Gramophone issues

[frau kaleun]

I'm having some problems with the Gramophone in game.

Sometimes I clicky-click to play it and nothing happens (at least nothing in terms of me hearing any of my tunes start).

Sometimes this happens and I wait a while and try again, and then it plays, but after maybe two tracks it will freeze the game up at the start of the next track and I get the "encountered an error and needs to close" popup and have to shut everything down. The "BZZZZ" of the frozen sound of the game/Gram track continues until I reboot.

Sometimes I click on it for the first time and it plays, and continues to play through 4-5 tracks, and then stops, and won't play any more.

Sometimes the problems occur when I'm leaving base, or on the bridge during wild weather or with another ship nearby, so I thought it was maybe an overload of the system with too much happening at once. But not always.

The only thing I can think of that I have different now from the last time I remember playing the Gram for more than 5-6 tracks without any issues, is that I enabled the GWX 16k atmosphere mod. That doesn't seem to be causing me any other problems at all, but would having that enabled and then playing the Gram be just enough to overload my system so that I'm having these problems with the Gram now?

Or is there something I should be looking at with the files in the Gram folder that might be causing all the hangups? So far it doesn't seem to be any one particular track that is playing or next up when these things happen. I have noticed though that the tracks are not playing in order even though the files names are just numbers to make them do that. Some tracks just seem to get skipped over completely, and at least one of them I know never played at all. That stuff was happening even when I wasn't having other problems.

I really hope it's not the 16K mod + the Gram that's the problem, because I love having the 16k atmo. But I need some love from my gramophone too. :O:

[KL-alfman]

hmm, what a shame.
until now I've never experienced something like that. but I remember Jimbuna's words about converting all the files to the *.ogg format because *.mp3 will cause sort of problems. :cry:

[Gilbou]

Do you put all files inside the folder and not within folders inside ?
What are the name lengths of those files to play ? Do you keep them short and without spaces (_ instead of spaces).
Where do these come from : some clean MP3 encoding with slow ripping (slow ripping + LAME) ?

[frau kaleun]

They're all .ogg files, all placed simply in the Gram folder (no subfolders).

The files are named 001.ogg, 002.ogg, 003.ogg, etc. Right now there are only about 20 files total in the folder, because I did a reinstall a while back and have just started putting stuff back in there. I actually had more files in there before then and it was working with no problem.

The largest file in there currently is the ogg file of TarJak's Radio Deutschland, which I know played fine at least once after I first added it. Now it's either one of the files that's getting skipped or else things freeze up before it comes around in the playlist, I'm not sure which.

Some of them are .ogg files from Jimbuna's music packs or other collections I've d/led from here. Some are files I already had or found here or elsewhere and converted from mp3 to ogg using dBPoweramp. They all play fine when I open them outside the game.

I may just clear out everything except a couple of the tracks that I know have played through on this patrol without any issues and see what happens.

[ryanglavin]

Well, I used to use your sound Mods Frau, and I think it is Radio Deutschland messing with Jimbuna's music pack. I Had to disable one or the other and it worked.

[frau kaleun]

Well, I used to use your sound Mods Frau, and I think it is Radio Deutschland messing with Jimbuna's music pack. I Had to disable one or the other and it worked.

That's odd, because I'm pretty sure I had RD and some of Jimbuna's files in there before and I wasn't having this problem.

Although I didn't enable any of them via mod enabler, just extracted the files to a temp location and selected what I wanted and put it in the Gram folder manually.

What's strange too is that at least one of the tracks that gets skipped over every single time is the second movement of a symphony, and the other three tracks from it play fine - they were all mp3s that I had and were converted to ogg at the same time using the same process. So that issue can't be caused by some oddity in the one file versus the other three. Unless that one file just happened to get corrupted in the conversion process and the others didn't. But that file is not one that causes a freeze or crash, it just never plays. And it doesn't freeze up at the point where it should be playing, just skips it and plays the next file.

Anyway - I'm going to experiment with taking everything out of there except the ones I know are playing okay.

[ryanglavin]

That's odd, because I'm pretty sure I had RD and some of Jimbuna's files in there before and I wasn't having this problem.

Although I didn't enable any of them via mod enabler, just extracted the files to a temp location and selected what I wanted and put it in the Gram folder manually.

