Can't play my music

[siftyul]

Great software!

I've tried MSMP and Winamp and find the search options and the classifiaction far more superior. It has recognized all the music I have entered before and I do not have to enter the titles again.

I have this problem:
After I installed your software, I searched for music on my hard drive. About 2,000 songs were found, music I have loaded with MSMP from CDs. When I want to play it, every piece is greyed out and no music is played. It's not like there is no sound. It will spend about 2 seconds on each piece, mark it grey and skip to the next one.

I have been able to play an original CD from the drive. I have also captured the music on the HD and it works fine.

But it wil not play these 2000 songs already on my HD.

Can someone help me with this? I do not want to reload all these again!

Jean

[rusty]

This sounds like a hard drive serial number problem--your drive may not have a serial number. I've cut and pasted the following from the readme--it describes a slightly different problem, but the solution is the same. Let me know if it helps:

On some systems with multiple hard drives, all audio files will be properly scanned into the Library
but those on a particular drive may not be available for playback. This occurs when the Volume Serial
Number of 2 hard drives on a single system are identical (the Volume Serial Number--also known as a
Disk Identifier--is assigned by Windows whenever a drive is formatted).

Volume Serial Numbers associated with each drive on a system are usually unique within the system,
but occasionally, different hard disks within a system will possess the same Volume Serial Number.
Since MediaMonkey relies on volume serial numbers to track the location of files, this situation can
result in files being unavailable.

To determine if this is what's happening, you need to verify the Volume Serial Numbers of your drives.
From the C: (or D:, etc.) prompt, type dir /p, and on the second line, you'll see 'Volume Serial Number
is xxxx-xxxx'. If this is the same for 2 drives, then the problem is most likely due to identical
serial numbers for the different drives.

The Volume Serial Number of a drive can be changed to solve this problem, using some utilities. One that
has had good feedback is the Volume ID utility available at:
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/sourc ... l#VolumeId .

[Lowlander]

I'm wondering if it is necessary for MM to use the drive serial number (Currently yes, but is there an other way?). As I see that both people withe multi harddrives and network drives seem to have troubles in this area.

Just wondering

[rusty]

Rest assured this is something we're thinking hard about.

[siftyul]

I have changed the volume name using your tool. I have noticed all my titles are gray but I did not notice if they became grey after I changed the name.

I still cannot play my titles.

I am really trying to avoid reloading all my CDs and typing the titles again.

Help please

[rusty]

Jean,

Can you please tell me what you found before you changed the serial numbers on your drives (I'm assuming you have 2 hard drives)? i.e. were the serial numbers identical.

I need a bit more specific information to help out:
-Do you have 2 hard drives?
-What were the serial numbers on the drives before you changed them?
-Which titles can you not play--only the tracks on your hard drive? Your CDs? Both?
-Are you using the Virtual CD feature and are the tracks that you can't play on the Virtual CD?
-What OS are you using?

I want to help out here, but I'm not clear about the specifics of the problem, so I can't even begin trying to reproduce it

-Rusty

[siftyul]

Rusty,

Here is the picture.

I loaded around 100 CDs on a Compaq portable Armada with MS MPlayer on Win98. It plays the my music directory but MSMP freezes at time. Then, I transfered (copied) the My Music folder on a IBM Thinkpad 600E running WinXP. I have tried to use MS Mplayer to play the CDs but there is a message about licenses and music will not play from that copied My music folder.

The IBM TP600E has one physical disk but, I believe, a C: and a D: (D: for hibernation).

I decided to try other software. I loaded WinAMP and MMonkey. WinAMP will not play that folder either.

I will look at more specific information tonight and get back to you tomorrow. The PC is not with me at this time.

Jean

[rusty]

I'm assuming that you probably ripped to WMA (since it sounds as if some sort of Digital Rights Management is being enforced by your Windows player).

If that's the case, MediaMonkey probably won't help you play a DRM-protected WMA file.

(btw, I'm just guessing here--based on the info you've posted 'til now).

[siftyul]

Hi Rusty,

I think you have found it. I get stuck because of that. I decided to get something else than MSMP because the license management is too risky. I do not connect on the Internet with that computer and I want some flexibility with the CDs I load. I own all the CDs and I am surprised Microsoft does not have a simple way to manage the "rights".

Do I have other options but to reload all the CDs and retype all the titles? Again, I am not connected on the Internet with that PC. Also, is Mediamonkey flexible enough to let me copy files around without bodering me wih license issues?

Jean

[jiri]

Jean,

you don't have to be worried about license issues with MediaMonkey, I would particularly recommend OGG as your target format, because it's an open format and achieves the best quality in many cases.

Jiri

[siftyul]

Thanks everyone for your input. I have made my mind and will reload my 100 CDs this week-end. The only thing I can think will bother me is that I have to retype the titles by hand.

I realize now that I should not have used the default with MSMP and remove the license constraint. Next time, I will read more carefully.

Jean