Songs not playing in Plexamp

I have 4 songs that won’t play in Plexamp.
When I press play, it goes into the song and quickly backs out - don’t hear a thing.
Happens in both Plexamp iOS, Plexamp for Mac.

When playing the song in Plex for Mac or Plex/Web, all 4 songs play fine.
Anyone encountered this before?

Anything specific about those files?

They are m4a and mp3 files. They are part of albums and the other album songs are the same format and play fine.
If you want the actual details, what’s best to share, the info XML for each?

Best bet would be to upload Plexamp logs.

Plexamp-Logs-2021-10-28-1.zip (1.4 MB)

Here you go, logs from Plexamp for iOS.

Oct 28, 2021 10:45:51.124 [0x6b8df000] ERROR - BASS: Error [ret = BASS_StreamCreateFile(FALSE, m_reader->path().c_str(), 0, 0, (DWORD)flags)] - 41

Looks like there’s something about the format of these files that our decoder doesn’t like. If you upload them we can have a peek.

4 songs.zip (15.2 MB)
Here you go

Hi, Same issue with this oneGC- Nunca Ire.zip (4.5 MB)Plexamp.log (1.6 MB)

I can reproduce those tracks not playing, but I’m not sure why. We’ll investigate.

Thanks Elan, good to know it’s not just me.

I have a similar issue with a lot of files. This only seems to affect PleaxAMP on iOS and iPadOs. I can play them on Plexamp on windows and android or the Plex app on all systems (windows, mac, android an webOS tv) and web.

On some albums I can’t even see the tracklists. On Carplay previously stated that it was unable to connect to the server, but now I can see track names even thought on iOS only I still can’t.

here’s log error (that it doesn’t seem to help much to me)

Nov 10, 2021 00:23:51.393 [0x6ba23000] DEBUG - Networking: Completed request 57: (GET https://x.x.x.x:xxx/library/metadata/8947?includeFields=thumbBlurHash&X-Plex-Device-Name=iPhone%2012%20mini) with code 200 (have 4333 bytes) in 50 ms.
Nov 10, 2021 00:23:51.408 [0x6ba23000] DEBUG - Networking: Completed request 59: (GET https://x.x.x.x:xxx/library/metadata/8947/children?includeFields=thumbBlurHash&X-Plex-Device-Name=iPhone%2012%20mini) with code 200 (have 18951 bytes) in 64 ms.
Nov 10, 2021 00:23:51.409 [Javascript] INFO - Networking: Error parsing JSON from request 59: JSON Parse error: Unexpected token: u
Nov 10, 2021 00:23:51.409 [Javascript] INFO - 
Nov 10, 2021 00:23:51.414 [0x6ba23000] DEBUG - Networking: Completed request 58: (GET https://x.x.x.x:xxx/library/metadata/8947?includeRelated=1&asyncAugmentMetadata=1&augmentCount=20&includeFields=musicAnalysis,thumbBlurHash&X-Plex-Device-Name=iPhone%2012%20mini) with code 200 (have 4402 bytes) in 70 ms.
Nov 10, 2021 00:23:51.414 [Javascript] WARNING - Error loading album data.
Nov 10, 2021 00:23:54.424 [Javascript] INFO - Memory usage: 35.0 MB Native: 63.1 MB
Nov 10, 2021 00:24:21.468 [0x05608580] DEBUG - BASS: Application going into background.
Nov 10, 2021 00:24:21.468 [0x05608580] INFO - BASS: Suspending player.
Nov 10, 2021 00:24:21.474 [0x05608580] INFO - BASS: Setting audio session active to 0.
Nov 10, 2021 00:24:21.480 [Javascript] INFO - App: Application state changed to inactive.
Nov 10, 2021 00:24:21.485 [Javascript] INFO - App: Application state changed to background.
Nov 10, 2021 00:24:49.265 [Javascript] INFO - Memory usage: 35.0 MB Native: 56.5 MB
Nov 10, 2021 00:24:49.900 [0x05608580] DEBUG - BASS: Application returning to foreground.
Nov 10, 2021 00:24:49.904 [Javascript] INFO - App: Application state changed to active.
Nov 10, 2021 00:24:49.904 [Javascript] INFO - Cloud: [RecentPlays] Syncing.
Nov 10, 2021 00:24:49.904 [Javascript] INFO - Discovery: Refresh based on app activation.
Nov 10, 2021 00:24:49.904 [Javascript] INFO - Discovery: Fetching hubs for library /library/sections/1 server 87f65db040556247544e0b9cf9f53e4fc952d034.
Nov 10, 2021 00:24:50.059 [0x6ba23000] DEBUG - Networking: Completed request 61: (GET https://192-168-68-14.00e1d1f5246e4670b3ad8a0630d88d84.plex.direct:32400/hubs/sections/1?count=4&includeExternalMetadata=1&includeMyMixes=1&includeAnniversaryReleases=1&excludeElements=Similar,Mood&includeLibraryPlaylists=1&includeStations=1&includeStationDirectories=1&excludeFields=summary&includeFields=thumbBlurHash&X-Plex-Device-Name=iPhone%2012%20mini) with code 200 (have 27273 bytes) in 151 ms.

