A very strange occurrence

[fwrunner2018]

I was listening to Rock & Roll tracks on my phone (Moto G7 Optimo Maxx - Android 7).
A song I know well - Wall of Voodoo; Mexican Radio - was playing.
At about 1:15 into the track, there was suddenly a short interruption by another song; I think it was probably Boston.
After the interruption, which lasted all of about 1 second, the original track continued to play.

When this happened, there was no break in the music. It was as though I had accidentally left that 1 second segment on another track while doing a render in Reaper.
However:
The original .flac file on my PC was not affected. It plays normally.
Note that the .flac file on the phone was literally copied as a file along with many others while uploading tracks to my phone.
On the phone, I use a SD card to store my music.
I do not recall ever having opened the track in Reaper, let along with any other tracks.
Also, when the other track broke in, there was no 'glitch' or any sound of a switch between sources or tracks. It was as though I had been recording an analog track and accidentally brought in another track from a different source - through a mixer.

The track was originally ripped from a CD. I either ripped directly to flac using EAC, or I ripped to wav and converted using Foobar2000.
In the past, I had done some conversion in Reaper, but that was when I was still using .ogg files on the phone.

After I deleted the flac file on the phone and replaced it with the one on the PC, the track plays perfectly.

This is a total mystery to me.
Anyone with any thoughts?

Thanks
fwrunner

[peter5992]

Maybe the phone software or app you are using got the hiccups and decided to do a spontaneous mixup of two tracks?

It kind of reminds me of youtube videos that are being interrupted by ads every couple of minutes or so.

[fwrunner2018]

Originally Posted by peter5992

Maybe the phone software or app you are using got the hiccups and decided to do a spontaneous mixup of two tracks?

It kind of reminds me of youtube videos that are being interrupted by ads every couple of minutes or so.

I'm searching for the song that interrupted. Pretty surt it was Boston.
But even when I do find the 'offending' song, I still have no clue as to how it got there.
If I had been recording by analog channel, I could have easily mixed in any other Windows sound, but I am sure I didn't use analog for this track.

I can understand if my SD card was corrupted, but that would create an unplayable flac file.
It must have happened on the phone, as the original flac from which I uploaded to the phone is good.

Edit: I found the song. It is Boston - Don't Be Afraid. I found is by selecting the segment from the original track in Reaper, then copying that selection to a second track, removing the original track, and rendering only the segment. Then I uploaded the flac file to AHA Music online. When I loaded the track into Reaper, I confirmed that it was the same song.
Thing is, the part of the 2nd track that cut into the 1st track does not line up timewise.
In the original track the cut occurs at about 1:16, but that corresponds to about 1:40 on the second track.

In addition, I have found that if I set the segment to loop, then enable looping in Reaper, the looped segment will play the first time, but subsequent passes results in silence.
If I extend the loop selection forward in time, the segment of the loop that is the 2nd song is silent, but audio returns once the looped cursor is past the end of the 2nd track.
I would like to create a video to make it more clear of what I have found, but I need to find a free screen capture video recorder for Windows 10.

[oneammonday]

I wonder if you're going to find that 1 second of 'Mexican Radio' at 1:15 into the Boston song.

[fwrunner2018]

Originally Posted by oneammonday

I wonder if you're going to find that 1 second of 'Mexican Radio' at 1:15 into the Boston song.

That song (Boston - Don't Be Afraid - is on my PC but not on the phone.
That file plays fine.

[Bazzbass]

how does this relate to Reaper? sounds like a phone glitch

[fwrunner2018]

Originally Posted by Bazzbass

how does this relate to Reaper? sounds like a phone glitch

It doesn't really relate to Reaper. I could have posted in the Windows 10 forum or one of the Android forums. I guess that would be the best place to ask.
Oh, wait... there is the strange behavior of the track segment when it is looped. Please refer to my earlier post (2nd one of mine up from this one)

[JonLinnarson]

My best guess is that something happened when you transfered the files to your phone. Windows has had a lot of bugs with transferring files over USB ever since XP and people are still experiencing different problems with this. It's weird that your file didn't become completely un-readable though.

[fwrunner2018]

Originally Posted by JonLinnarson

My best guess is that something happened when you transfered the files to your phone. Windows has had a lot of bugs with transferring files over USB ever since XP and people are still experiencing different problems with this. It's weird that your file didn't become completely un-readable though.

That's what I would think; that the file would become un-readable. It seems to be an infintesimally small chance that part of another track could become 'embedded' into the track like that, without causing the whole track to be unreadable.

Do you think it is strange that when I loop the section in Reaper, it plays only on the 1st pass, then silence?
I would like to know whether I am inadvertently turning on a feature in Reaper which causes this effect. But I don't know the ins and outs of Reaper so well. I'll play around with the settings to see if I can get the loop to play multiple times. If only because I'm curious and want to learn more about Reaper.

[fakemaxwell]

Originally Posted by JonLinnarson

My best guess is that something happened when you transfered the files to your phone. Windows has had a lot of bugs with transferring files over USB ever since XP and people are still experiencing different problems with this. It's weird that your file didn't become completely un-readable though.

