FLAC Files Corrupting

Support
1

Hello,

I have been preparing a large body of FLAC albums to load into an "Audio Request" media server using Mp3tag.

I have prepared many CDs by using EAC (Exact Audio Copy) and then tagged them with Mp3tag. All of the FLAC files created from CDs with EAC and tagged by Mp3tag work fine in Audio Request without any problem. They are consistently working fine.

However, with about 20% of FLAC files I purchased online and tagged with Mp3tag, the FLAC files get corrupted after they are scanned by Audio Request. After Audio Request calculates a gain computation (a level setting so that songs play consistently) the FLAC files often get bloated to 2x or 3x their original size and are corrupt.

All FLAC files made with EAC are fine and about 20% of FLAC files purchased get corrupted.

I have been unable to analyze what the difference is between the EAC FLAC files and the purchased FLAC files by using exiftool and other means.

I have uploaded an example of each of these files, that is, a file made with EAC that was tagged and works fine after scanning, and then a purchased FLAC file that was tagged and became corrupt after scanning.

  1. FLAC file made with EAC, tagged with Mp3tag - OKAY
  2. FLAC file made with EAC, tagged with Mp3tag, scanned by Audio Request - OKAY
  3. FLAC file purchased online, tagged with Mp3tag - OKAY
  4. FLAC file purchased online, tagged with Mp3tag, scanned by Audio Request - CORRUPT

Any insight into what is going on that would create this problem and a solution would be most appreciated.

Best, Lodum

2

That what I find puzzliing:
the corrupt file has dozens of fields called GRAPHIC_FRONT_COVER+ with some byte codes in it.
Check this out in the extended tags dialogue.
And see if the file already comes with this strange data.

3

Yes, you are right.
The corrupt file does have a GRAPHIC_FRONT_COVER+ field.
Unfortunately I don't know why the Audio Request scan is creating such a field and code.

I verified that the purchased FLAC files do not have that strange field or data until they are scanned by Audio Request and re-written.

For some reason none of the files I make with EAC get that field and code and corruption when they are scanned.

4

It appears that the problem I was having had to do with the artwork files associated with the FLAC files.

If the album artwork jpg file associated with an album was too large for Audio Request to handle (about 6 MB's or more seems to be too much for it), then Audio Request was writing metadata into it that was increasing the size of the FLAC file considerably and corrupting it as well.

Because many FLAC albums I had purchased online came with large artwork files (8 MB's or more) these were the ones that were then corrupting.

I reloaded the original FLAC files into Audio Request without artwork or small artwork (1 MB or less). All the previously "problematic" FLAC files then worked perfectly.