwave is doing behind its GUI or not.

I then thought, if it's the conversion from 22050 Hz to 22050 Hz, perhaps if I just batch process a bunch of the files to my desired format, I'd get the same crash. But I did a batch processing run on 7 of the files and got all 7 in perfect condition. It worked beautifully.

After all that, I have only isolated two things:
1. Every time it choked, it was using File Merge. Batch Processing and the GUI both work perfectly even with the same formats in and out that choke File Merge.
2. Every time it choked, it was merging input files of 22050 Hz that were also output to 22050 Hz. Not very logical as a possible bug cause, but there it is.

I really don't have any further insights than this.

Thanks again for your time! I hope this helps you out.
Mike Schmidt
GoldWave Inc.
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Post by GoldWave Inc. »

That does seem a bit odd. I'll continue to run tests to see what turns up. Thanks for the details.

Chris
mightypile
Posts: 8
Joined: Fri Jul 22, 2005 1:23 pm

Post by mightypile »

I just started a new batch of files and had the same strange behavior with Goldwave dying. Previously, I only had the one batch of files cause problems. This would be the second. All other sets have been fine.

This problem batch is encoded as
"MPEG Audio Layer-3, 22050 Hz, 56kbps, joint stereo"

The previous problem was
"MPEG Audio Layer-3, 22050 Hz, 64kbps, joint stereo"

For comparison, I looked into a bunch of the old files that worked:
"MPEG Audio Layer-3, 41000 Hz, 128kbps, joint stereo"
"MPEG Audio Layer-3, 41000 Hz, 32kbps, mono"
"MPEG Audio Layer-3, 16000 Hz, 48kbps, stereo"
"MPEG Audio Layer-3, 41000 Hz, 64kbps, mono"
"MPEG Audio Layer-3, 41000 Hz, 64kbps, mono"
"Wave MPEG Layer-3 32 kBit/s, 22,050 Hz, Mono"
- This one complained about ?"invalid 'fact' chuck"?, but ran anyway.

If this is an issue of frequency alone, I ought to be able to create a file of that frequency, and recreate the problem.
I got a retail audio CD and ripped several tracks to
"MPEG Audio Layer-3, 22050 Hz, 64kbps, stereo"*
Then I tried to merge them together to
"MPEG Audio Layer-3, 22050 Hz, 32kbps, mono"
This ought to be a perfect creation of the earlier failure, but under a controlled environment regarding the creation of the 'bad' file in the first place.
The test was a success (that is, a reproduction of failure :-) )

These files, encoded directly from CD by Goldwave, choked the File Merge command under these settings. For what it's worth, that kind of isolates the bug to a format issue unless I'm missing something. It also ought to make it entirely reproducible with any audio file out there. Just convert it to "MPEG Audio Layer-3, 22050 Hz, 64kbps, stereo" and try a file merge to "MPEG Audio Layer-3, 22050 Hz, 32kbps, mono" and it will choke. At least that is my experience.

*earlier problems were "joint stereo" which I couldn't find in Goldwave. But encoding as simply "stereo" produced the same problem.
GoldWave Inc.
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Post by GoldWave Inc. »

After running more tests, it appears to be a problem with stereo to mono merging. Until the next update is released, it would be best to ensure that all files are mono when merging them as mono.

Chris
mightypile
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Joined: Fri Jul 22, 2005 1:23 pm

This problem seems to be fixed!

Post by mightypile »

I downloaded version 5.12 today (up from 5.10) and merged some files that were killing 5.10. They worked beautifully.

I have not done extensive testing, but the problem appears to be solved.

Many Thanks!!!
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