Topic: SHN problem

[keytohwy]

I posted this on the Mac team board, since I am a Mac user, but got no answers.  Hoping someone here can help.  I have access to Windows as well...

I've rec'd some files in a trade, some in FLAC, some in SHN.  I don't typically use a SHN player, so if I come across those files, I typically convert them to FLAC.  Using the search feature in Finder, I found a bunch of .shn files in the directories of the files I'd traded for, and dragged them en masse to Xact in order to rencode to FLAC.  A number of files failed that conversion, and initially I thought it might have to do with my Drobo simply being overworked as several other disk intensive activities were accessing the same drive concurrent to the encode.  But upon further investigation, the files themselves appear to be the problem.  They verify via the included md5.  The play in Cog just fine.  But they will not convert to FLAC, WAV or AIF.  I returned to the files on the source media, with the same issue.  I even fired up TLH in a Windows VM, and it too appears to fail, although it appears to hang rather than give any feedback.

The files that fail are not random.  Either a whole show decodes (all files for that show), or none do.

Any ideas?  I will probably have a significant amount of files in this boat as this was a hard drive trade with many many shows included. 

Output from Xact:


Converting [file2.shn file1.shn] (6:52.24) --> [file2.shn file1.flac] Converting [file2.shn file1.shn] (6:52.24) --> [file2.shn file1.flac] :   0%   1%   2%   3%   4%   5%   6%   7%   8%   9%  10%  11%  12%  13%  14%  15%  16%  17%  18%  19%  20%  21%  22%  23%  24%  25%  26%  27%  28%  29%  30%  31%  32%  33%  34%  35%  36%  37%  38%  39%  40%  41%  42%  43%  44%  45%  46%  47%  48%  49%  50%  51%  52%  53%  54%  55%  56%  57%  58%  59%  60%  61%  62%  63%  64%  65%  66%  67%  68%  69%  70%  71%  72%  73%  74%  75%  76%  77%  78%  79%  80%  81%  82%  83%  84%  85%  86%  87%  88%  89%  90%  91%  92%  93%  94%  95%  96%  97%  98%  99% shntool [conv]: warning: error while transferring 8 extra bytes -- skipping.

It seems that the last part is the key "transferring 8 extra bytes". 

Thanks for any help,
keytohwy

[scb]

oh damn, realized i forgot to respond to your email.  sorry!

strange that they play just fine but won't decode.  you've tried just TLH and xACT?  anything else? can you put some files up somewhere for me to download to check out?

[twatts (pants are so over-rated...)]

Not sure if this helps you, but Geewiz10 and I just went through something similar with a set of PH SHNs...

Apparently the SHNs wouldn't decode to WAV though they would play just fine via Foobar...  We tried to run them through SHNTOOLs to see if there were issues, and they indeed had Header problems.  Geewiz was able to STRIP his SHNs and get them to decode, but I was unable to STRIP mine...  Not sure why, we both have the same exact set of SHNs and both verify via MD5...

What show was it???  Can you put up a single file for DL, so we could experiment???

Terry

[keytohwy]

No worries, Scott, I know you are a busy guy. 

Here is a link to one of the files.

I killed this link...thanks for playing.

I can upload more if necessary, but you will get the idea here.

Twatts, I think you and Geewize are on the right track.  When I googles the error, I found the error in the SHN developers site.  It just didn't have any info about how to correct, or decode through the errors.  Anyway, if you guys need more info, please let me know.  As I said, I have hundreds of these, so it'd be nice to remedy it.

keytohwy

[keytohwy]

OK, quick update.  I found a post by twatts going back to 2003 and it gave me a bit more info.  So I opened a file into TLH and asked it to strip the header.  The resulting file converts to FLAC or WAV just fine.

Scott, how do I do that in xACT?  When I press "call shntool" it opens an open dialog box, for what I have no idea what I am looking for.

Thanks guys, betting closer.

[keytohwy]

OK, I'm an idiot.  It wasn't an open dialog box, but a save dialog box asking where to place the output.

OK, last question.  I can go into each directory and find the offending fails and have Xact do its thing, but I'd rather use the Finder's search to find all .shn files (since any that remain are problematic), drag them into Xact and have a batch strip process performed, saving each file to the source directory, like the encode and decode tabs.  Is there a way to do that?

Thanks again for following along, and for twatts for posting about a similar issue 9 years ago as it related to the downloads from Phish Live.

[scb]

I actually added the "save to source directory" option on the shntool tab in xACT within the past 48 hours, so it's funny that you mention it now.  good timing I guess...

I can email you a test version

[keytohwy]

I actually added the "save to source directory" option on the shntool tab in xACT within the past 48 hours, so it's funny that you mention it now.  good timing I guess...

I can email you a test version

Sure, I'd be happy to test.  You have my email address...

Scott, I know everyone who uses your software finds it invaluable to their workflow.  Just a quick read through ts.com and you see just about everyone using a Mac uses it.  Thank you for your efforts.  You've listened to feedback and added features and continued to deliver a great tool for us all.  I wish more developers could be like you.

[twatts (pants are so over-rated...)]

Glad it worked out for you!

Terry

[keytohwy]

Thanks, Terry, so am I.

In TLH, you can choose which strip to do; RIFF or Canonical header.  It looks like all of my files had RIFF issues.  I don't even know what that means.  They are fixed and happily residing as FLACs now.  I've got several hundred more to do. 

Also utilized an Automator workflow-saved-as-a-Finder-plugin to rename all of the files after TLH was done.  Removing "-stripped" from 151 files was trivial.

[twatts (pants are so over-rated...)]

I have no idea what all that means either...  And as far as my own abilities, I haven't taken the time to figure out all the switches in SHNTOOLs, so I do a straight "shntool strip *.wav" and hit it all at the same time...  That's probably why Geewiz was able to STRIP his and I was unable to - he used TLH, and I used SHNTOOLs... 

Anyways, I glad it worked out...

Terry

[scb]

I actually added the "save to source directory" option on the shntool tab in xACT within the past 48 hours, so it's funny that you mention it now.  good timing I guess...

I can email you a test version

Sure, I'd be happy to test.  You have my email address...

Scott, I know everyone who uses your software finds it invaluable to their workflow.  Just a quick read through ts.com and you see just about everyone using a Mac uses it.  Thank you for your efforts.  You've listened to feedback and added features and continued to deliver a great tool for us all.  I wish more developers could be like you.

Thank you!

I'll send over a test version tonight.  I guess I should probably release this version before 10.8 is officially out so there's a code-signed version out there...