What's strange too is that at least one of the tracks that gets skipped over every single time is the second movement of a symphony, and the other three tracks from it play fine - they were all mp3s that I had and were converted to ogg at the same time using the same process. So that issue can't be caused by some oddity in the one file versus the other three. Unless that one file just happened to get corrupted in the conversion process and the others didn't. But that file is not one that causes a freeze or crash, it just never plays. And it doesn't freeze up at the point where it should be playing, just skips it and plays the next file.

Anyway - I'm going to experiment with taking everything out of there except the ones I know are playing okay.
Maybe you should try to uninstall the music, than make them enabled by JGSME.

[frau kaleun]

Maybe you should try to uninstall the music, than make them enabled by JGSME.

I have too many files that are not part of a "music mod" and would have to be put in the folder manually anyway. Also, I typically don't want all the tracks from any one of the sound mods in there, so I would either be fiddling with a mod's data before I enabled it, or taking stuff out of the Gram folder afterwards, not to mention renaming the files I left there to make them play in the order I want in game (yes I am that particular about those things, lol).

I've never managed the tunes in the Gram folder any other way but manually, since that gives me control over the contents from the get-go, which is what I want. Never had any problems with doing it that way before.

[ryanglavin]

I have too many files that are not part of a "music mod" and would have to be put in the folder manually anyway. Also, I typically don't want all the tracks from any one of the sound mods in there, so I would either be fiddling with a mod's data before I enabled it, or taking stuff out of the Gram folder afterwards, not to mention renaming the files I left there to make them play in the order I want in game (yes I am that particular about those things, lol).

I've never managed the tunes in the Gram folder any other way but manually, since that gives me control over the contents from the get-go, which is what I want. Never had any problems with doing it that way before.

Well your problem is confusing.
Unless you already had, you should still try to manually take out sound files until they work.

[frau kaleun]

Well your problem is confusing.
Unless you already had, you should still try to manually take out sound files until they work.

That's the plan - just didn't know if anyone else had experienced issues with use of the Gram overloading their system to the point where the game crashes. I don't think that's the problem since I shouldn't be *that* close to maxing out resources, but wasn't sure how much strain it puts on everything. If it's minimal, that shouldn't be the issue here.

I will probably just put "It's A Long Way To Tiperrary" in there and let it play over and over again. That track makes me very happy. :)

[frau kaleun]

Oh hey I think I just realized what the problem is.

Before this patrol started, my LI failed to return from leave and I had to enlist a replacement.

Obviously the dirty schweinhund went through my record collection and stole the ones he liked, and most likely scratched up some of the others in the process.

:stare:

I am so going to call Judge Judy on his @$$.

[Jimbuna]

Try the ogg.vorbis tracks on their own.

Do not enable via JSGME but simply place each track into the gramaphone folder.

If that doesn't work you have a conflicting file from a mod which is very unusual because sound files are usually okay.

If all else fails I am quite happy to create a soundpack to replace your gramaphone folder.

[frau kaleun]

Try the ogg.vorbis tracks on their own.

Do not enable via JSGME but simply place each track into the gramaphone folder.

If that doesn't work you have a conflicting file from a mod which is very unusual because sound files are usually okay.

If all else fails I am quite happy to create a soundpack to replace your gramaphone folder.

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. :DL

I am definitely going to try just having one file in there at a time and see if I still have problems, or if there is one or more specific file(s) that cause them. I may even put the original file back in there that came with the vanilla install and see if that by itself will play okay.

In order to create a custom soundpack that I wanted to enable via JSGME, would it just be a matter of duplicating the necessary file structure [MOD NAME]/data/Sounds/Gramophone (or whatever) and putting the tracks in the last folder, and then put the whole thing in the MODS folder, and then have JSGME enable it like any other mod?

[Jimbuna]

Yes :yep:

But TBH I prefer to slip the tracks in separately from within the original storage folder.

[frau kaleun]

Yes :yep:

But TBH I prefer to slip the tracks in separately from within the original storage folder.

Yeah, that's what I've been doing. I have them in a folder for that purpose where the filenames are the titles, so I know what I have, but when I want them in the Gram folder I'll rename them as whatever track# comes next and copy them over.

