importing mp3 fille error which can play on windows media player

[ebromley]

I am trying to edit some MP3 files which I have on a usb drive. The files that were originally ripped from a CD load just fine, but those converted from tape do not load. Audacity 2.4.2 doesn’t recognize the file type. However, all my other players recognize the files including MP3 Split. The files in question were converted from a tape cassette using the Blumway tape to MP3 converter. I am planning to use my Nakamichi Dragon as the tape deck in future, but it is not set up at the moment. Since the usb drive files can be payed on all my other players what is the difference and how can I fix the issue?

[jademan]

This is likely Audacity’s fault:

Audacity 2.4.2 is very fussy about MP3s. They have to strictly conform to the MP3 standard, otherwise Audacity will refuse to import them. This increased strictness was to fix a problem with non-standard files being misidentified. The next version of Audacity will be less strict / more forgiving about MP3s, so we should see a lot less problems of this sort.

If you only have the issue with a few or several files, try DVDdoug’s suggestion:

You can try converting the file to WAV with TAudioConverter or you can try repairing the MP3 with MP3 Diags.

if this becomes a serious problem, try steve’s solution here:

MP3 Decoding failed: Lost sychronization

Try this: If you don’t already have “FFmpeg for Audacity” installed, follow the instructions here to install it: https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/installing_ffmpeg_for_windows.html Then in “Edit menu > Preferences > Import / Export > Extended Import Preferences” Click the “Add new rule” button, and name the new rule: *.mp3 Then in the right hand column, move “FFmpeg-compatible files” to the top, like this (below), and then click the “OK” button. The drawback of this method is that …

I hope this helps!

[waxcylinder]

We believe that we have fixed this for the upcoming 3.0.0 release which we are hoping to release by early February (right now we still have a couple of high priority P1 bugs to clear up).

Peter.

[steve]

I am trying to edit some MP3 files which I have on a usb drive. The files that were originally ripped from a CD load just fine, but those converted from tape do not load. Audacity 2.4.2 doesn’t recognize the file type.

Could you make one of those MP3s available for us to test (preferably a small file)?

I posted a possible workaround here: MP3 Decoding failed: Lost sychronization - #10 by steve but I don’t have any suitable MP3s to test, so it is just an educated guess (all my MP3s are imported correctly).