MP3 Diags on Gentoo

Thanks to Dominik Kapusta, it is now easier to install MP3 Diags on Gentoo, because is has been added to the qting-edge overlay. For details about the Gentoo installation see the download page.

Fixed potential random crash

Somebody wrote to me a few days ago to complain about random crashes at startup. I asked for some system details but never heard back. Since this is the second time such a thing happens, I'm beginning to wonder if somehow messages get lost (yes, I carefully checked my "spam" folder.)

Anyway, since I didn't have any crash in a long time, and when I did it was reproducible and I quickly implemented a fix, I really didn't know what might cause his issues or how to fix them. However, today I came to realize that most Linux distributions ship both a single-threaded and a multi-threaded version of Boost Serialization. I thought the single-threaded variants were discarded long ago, but apparently that's not the case. But because I'm using openSUSE (which doesn't have the single-threaded variant), I didn't realize other distributions still have it. I knew this same issue caused crashes on Windows, but, since nobody reported crashes on Linux before, I didn't realize I should investigate more seriously the threading model.

Well, version 0.99.02.017 always uses the multi-threaded library, so hopefully the random crashes are gone. (0.99.02.018 is pretty much the same, just that the sources are easier to compile.)

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Other changes include an improved assert dialog (now you can copy the data to the clipboard and even send mail from it) and warnings in some cases when a downloaded image would be lost (one case is still not covered, but I hope I will have a look soon.)

Fixed an assertion failure

An assertion failure failure got triggered in some cases, in Id3V2Stream.cpp, line 770. This got fixed in version 0.99.02.016, which also adds support for more image frames in ID3V2 tags (namely those using a UTF-8 encoding to specify their type.)

Fedora 11 binaries

A small code change was needed to get the project to compile on Fedora 11. After doing that, I added Fedora 11 to the binaries that I build. Download the RPMs here.

Faster navigation in the tag editor

Moving from one album to another was taking too long, so I finally used my profiler to see why and decide if I should do anything about it. It turns out that significant improvements could be made. They are in the 0.99.02.014 release.

Saving from the tag editor is still too slow for my liking, but there a lot of time is spent on rescanning the modified files, and that can't be improved too much. So I'm seriously considering adding a "Fast save" option, which would not rescan the files immediately, but just mark them for automatic scanning the next time the program starts (or the user presses the "Reload" button.)

Windows crash (hopefully) fixed + more

I wrote previously here about mysterious random crashes of the Windows version and how they seemed to go away for no good reason. Apparently they never disappeared, as I found out earlier today, while playing with Windows 7 RC.

Unlike the previous times, I was able to identify something that was wrong with the program (well, not the actual program but some library that it uses) and then I fixed the issue and uploaded version 0.99.02.013. Random errors being, er, random, I'm not sure that the issue is gone, but at least I have a reason to hope. Of course, it would be nice to get some feedback from some of those who downloaded the program.

For this version the setup program got a more modern look, and it's now possible to launch MP3 Diags from the last page of the install dialog.

Since I just tested Windows 7, I'm happy to report that MP3 Diags installs OK and looks pretty good on the next Windows.

MP3 Diags 0.99.02.012 out

This version adds support for UTF8-encoded frames in ID3V2.4.0 tags.

There are some other minor UI changes related to removing the "What's this" button from most windows (it wasn't used anyway) and adding maximize / minimize buttons on Windows (they still don't show up under Gnome / Metacity, though.)

Another Windows-only change is that if the main window was maximized when the program exited, it will be shown as maximized when the program is restarted. (I didn't test this on Vista, so it might not work there, but it shouldn't matter much.)

You can download MP3 Diags 0.99.02.012 here.

Move to SourceForge

I've finally managed to move the MP3 Diags home page and downloads to SourceForge. The new address is http://mp3diags.sourceforge.net/.

I'll keep the old address valid for a few weeks, after which the plan is to replace the old pages with redirections to SourceForge.

More Debian 5.0 binaries

Christian Marillat from http://www.debian-multimedia.org/ notified me that he's building MP3 Diags for Debian 5.0. It can be found in the "unstable" branch. Besides the program being built by somebody who actually knows something about building, and did it many times before, there are binaries for many other platforms in addition to x86 and AMD64. You can download the i386 package from this page, but you probably want to add the repository, so you are notified automatically about new releases (see the debian-multimedia.org home page for instructions about how to add the repository.)

It would be nice for something similar to happen for other distributions, as I'd rather spend time improving the program instead of figuring out how to package it for various platforms.

Showing buttons + Debian 5 binaries

As pointed out by alxgudo and martintxo here, it was possible on Gnome installations for buttons to not show up. That happened because I didn't declare a dependency. This should be fixed in the latest release.

I also added binaries for Debian 5.

Ubuntu 8.04 and Debian 4 seem easy to add too, if anybody wants them. Perhaps a better idea would be for somebody who actually knows how to build packages to have a look at what I'm using to build the binaries and see if they need improvements. (The files are in the "package" directory in the Linux tarball.)

Windows port and some fixes

In my last post I was complaining about crashes on Windows. After some minor changes that I didn't expect to have any impact, I was able to use MP3 Diags on Windows without experiencing any crash. It wasn't just to see that the program starts and exits, but I fixed audio issues in about 1600 files and then I added track info and cover art to 35 of my albums. So I guess it's time to release the Windows version. See the download page.

While making these changes I identified and fixed a bug that could result in removal of audio data when using the "Remove inner non-audio" transformation.

A less important bug that I found and fixed was related to the incorrect handling of an option to keep a single image in an ID3V2 tag.

Ubuntu binaries

I added binaries for Ubuntu 8.10 and 9.04. See the download page for details.

Another change is fixing a bug that could result in deleted files if the disk became full.

I also did the Windows port, but I'm not happy with it, because it crashes. I'll look some more at it before making the Windows version available.