I started doing that because when I had to reinstall everything, I forgot about backing up all the neat files I'd added to Gram and had to go find them again and reconvert a bunch of stuff I had elsewhere on my HD.

[Jimbuna]

Rgr that http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/thumbsup.gif

But I am truly at a loss why you are experiencing problems because literally hundreds have downloaded my gramaphone tunes and I am yet to hear of any individuals experiencing any difficulty.

[ryanglavin]

That's the plan - just didn't know if anyone else had experienced issues with use of the Gram overloading their system to the point where the game crashes. I don't think that's the problem since I shouldn't be *that* close to maxing out resources, but wasn't sure how much strain it puts on everything. If it's minimal, that shouldn't be the issue here.

I will probably just put "It's A Long Way To Tiperrary" in there and let it play over and over again. That track makes me very happy. :)

Hey, thats my gramophone set up!

[frau kaleun]

Rgr that http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/thumbsup.gif

But I am truly at a loss why you are experiencing problems because literally hundreds have downloaded my gramaphone tunes and I am yet to hear of any individuals experiencing any difficulty.

Oh, I'm not assuming it's any file from your packs, I really don't know what it is. Only a few of the 20 tracks in the folder right now came from Subsim downloads, some I converted from mp3s I already had, and there may be an odd file that I picked up already in ogg format from some other source. Some of the ones that are getting skipped over are my own files, some aren't. I don't even know which track it's freezing on since it's not playing them in the designated order and freezes before I can tell which one it's trying to play when it crashes. Could be one particular file or several - I'll just have to see what happens when the game only has one file to choose from.

[frau kaleun]

Hey, thats my gramophone set up!

Lol, I sometimes pull up the mp3 of it and let it play over and over again even when I'm NOT playing SH3.

[frau kaleun]

Well, after a bit of testing and experimentation, I am now more mystified than ever.

I removed everything from the Gram folder, and started putting files in one at a time.

First I put in the single file that was there after vanilla install. Went into the game, and everything works fine - except when I activate the gramophone, there are TWO files that play. One is the stock music that's in the Gramophone1.mp3 that came with the game. The other is a file that sounds like an old live recording of a speech being given in German followed by the the sound of marching feet, what may or not be gunfire or cannonfire, then more impassioned speechifying. A wartime or prewar historical recording to my ears. I can use the prev/next buttons to switch between this and the Gramophone1.mp3, which is the ONLY file that's in the Gram folder. Esc, exit, return to base, exit game.

I took out the stock mp3 and replaced it with Tarjak's RadioDL1.ogg file and went back into the game. Same deal. Now there's the mystery file, which plays first, plus the RadioDL1 track. Both play fine, I can skip backwards and forwards between the two.

Exited again and put in one of the .ogg files that always seemed to get skipped when I had a whole batch of files in there. Went back into game, now that file plays fine as well, I can use the prev/next buttons with no problem, but the mystery file plays first and is still there. Esc/exit/return to base/exit game again.

Then I took out the one .ogg file that I had just put in the Gram folder. It's now showing as empty. Go back into game, activate the gramophone, and the mystery file now plays as the one and only track even though it's NOT in the Gramophone folder. I have my folder options set to show me all files, including hidden and system files, so if it's in the Gram folder I should be able to see that it's there, right? And it's not. So where the hell is it, and why is it being included in the in-game gramophone playlist?

I never heard this file before at all, ever, when I've played the gramophone in the game. But if the game is trying to insert this mystery file into the playlist at a certain point and it's conflicting with the sequence I've set up by naming my files 001, 002, etc. - might that be what's causing the problem?

[Jimbuna]

I think what your experiencing is the games background music which is set to 'loop' playing at the same time as a gramaphone track. I'm at work right now and not sure which folder it resides in (either Music or Sounds) but IIRC can't you disable the music via the options panel (it's been so long ago since I've had cause to look in that area).

That is where I believe your problem lies.

[frau kaleun]

:hmmm:

But would the game treat one of those files like a gramophone track when the gramophone is activated in the game? That's the only time I'm hearing it.

It does sound like something that might play during the intro movie, and I skip that so if it does play there I wouldn't recognize it as such.

[Jimbuna]

:hmmm:

But would the game treat one of those files like a gramophone track when the gramophone is activated in the game? That's the only time I'm hearing it.

