TLH Error?

[stonytokes]

I've been checking a show for SBEs with TLH for an upload here. I extracted the files to wave and opened them in the analysis tab and when I click on "check" it goes through the files and the message I get for each reads: information about audio data is not available.

I'm not a complete noob, but there is very little documentation (i.e. a manual) for TLH that I want to make sure I'm not uploading a set with SBEs. Any ideas?

[tonebloke]

Try converting the Wav's to Flac and test the Flac's for SBE's.

[Thulani]

Are those files 16bit/44khz? Sometimes TLH is having problems with some weird characters. Do you have such things in the file names?

[Quackers]

Originally Posted by kill_them_all1000

Are those files 16bit/44khz? Sometimes TLH is having problems with some weird characters. Do you have such things in the file names?

True. It happened to me

For instance, check if your filenames have hyphens and/or spaces, because commands used by TLH interpret them as command line options/switches.

[stonytokes]

Originally Posted by Quackers

True. It happened to me

For instance, check if your filenames have hyphens and/or spaces, because commands used by TLH interpret them as command line options/switches.

Well...I checked this theory with a Springsteen show I have which has hyphens and spaces in the filenames and it checks fine. I'm thinking that because the files are 24bit/96K that TLH is having trouble. I've tried checking the original flacs and the extracted waves. Anyone else run into this issue?

Thanks for the input, though. I guess I'll seed the show and if it has SBEs it'll be banned. I wish more documentation were available for TLH... It's a great program and this is the first issue I've had with it.

[Quackers]

Originally Posted by stonytokes

Well...I checked this theory with a Springsteen show I have which has hyphens and spaces in the filenames and it checks fine. I'm thinking that because the files are 24bit/96K that TLH is having trouble. I've tried checking the original flacs and the extracted waves. Anyone else run into this issue?

Thanks for the input, though. I guess I'll seed the show and if it has SBEs it'll be banned. I wish more documentation were available for TLH... It's a great program and this is the first issue I've had with it.

That's why you get the information about audio data is not available message.

Re: hyphen problem. My files had hyphens and spaces at the beginning of the filename

[roann]

After all these years I'm still somewhat irritated from time to time because of the problems users are reporting (no offense meant). Here we go... some answers, hints and remarks...

Originally Posted by stonytokes

I've been checking a show for SBEs with TLH for an upload here. I extracted the files to wave and opened them in the analysis tab and when I click on "check" it goes through the files and the message I get for each reads: information about audio data is not available. ...

Originally Posted by stonytokes

... I'm thinking that because the files are 24bit/96K that TLH is having trouble...

Sector boundary errors only make sense in connection with burning an audio CD. According to the Red Book standard audio CDs hold data in minimum block (sector) sizes of 1/75th second. If you burn an audio file to an audio CD, and its length is not an exact number of sectors, the last sector will be padded with digital silence by your burning program. This microgap is referred to as a sector boundary error and often audible as silence or click when listening to the CD. Among the rest, the Red Book specifies the form of digital audio encoding on an audio CD as 2-channel 16-bit sampled at 44100 Hz. That's why TLH tells you information about audio data is not available when you try to check other than 16 bit 44100 Hz encoded audio data for SBEs.

Originally Posted by stonytokes

... I'm not a complete noob, but there is very little documentation (i.e. a manual) for TLH ...

There was a manual with the v1.1.0.89 and v1.1.1.90 releases (took me months to write it). Unfortunately with v2.0.0.142 a lot of things were changed. So a new manual had to be written. This is a very time consuming task, and I didn't had the time. Sorry for that... But there is a thread called Trader's Little Helper in the Technobabble forum here at TTD. Ask or report problems over there, and you will always get an answer or help.

Originally Posted by tonebloke

Try converting the Wav's to Flac and test the Flac's for SBE's.

The file format (if supported) does not matter when checking for SBEs, the routine checking for SBEs is always the same. So there's no advantage or "better processing" if you convert the encoding format before checking for SBEs.

Originally Posted by kill_them_all1000

... Sometimes TLH is having problems with some weird characters. ...

With the latest release v2.6.0.168 these problems were fixed (at least I thought that). Which weird characters still cause problems?

Originally Posted by Quackers

... check if your filenames have hyphens and/or spaces, because commands used by TLH interpret them as command line options/switches.

Sorry, but this is sheer nonsense.

[Thulani]

I don't remember what characters because after I rename them like I want there's no problem, but I still found out some problems with some weird naming of the files. Sorry that I can't help here.

[Quackers]

Originally Posted by roann

Sorry, but this is sheer nonsense.