server log:

Nov 10, 2021 00:23:51.428 [0x7fb0a3647b38] DEBUG - Request: [x.x.x.x:xxx (Subnet)] GET /library/metadata/8947?includeFields=thumbBlurHash (6 live) TLS GZIP Signed-in Token (ajmaranhao)
Nov 10, 2021 00:23:51.431 [0x7fb0a30ebb38] DEBUG - Request: [x.x.x.x:xxx (Subnet)] GET /library/metadata/8947?includeRelated=1&asyncAugmentMetadata=1&augmentCount=20&includeFields=musicAnalysis,thumbBlurHash (6 live) TLS GZIP Signed-in Token (ajmaranhao)
Nov 10, 2021 00:23:51.432 [0x7fb0a300bb38] DEBUG - Request: [x.x.x.x:xxx (Subnet)] GET /library/metadata/8947/children?includeFields=thumbBlurHash (6 live) TLS GZIP Signed-in Token (ajmaranhao)
Nov 10, 2021 00:23:51.448 [0x7fb0a502cb38] DEBUG - Completed: [x.x.x.x:xxx] 200 GET /library/metadata/8947?includeFields=thumbBlurHash (6 live) TLS GZIP 19ms 2274 bytes (pipelined: 1)
Nov 10, 2021 00:23:51.463 [0x7fb0a502cb38] DEBUG - Completed: [x.x.x.x:xxx] 200 GET /library/metadata/8947/children?includeFields=thumbBlurHash (6 live) TLS GZIP 31ms 3128 bytes (pipelined: 1)
Nov 10, 2021 00:23:51.468 [0x7fb0a502cb38] DEBUG - Completed: [x.x.x.x:xxx] 200 GET /library/metadata/8947?includeRelated=1&asyncAugmentMetadata=1&augmentCount=20&includeFields=musicAnalysis,thumbBlurHash (6 live) TLS GZIP 37ms 2296 bytes (pipelined: 1)

There is something amiss with those files, but we’re not sure exactly what. You can reproduce if you use the macOS afconvert tool, it doesn’t like them (with a rather amusing error code):

$ afconvert -f WAVE -d LEI16 "1-10 MyMyMy.m4a" test.wav
Error: Couldn't open input file ('wht?')

If you try to convert one using ffmpeg, it shows the file is corrupt:

[mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2 @ 0x7fe72c015000] Packet corrupt (stream = 0, dts = 8670208).=57.6x
/Users/elan/Downloads/Albums for Elan/1-10 MyMyMy.m4a: corrupt input packet in stream 0
[aac @ 0x7fe72c01ca00] Input buffer exhausted before END element found
Error while decoding stream #0:0: Invalid data found when processing input
[mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2 @ 0x7fe72c015000] stream 0, offset 0x300039: partial file
/Users/elan/Downloads/Albums for Elan/1-10 MyMyMy.m4a: Invalid data found when processing input

It might appear similar, but it’s completely different. In your case, the server is returning invalid JSON (illegal UTF-8 characters). I’ve heard of this happening on some Linux systems, usually removing and then re-adding the albums fixes it, as it may be related to an old server bug.

Thanks Elan, I tried FFMpeg and I got a slightly different error, but it did spit out a file.

Command = ffmpeg -i ‘./1-10 MyMyMy.m4a’ -c copy ‘1-10 MyMyMy2.m4a’

[mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2 @ 0x7fae2980e800] Packet corrupt (stream = 0, dts = 8670208).ed=  11x    
./1-10 MyMyMy.m4a: corrupt input packet in stream 0
[mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2 @ 0x7fae2980e800] stream 0, offset 0x300039: partial file
./1-10 MyMyMy.m4a: Invalid data found when processing input

I replaced the original file with this one and Plexamp for Mac and iOS played it fine :slight_smile: - Problem must be with the file, I’m ok to close this as solved.

I also restored a backup of the file and did the same FFMpeg command, no errors - guessing file was ‘slightly’ corrupted between then and now. Funny how it still played on some players but not on others.

If that happens, you should definitely change something about your media file storage. You might be affected by what professionals are referring to as “bit rot”: The sneaking degradation of data integritiy, without the system getting noticed about it.

Thanks, will look into that.

That was it, when uploading the files to the server using coreftp it changed character encoding, the solution was to copy the files back to my computer through coreftp and put them on the server through samba share.
(Even on samba share I couldn’t see files and folder with special characters and listing them on console or gnome showed a strange character)

Media files should be copied in “binary” mode. No text encoding translation should be performed.
Normally, ftp software should be smart enough to know when to perform the encoding translation and when not.

The connection was actually SFTP, so as far as I’m aware all file are sent in binary mode, just the character set needed to be set manually and it was ANSI by default instead on Unicode which was needed.

SFTP is exactly the same as FTP. The only difference is the added encryption during the transport. So everything I said above applies to SFTP as well.

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