Err...what? Having transferred petabytes of files as this point over USB without any issues, not sure what is wrong with Windows here. Obviously things can go wrong with any piece of tech, but not sure "Windows is bad at USB" is a rule of thumb here.

[fwrunner2018]

I just found another 'corrupted' file on my phone. This one just skips at a specific time.
I then checked both the original and the phone's copy of the flac file in Foobar2000. Only the one I had uploaded to the phone skips.

This is looking more like an SD card or phone problem than anything else.
I never suspected this of having anything to do with Reaper; it's just that I thought folks here would be more 'informed' about this sort of stuff, but I guess most Reaper users are creating music rather than uploading it to play on a phone.

That said, you guys have given me more than I have received in the phone forum I posted in (an after-thought after I posted here).

I'm definitely looking into the phone's apps and hardware.
I did run a disk check on the SD card from the phone (while it was plugged into a USB converter on the Windows PC)
There were no errors.

[serr]

You would need to transfer that file from the phone to a computer and take a look. Of course that adds another variable with another transfer... What you're looking for here though is confirmation of the corrupt file. If you transferred the file to a computer to look and then found it not corrupted, that would tell you to look to something crashing with the phone instead. So, that's the point of that.

A drive or flash drive failing could absolutely lead to this scenario. A corrupt file index could do this exactly. Whereas some kind of weird bug scenario would be a stretch and a half to lead to what appears to be a corrupt file but with no warnings or error messages along the way. A one perfect coincidence after another kind of scenario that is highly unlikely.

What else... SD cards are just about the most fragile storage format invented since the zip drive. Look at one of them out of the corner or your eye the wrong way and it will never mount and read again!

[Bazzbass]

Originally Posted by fwrunner2018

This is looking more like an SD card or phone problem than anything else.
.

Isn't that what I said and you told me to read your OP?

apology accepted !

[Geoff-h3o]

Originally Posted by fwrunner2018

I'm searching for the song that interrupted. Pretty surt it was Boston.
But even when I do find the 'offending' song, I still have no clue as to how it got there.
If I had been recording by analog channel, I could have easily mixed in any other Windows sound, but I am sure I didn't use analog for this track.

I can understand if my SD card was corrupted, but that would create an unplayable flac file.
It must have happened on the phone, as the original flac from which I uploaded to the phone is good.

Edit: I found the song. It is Boston - Don't Be Afraid. I found is by selecting the segment from the original track in Reaper, then copying that selection to a second track, removing the original track, and rendering only the segment. Then I uploaded the flac file to AHA Music online. When I loaded the track into Reaper, I confirmed that it was the same song.
Thing is, the part of the 2nd track that cut into the 1st track does not line up timewise.
In the original track the cut occurs at about 1:16, but that corresponds to about 1:40 on the second track.

In addition, I have found that if I set the segment to loop, then enable looping in Reaper, the looped segment will play the first time, but subsequent passes results in silence.
If I extend the loop selection forward in time, the segment of the loop that is the 2nd song is silent, but audio returns once the looped cursor is past the end of the 2nd track.
I would like to create a video to make it more clear of what I have found, but I need to find a free screen capture video recorder for Windows 10.

OBS studio.🙂
https://obsproject.com/

[fwrunner2018]

Originally Posted by Geoff-h3o

OBS studio.🙂
https://obsproject.com/

Thanks for the link. I'll give it a try.

[fwrunner2018]

This is really getting to look like I've got a defective SD card.
I found yet another track on the phone that had a skip, while its original - both played in Foobar - was fine.

I hesitated to run the utility 'h2testw' on the card, as it will destroy all data. But now that the SD card is my #1 suspect, I am going to run it. I have full backup on the PC, and a removable drive, so no problems there.

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by JonLinnarson

Windows has had a lot of bugs with transferring files over USB ever since XP and people are still experiencing different problems with this. It's weird that your file didn't become completely un-readable though.

Just as an FYI... I've not had a USB transfer fail/corrupt since XP (20 years ago), which was before they implemented proper flushing minus caching for IOPs destined for a removable device. Unless some user disabled this and subsequently shot themselves in the foot by doing so.

And you are right, should have been unreadable or even non-existent. It is also possible that the issue occurred on the android device while it's code was writing the bits to the SD card during the transfer - or maybe both files/songs were copied at the same time and something went wrong.

What I might have done is transfer the file back from the phone to the computer for further examination which might have yielded some clues. I sort of feel like we're missing some unknown but important detail.

[MetalSmurf]

Originally Posted by fwrunner2018

This is really getting to look like I've got a defective SD card.
I found yet another track on the phone that had a skip, while its original - both played in Foobar - was fine.

I hesitated to run the utility 'h2testw' on the card, as it will destroy all data. But now that the SD card is my #1 suspect, I am going to run it. I have full backup on the PC, and a removable drive, so no problems there.

Some cards from "too good to be true" websites are scams. The user orders a 128 GB card, and it seems to report that size to the OS when you first use it, but the actual flash storage is much smaller than the reported size, so when you exceed the actual size I guess it would just start overwriting other areas of the flash.