It does sound like something that might play during the intro movie, and I skip that so if it does play there I wouldn't recognize it as such.

Go to: C:\Program Files\Ubisoft\GWX3.0\data\Sound\Music and temporarily take the music folder out (cut and paste to your worktop).

Load the game and see if that solves the problem.

If it does, you now need to go into your gramaphone folder and look for either a similar named track or identify the track in the music folder and remove it....then return the music folder.

You definitely have two trackd vying for the same air space.

[frau kaleun]

Go to: C:\Program Files\Ubisoft\GWX3.0\data\Sound\Music and temporarily take the music folder out (cut and paste to your worktop).

Load the game and see if that solves the problem.

If it does, you now need to go into your gramaphone folder and look for either a similar named track or identify the track in the music folder and remove it....then return the music folder.

You definitely have two trackd vying for the same air space.

Will try when I get home - I definitely want to figure out what file it is that's playing. I don't necessarily want to delete it, I just want it to play where it's supposed to play and not behave like it's in the Gram folder when it's not and crash my game by competing with files that are there.

And I can tell you, there's nothing in the Gramophone folder at all - nada -and the mystery file still played when I activated the gramophone in the game. Then and only then. I could understand if the game was trying to loop background music *as background* and not cutting it off when the gram was "ordered" to play, thus creating the conflict - but why it would treat the background music file as though it's in the Gram folder when it's not, and insert it into the game via that function - that still seems just plain bizarre to me.

Oh well. Search and destroy mission will have to wait for a couple hours at least. BUT I WILL FIND YOU, EVIL SOUND FILE!!! And when I do you will not deprive me of my toonz ever again.

[frau kaleun]

Hmm...I moved the Music folder to my desktop and out of the game folder - the game crashed when I went back in and tried to load a mission. So I moved it back. Went through and clicked on all the files in it, and none of them is the mystery track that's playing on my gramophone in the game.

I think I'm going to do a second install and open the game from there and see if the mystery file plays in that one.

[ryanglavin]

Will try when I get home - I definitely want to figure out what file it is that's playing. I don't necessarily want to delete it, I just want it to play where it's supposed to play and not behave like it's in the Gram folder when it's not and crash my game by competing with files that are there.

And I can tell you, there's nothing in the Gramophone folder at all - nada -and the mystery file still played when I activated the gramophone in the game. Then and only then. I could understand if the game was trying to loop background music *as background* and not cutting it off when the gram was "ordered" to play, thus creating the conflict - but why it would treat the background music file as though it's in the Gram folder when it's not, and insert it into the game via that function - that still seems just plain bizarre to me.

Oh well. Search and destroy mission will have to wait for a couple hours at least. BUT I WILL FIND YOU, EVIL SOUND FILE!!! And when I do you will not deprive me of my toonz ever again.

WATCHING SUBSIM AT WORK I SEE!!
Actually, thats a good idea.

[frau kaleun]

Okay, the "mystery track" that was being played by the gramophone in the game is the file Radio.wav that is included in the stock Gram folder along with Gramophone1.mp3.

Which doesn't explain why I was still hearing it on the gramophone when it was no longer in the folder, but at least I know what it was and where it came from originally.

[KL-alfman]

I remember having one or two probs with this explicit file, too. had to deal with it until the end of the patrol and then deleted it mercilessly.
made me angry.

[frau kaleun]

This is what's weird. Even when I delete it from the folder, IT STILL PLAYS in the game as though it's there.

I just went in and deleted it and went back into the game, and when I click on the gramophone and shuffle through the available tracks, it plays. And it's not in the folder! WTF?

What did you do to get it off the gramophone playlist? Because in my case deleting it from the Gram folder is not working.

I guess I could put it back and see if having it there keeps the game from crashing when I try to play other tracks, and then just skip over it when it comes up in the sequence... but it still doesn't make sense to me that it plays after being deleted.



Edit: I just did a search and there is no file by that name in the game folder, and no file containing that filename in the game folder. But it does appear in the Gramophone folders of 34 subfolders of the SH3 Commander/Date directory.

All 34 instances have the same filename, but the actual wav track differs depending on date. So I'm assuming that this is designed to substitute a more date-appropriate track for the Radio.wav that comes in the game, and if that's been deleted entirely...