2nd screen is what happens after the error. Then TLH needs to be killed thru the task manager

3rd screen is about the nonsense I tried to explain in my previous post

[roann]

Originally Posted by Quackers

2nd screen is what happens after the error. Then TLH needs to be killed thru the task manager

3rd screen is about the nonsense I tried to explain in my previous post

Thank you very much for the screenshots! Usually screens help me the most to understand where to look for the cause of an error reported. This list index out of bounds error (that causes TLH to hang in the end) most likely is caused by some erroneous coding on my side. I'll try to fix it with the next release.

Sorry for my nasty "sheer nonsense" comment. I (mis)understood your "commands used by TLH interpret them as command line options/switches" in such a way that TLH works with erroneous or bad coded shntool commands (what it does not).

Judging from a first quick test I'd say the hyphen problem is caused by shntool that apparently isn't able to properly pass the file name to flac.exe (but I may be wrong with this). Here's the shntool output processing a wav file:

shntool len -- -Track01.wav
length expanded size cdr WAVE problems fmt ratio filename
0:20.59 3666812 B --- -- ----- wav 1.0000 -Track01.wav
0:20.59 3666812 B 1.0000 (1 file)

And here's the output processing the same file in flac format:

shntool len -- -Track01.flac
length expanded size cdr WAVE problems fmt ratio filename
shntool [len]: warning: error while launching helper program: [flac]
shntool [len]: warning: could not open file for streaming input: [-Track01.flac]

0:00.00 0 B 0.0000 (0 files)

If someone knows how to tell shntool to properly process flac files that have a hyphen at the beginning of their name please let me know. Help is always appreciated.

[Quackers]

According to this (see below), shntool is passing the correct filename. Looks like flac.exe is the one that can't handle it?

D:\FLAC\MaceoParker_LaTrastienda_Montevideo_2010-09-17\cd1>shntool len -DD -- -Track01.flac
    length     expanded size    cdr  WAVE problems  fmt   ratio  filename
shntool [len]: debug2: spawned input process with pid 3584 and command line: "flac" "-c" "-d" "-s" "-Track01.flac"
shntool [len]: debug2: waiting for [flac] input process 3584 to exit
shntool [len]: debug2: process 3584 exit status: [1]
shntool [len]: debug2: spawned input process with pid 4440 and command line: "flac" "-c" "-d" "-s" "-Track01.flac"
shntool [len]: debug2: waiting for [flac] input process 4440 to exit
shntool [len]: debug2: process 4440 exit status: [1]
shntool [len]: debug2: spawned input process with pid 1496 and command line: "flac" "-c" "-d" "-s" "-Track01.flac"
shntool [len]: debug2: waiting for [flac] input process 1496 to exit
shntool [len]: debug2: process 1496 exit status: [1]
shntool [len]: debug2: spawned input process with pid 368 and command line: "flac" "-c" "-d" "-s" "-Track01.flac"
shntool [len]: debug2: waiting for [flac] input process 368 to exit
shntool [len]: debug2: process 368 exit status: [1]
     0:00.00              0 B                            0.0000  (0 files)

D:\FLAC\MaceoParker_LaTrastienda_Montevideo_2010-09-17\cd1>flac -c -d -s -Track01.flac
ERROR: (-T/--tag) field contains no '=' character
Type "flac" for a usage summary or "flac --help" for all options

Otoh, trying the -- parameter with flac (manpage does not mention it I think), seem to work (no errors/warnings).

Note: I don't know what flac -c -d -s -- -Track01.flac actually generates.

D:\FLAC\MaceoParker_LaTrastienda_Montevideo_2010-09-17\cd1>flac -c -d -s -- -Track01.flac > hello.hey

D:\FLAC\MaceoParker_LaTrastienda_Montevideo_2010-09-17\cd1>dir
 El volumen de la unidad D es DATA
 El número de serie del volumen es: 703F-63E0

 Directorio de D:\FLAC\MaceoParker_LaTrastienda_Montevideo_2010-09-17\cd1

01/10/2010  08:29 p.m.    <DIR>          .
01/10/2010  08:29 p.m.    <DIR>          ..
25/09/2010  07:58 p.m.        33.749.608 -Track01.flac
01/10/2010  08:30 p.m.        64.294.316 hello.hey
               2 archivos     98.043.924 bytes
               2 dirs   3.886.358.528 bytes libres

D:\FLAC\MaceoParker_LaTrastienda_Montevideo_2010-09-17\cd1>

[roann]

So the problem will probably remain unsolved (it's known for about four years now) .

Originally Posted by Quackers

... Otoh, trying the -- parameter with flac (manpage does not mention it I think), seem to work (no errors/warnings). ...

Note: I don't know what flac -c -d -s -- -Track01.flac actually generates. ...

According to the flac documentation that can be found here:

• To encode or decode files that start with a dash, use -- to signal the end of options, to keep the filenames themselves from being treated as options.
• Option -c: Write output to stdout.
• Option -d: Decode.
• Option -s: Do not show encoding/decoding statistics.