Could this be what's happening or did you get the card from a reputable dealer?

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by MetalSmurf

Some cards from "too good to be true" websites are scams. The user orders a 128 GB card, and it seems to report that size to the OS when you first use it, but the actual flash storage is much smaller than the reported size, so when you exceed the actual size I guess it would just start overwriting other areas of the flash.

Could this be what's happening or did you get the card from a reputable dealer?

That's a great point, I never use anything other than known-good brand SD cards.

[fakemaxwell]

Don't order any SD or CF media off of Amazon. Try and find it from a local dealer, or buy from a Sweetwater/B&H/etc. Fake flash media is a big problem on Amazon that they aren't doing much to stop.

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by fakemaxwell

Don't order any SD or CF media off of Amazon. Try and find it from a local dealer, or buy from a Sweetwater/B&H/etc. Fake flash media is a big problem on Amazon that they aren't doing much to stop.

I think you can get the right ones from Amazon but you have to make sure it's from the manufacturer's amazon account and not a third-party making fakes and selling as if they were the manufacturer - so you do have to look closely.

I've seen/heard of what you are talking about which is real but I've never gotten a fake one when making sure it comes from the right place. I've probably gotten 50-100 from Amazon over the years - because I use them in tons of applications/devices.

[fwrunner2018]

Yes, I did copy the corrupted flac files from the phone to my PC (into a separate folder from the originals).
I then downloaded and installed 'Flac Frontend' and ran it first on the corrupted files. Here are the results:

Heartbeat City.flac: *** Got error code 0:FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_ERROR_STATUS_LOST_SYNC
*** Got error code 0:FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_ERROR_STATUS_LOST_SYNC
Heartbeat City.flac: ERROR while decoding data
state = FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_READ_FRAME

Mexican Radio - Wall of Voodoo - corrupted at 1_12.flac: *** Got error code 0:FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_ERROR_STATUS_LOST_SYNC
*** Got error code 0:FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_ERROR_STATUS_LOST_SYNC
Mexican Radio - Wall of Voodoo - corrupted at 1_12.flac: ERROR while decoding data
state = FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_READ_FRAME

Surrender.flac: *** Got error code 0:FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_ERROR_STATUS_LOST_SYNC
*** Got error code 0:FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_ERROR_STATUS_LOST_SYNC
Surrender.flac: ERROR while decoding data
state = FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_READ_FRAME

Then I ran Flac Frontend on the original files:

Mexican Radio - Wall of Voodoo.flac: ok
Heartbeat City.flac: ok
Surrender.flac: ok

I assume these results confirm that the files from the phone were corrupted.

I should note that when I first received the new SD card, I formatted it on my Windows PC using a USB 3.0 SD card reader dongle.
I then copied all of the flac files from the PC to this card.
Finally, I inserted the card into the phone (with phone shut off) and did a full re-scan in PowerAmp music player.

Is this the correct method of formatting and copying a lot of files onto an SD card for Android?
I did it this way (rather than installing the unformatted card into the phone and allowing Android 10 to format it) because I thought doing it on the PC would be much faster, considering that I have around 150GB of flac files to copy.

[fwrunner2018]

Update:
I tested the SD card using h2testw and 'fakeflashtest'. Both reported the correct capacity, but neither could ID the manufacturer. It was just reported as 'generic' by both utilities.
The max reported speed was ball-park for what the card is spec'd at.

After running this test, I reformatted the SD card from Windows using a Sabrent USB 3.0 SD card adapter. There were no errors reported in the exFAT file system.

So I began copying flac files from the PC onto the SD card. I used Windows 10 file explorer. The files copied without glitches or errors (in file explorer).
BUT: When I ran 'flac Frontend' to test the flac files on the SD card for errors, I found that many of the newly copied files contained errors.
The error codes thrown were those I have listed below, but not all of the errors would occur for every file.

0:FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_ERROR_STATUS_LOST_SYNC
1:FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_ERROR_STATUS_BAD_HEADER
3:FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_ERROR_STATUS_UNPARSEABLE_ST REAM
ERROR while decoding data
state = FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_READ_FRAME

Once again I re-checked the original files for errors and found none.

Sometimes after deleting and re-copying the files to the SD card, there were fewer or no errors.

So now I'm thinking that there is a problem with the interface between the PC and the SD card.
I used a Sabrent USB 3.0 SD card adapter. It was plugged directly into a USB port on the front of the PC - not into a hub.

Next I removed the SD card from the adapter (after having ejected in from Windows). I re-installed the SD card into my Android phone.
When I powered the phone up, the SD card was recognized, but the OS reported that it was corrupted.
I was presented with two options, and I chose to format as portable storage.

Now, I am re-copying my flac music library to the SD card in the phone.
So far I have not found any errors, but I haven't checked even 10% of the files.

While this thread may not be directly related to Reaper, I am sure that many of you who work with music files use SD cards.

[karbomusic]

Have you tried this with a known-good name brand card? IMHO such issues as above are common with substandard/cheap cards.