How to check files for errors?

Florian · February 23, 2019, 7:49am

It’s required and often helps to reduce support cycles to check files for errors before filing a bug report.

Symptoms of erroneous files are often

missing or wrong bitrate or length
audible blips or skips
tags seem to be sticky and cannot be removed

There are some really good tools to check the files for errors, namely

MP3 Diags — identifies many different issues in MP3 files

Website: http://mp3diags.sourceforge.net
Download: MP3 Diags - Getting MP3 Diags

If the font size in MP3 Diags is too small to read, try the Tutorial on how to set a larger font size in MP3 Diags .

MP3val — validate and fix MPEG audio files

http://mp3val.sourceforge.net

foobar2000 — multiple supported formats

https://foobar2000.org

After installing foobar2000 see Utilities → Verify integrity from the right-click context menu to check the file for errors. In case of an erroneous MP3 header, Fix VBR MP3 header might even repair the file

Note: In many cases the troublesome file may play correctly in some or all media players or may be editable in other metadata editors. However, this is not an indicator of whether the file structure is valid or not. In contrast to just playing a file, Mp3tag re-writes the metadata part of files and takes a cautionary approach when performing changes that might affect the audio part to prevent data loss or more damage.

Florian · February 3, 2022, 4:29pm

How to repair files identified as corrupted?

If the file in question is a MP3 file which is reported as corrupted or where the MP3 header cannot be read, chances are it is an MP4 file with a *.mp3 file extension. This often happens if online services, e.g., to download files from YouTube are involved. Changing the file extension to *.mp4 might solve the problem.

If the problematic file is a WAV or AIF file, re-saving the file with an audio-editing program like Audacity might repair the files. It's also possible to use ffmpeg via a user-defined tool from within Mp3tag

Please also listen to the end of the file to make sure the file isn’t truncated.