I wonder if I can just rename all the files to 001.wav, and then select one that I don't mind playing all the time, and put that in all the folders plus the game's Gram folder. And let that be the first song in the playlist all the time. I don't have a problem with that, but will it work? Or maybe just copy my desired 001.ogg file into the game's Gram folder plus all the relevant folders in SH3 Commander and delete all instances of the Radio.wav file.

Or is it safe to just delete all the Radio.wav files from Commander and the game folder, and leave it at that?

Well I'm off to search the SHCommander thread and see if this has been covered. Probably has, lol.

[ryanglavin]

Well I'm off to search the SHCommander thread and see if this has been covered. Probably has, lol.

Well, to have the conversation here would help anyone else with a similar problem, who don't have to go searchin. So its good to have another one.

[frau kaleun]

Well, to have the conversation here would help anyone else with a similar problem, who don't have to go searchin. So its good to have another one.

I did a general search plus one of the stickied thread for Commander in the Mods forum and didn't find anything specific to that file... so I PM'd JS about it.

I really hope the files I found in Commander are the source of the continuing appearance of the track in-game... I don't know where else it could be coming from, since it's been deleted from the game folder. If that is the source, then a workaround shouldn't be that difficult.

[ryanglavin]

I did a general search plus one of the stickied thread for Commander in the Mods forum and didn't find anything specific to that file... so I PM'd JS about it.

I really hope the files I found in Commander are the source of the continuing appearance of the track in-game... I don't know where else it could be coming from, since it's been deleted from the game folder. If that is the source, then a workaround shouldn't be that difficult.

I FOUND ZE SOLUTION!
actually its a pretty bad solution.
You can uninstall your operating system and then reinstall it. Thats what I had to do after attempting a faulty patch install for SH4. Not fun!

[frau kaleun]

I FOUND ZE SOLUTION!
actually its a pretty bad solution.
You can uninstall your operating system and then reinstall it. Thats what I had to do after attempting a faulty patch install for SH4. Not fun!

:har:

Okay that's not really that funny. I've only done that once and it was on purpose to get a 'clean slate' after years of accumulating the usual crap on my HD. Still not fun.

Actually just heard back from JS and, yes, it IS safe to delete all the Radio.wav files from the SH3 Commander directories if you don't want them added to your gramophone playlist.

[ryanglavin]

:har:

Okay that's not really that funny. I've only done that once and it was on purpose to get a 'clean slate' after years of accumulating the usual crap on my HD. Still not fun.

Actually just heard back from JS and, yes, it IS safe to delete all the Radio.wav files from the SH3 Commander directories if you don't want them added to your gramophone playlist.

yeah, i hate system wipes. Its a pain. Thank God JS got back to you so we didn't have to do my horrible ideas.

[frau kaleun]

Come to think of it that function of Commander is pretty cool if you wanted to customize playlists for various dates in the game, I think you could just put the tracks you want to play all the time in the game's Gram folder and then put additional ones in the Gram folders in Commander and it would insert them in the game for the specified date.

You'd just have to be careful with the filenames in both programs, I guess, to make sure you didn't run into the kind of conflict I was apparently having. But it is a neat idea to have date-specific radio broadcasts or even music tracks available for certain important historical dates.

:rotfl2:

Yikes I just had a mental image of me diligently researching the release date of every single track in my collection to see when it should, in theory, become available to be played as a record on a u-boat, and proceeding accordingly. Knowing me, I will do this at some point.

My goodness the awesomeness of this game and the things people have done to it and what can be done to it to make it even more awesome...

[KL-alfman]

great you got it sorted!
and hadn't to go back to ryanglavin's solution.

and yes, this sim is becoming better and better by the weeks I'm dealing with it.

[Jimbuna]

Well at least your sorted....crack on http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/pirate.gif

[frau kaleun]

:D

Just put the finishing touches on current playlist, here's hoping it works.

225 tracks so far, we'll see how long it takes before I manage to live long enough to hear them all. :O:

[KL-alfman]

a question which I guess might fit in here:

I couldn't track any more info of my fav-song of Jimbuna's collection #1 "All over the Place".
tried wiki and youtube but wasn't successful at all ...... :hmmm:

[Jimbuna]

a question which I guess might fit in here:

I couldn't track any more info of my fav-song of Jimbuna's collection #1 "All over the Place".
tried wiki and youtube but wasn't successful at all ...... :hmmm:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noel_Gay

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Home-Front-Songs-World-War/dp/B002WYTT54

http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/a/allovertheplace.shtml

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Songs-Noel-Gay/dp/B000008OWB

[KL-alfman]

thx a lot!
exactly what I was searching for. http://www.my-smileys.de/smileys3/klatsch_2.gif

[Jimbuna]

thx a lot!
exactly what I was searching for. http://www.my-smileys.de/smileys3/klatsch_2.gif

Your welcome http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/thumbsup.gif

[frau kaleun]

Hmm... well I'm not running into the CTD issue again so far, I think figuring out the Radio.wav bit probably took care of that, will know for sure once I reach one of the dates that Commander has a Gram folder for... but, the in-game gramophone is still skipping over a couple of the tracks.

All the skipped ones I've found so far play fine when I open them outside the game from the Gram folder so I'm not sure why the game doesn't like them. Maybe I just need to create "fresh" .ogg files of them and see if that helps.

[Jimbuna]

That is very strange because it is usually the ogg.vorbis that don't skip :hmmm:

[frau kaleun]

I think I figured it out - it still had to do with SH3 Commander inserting files into the Gram folder for certain dates.

What I ended up doing, in order to keep the date appropriate files available to be added in, was rename them all as 010_Radio and then put a file in the Gram folder of the same name, just a music track that I didn't mind not hearing if Commander overwrote it for a certain date range.

However, I found that when I loaded the game for a mission or patrol that started on a date for which there was no Date folder at all in the relevant Commander subdirectory, I still had problems with tracks getting skipped or the game freezing up trying to find the next track in sequence.

For instance, the first Date folder in Commander is 19390901. If I loaded the game to play with a start date in Sep1939 (like for the Courageous mission) there was no problem.

But if I started a career in Aug1939 - problem.

So what I did was create a Date folder in the appropriate Commander subdirectory for every monthly 'slot' in the Aug1939-May1945 timeline that didn't have one, each with the necessary folder structure, and copied the 010_Radio file from the game's Gram folder into all of them.

So far, so good - only when I started a career in Feb1941 and tried to load it the game crashed on me. I disabled all my mods and found that I could successfully load up a Feb1941 career but only when I got down to the point of disabling the first mod I'd enabled, which is GWX St Naz & Schluese. (I was starting out of St Naz so it wasn't a surprise that the problem seemed to reside there - didn't have it when I was starting earlier in the war out of Wilhelmshaven.)

I need that mod enabled to run WB's addl ships mod, so I'd like to have it. But I'm not sure why it's causing me a problem. I thought WB's instructions said to disable everything else, enable St Naz & Schluese, and then enable his mod... but is there something else that needs to be enabled first to make the St Naz & Schluese mod work?

EDIT: Well I got it working. Don't know what I did when I was setting up the mod in the first place but I just decided to delete it from the MODS folder and re-extract it back in. Then enabled it and started a new career in 1941 from St Naz and everything loaded fine... altho I think when I get there in my "real" career I'll either have to start at sea or maybe try the Lite Harbor Traffic because, wow, things were really laggy and choppy getting out of St. Naz.

Which will be a shame because it looks awesome with the mod enabled. SO much better than the stock version which doesn't look like St. Naz at all. Also getting the darn boat out of the modded version the first time was quite an adrenalin rush. "AAAAAIIIIIIEEEEE where's the exit hard to port no starboard wait amidships crap beide maschine zuruck wait no JANE STOP THIS CRAZY THING!!"

[frau kaleun]

Coming back to this thread because I'm still completely baffled by my Gramophone.

Is anyone using "numbered" files in the Gram folder to create a playlist and having any luck getting them to play in the order in which you've set them up to play? Because I can NOT get this to work. I'm not having problems with crashes or lags any more, I'm pretty sure I figured out what was causing that and took care of it.

But it's still skipping tracks. And after experimenting over the last couple of patrols, what I've found is this: it's not particular tracks that are getting skipped, it's particular spots in the rotation.

I had the filenames all numbered as 001.ogg, then 002, 003, you get the idea. When I started the gramophone it played only the odd numbered tracks, regardless of which actual files were involved (I tried shuffling tracks around to test this).

So I tried just numbering them as 1.ogg, then 2, 3, etc. It played track 1 first, then 2, then 21, then went back to 3, 4, 5, etc. (I only had 21 tracks in the folder at the time, so after it got 2 & 21 out of the way the rest played fine.) This was about what I expected, given the way numbers at the beginning of filenames are usually sorted, but I thought it was worth a try.

Then I tried the sequence 101, 102, 103, and it starts at 101 but is back to playing only the odd numbered tracks.

I know I could just randomise the tracks, but I really don't want to do that since I have a lot of classical music in there where an entire piece is split across multiple tracks and I want to listen to those in order when they come up.

So - if you've gotten your Gram tracks to play in a specified order, please, for the love of all things holy, how did you manage it? Lol. I know it's a small issue, but the fact that I can't figure it out is making me crazy!

Edit: Okay, I just doublechecked. The last time I tried, it played played the first, third, and fifth tracks. Then it played the sixth track, eighth, and tenth tracks. So it's not playing just the odd numbered tracks. This is weird.

[frau kaleun]

Hmm... just for the heck of it I tried putting only mp3 files in the folder. For whatever reason, the game plays those in whatever order I set up without a problem, except for a couple tracks for which I found it will play the ogg version in the designated spot but skip over the mp3 if I use it instead.

What's also odd now is that there's at least one ogg file that would play fine before, but now gets skipped even though the same version of it is still in there.

So far I've only got about 10% of the files I have actually in the folder... but it looks like it's gonna be a trial and error thing, seeing as how there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the way it's doing it.

*shrugs*

[Jimbuna]

Looking at your posts it would appear you are mixing ogg and MP3 files....that has always been taboo :nope:

[frau kaleun]

Looking at your posts it would appear you are mixing ogg and MP3 files....that has always been taboo :nope:

Nope, not originally when I first noticed the problem. I started out with nothing but ogg files, and the game would skip files, lag in between files while it (I assume) looked for the next one to play, and sometimes crash entirely.

By trimming the folder down to a couple dozen files and experimenting, I determined that it was always skipping or having trouble with specific spots in the sequence (second, fourth, seventh, ninth, etc.) no matter which files were in those spots. No matter what I played with as far as renaming the files, or with taking some tracks out and putting in others, the same pattern occurred.

When I took all those files out of the folder and dropped in a bunch of mp3s from My Music folder, none of which I'd used in the game before (no Hendrix on a uboat, lol), they all played in the proper order by filename. Alphabetically at first, then numerically when I renamed all the files 001, 002, and so on.

So I cleared those out and put mp3 versions of about 30 of my SH3 tracks in there, including all the ones I'd been trying the play before as ogg files. Except for two that I didn't have in mp3, which I put back in as ogg since I'd never had problems with them playing in that format and I figured if I still had problems I'd just convert them over.

The first time through, the game didn't play one of the mp3s, which I then put back in as ogg and then it played fine.

The only other thing that didn't play was one of the other ogg files (Radio Deutschland), which had always played fine before even when I was having problems with half of the other tracks in an all ogg folder.

But there were no lags, no other skips, and no crashes, even with a mixed bag of mp3 and ogg, it's working far better than it ever did before.

I'd still like to stick with one format or the other, but right now I'll take whatever seems to work. :DL

[Jimbuna]

Yeah I understand...it just seems strange that I've never heard or read of anyone experiencing similar phenomena :hmmm:

[frau kaleun]

Yeah I understand...it just seems strange that I've never heard or read of anyone experiencing similar phenomena :hmmm:

I know, and it's just about got me stumped. When there's clearly nothing wrong with the files, why they'd get skipped only when put in a particular spot in the order is just plain weird. And the game would actually freeze momentarily at the end of a track before it decided which one to play next. With the mp3s I don't notice that.

I tried variations on numbered filenames, too, like taking out the leading zeros, stuff like that... made no difference. The only thing I didn't try was something like naming them AAA, AAB, AAC, to try and create an alphabetical sequence instead, since having track title filenames didn't seem to work right either.

Why it was an issue with ogg and not mp3 - especially when ogg is supposedly more stable for most people - can't figure that out at all.

Don't really care any more, if I can just get it to work one way or the other. :O: