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soulmaster10

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I really don't know wat Kona's problem can be, I don't do anything special as far as I know.
I use the defaults of SS during the install, I only change the folder for the converted and ripped files to a folder on an external drive.

My main music library contains mp3 and flac files (> 10.000 tracks) and is kept in MediaMonkey, my library in SS is always empty, I import only the files I want to put on MD into SS, after the transfer to md I empty and optimize the SS library again. I convert the flac files I want to put on MD to WMA lossless in MediaMonkey (a copy into a special folder), I import the needed mp3's and the WMA lossless files into SS.

I just tried drag and drop and I can indeed drag and drop a folder containing subfolders (artists) which contains also subfolders (albums) which contains the tracks, into SS, I got the artists and the albums with the tracks just like importing with the menu. Only the artists and the albums containing supported musicfiles are imported into SS, so not the albums containing only flac files. I can drag and drop a folder containing flac files without an error message but nothing happens in SS.

All my mp3 and flac music files are completely tagged in Mediamonkey and organized in folders music/artistname/albumname/tracnumber-title. I don't save the OMA files, if needed I convert the files again from mp3 (vbr via ffdshow) or flac.
 

edit: Maybe Kona's problem is simple a lack of free space (probably the C drive) and is deleting temporary files the solution, also deleting temporary files in SS can help (Tools->Options->Advanced settings->Delete).

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Maybe it's the auto-play function then. Ie If you drag a file to SS, does it play? And does it get copied, or are there traces of the copy left either on disk or in SS database, when it stops playing? This will all be connected to the default actions for various file types. I predict disaster if your computer had some other software (VLC, WMP. RealPlayer, Foobar2000...... ) that handled things when you double clicked MP3's. If you only imported OMA's then perhaps less problems.

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It has nothing to do with auto-play, drag and drop works exactly the same as importing a folder with the menu options.
The metadata gets in the database of SS with a link to the original fysical file, no copy is made and playing does not start, you can convert, transfer, play and so on just like the other imported musicfiles. You can drop all supported musicfiles, mp3, wma, wav, atrac and so on without any problem.

At least it works in the configuration as I have (see above).

 

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2 hours ago, sfbp said:

I'm sure everything you say is true. I am also reluctant to mess up my main SS installation. However I will mess around on another machine and see if i can work out what's going on.

Don't lose too much time with this problem, I don't understand why Kona702 is so desperate about this drag and drop problem, there are other ways to import music into SS. SS is a rather old program with some bugs in it but we can mostly live with SS. It's almost a miracle that you can still make SS working under Windows 10. A few weeks ago I got some problems with SS, some misbehaviour and hang-ups. I think because of some updates of Windows 10 or other programs. I used IObit uninstaller to remove SS and OpenMG, I deleted every folder and subfolders with Sony, Sony Corporation or Sonicstage in the name thus also the MDB databasefiles and I cleaned the register with CCleaner. After doing so I installed the latest version of ffdshow and the ultimate version of SS and now everything I do with SS works flawlessly. I could do this without problems because, as I wrote above, I start always with an empty database and import only the files I need at that moment else I had to made at first a copy of the database (.mdb access files).

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I went back to an old machine running a very old version of Windows (2000) and a small SS database that didn't matter, and sure enough, the ability to drag a folder of .OMA files (note: not ".oma" as these files were already un-DRM-ed, aka decrypted) and drop on the title bar of SS, is there and performs as expected. A new folder is created according to the rules I would expect it to be named by.

This suggests (pro tem) that something happens on other installations. IF (and that is a huge assumption) this is to do with recent versions of Windows, I'd expect there to be something weird about character sets and the way they are processed by Microsoft Access (a.k.a. the Jet database).

But I definitely saw crazy stuff that I didn't understand happening under XP, and that was when I gave up on this feature. Long before I had an SS library with 100+GB of ATRAC in it.

Idly wondering if the setting (Mine is set to "do nothing")

Tools->Options->Download Music

is responsible? If you had it set to play all the music you just added, would that cause the bad behaviour?

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Mine setting is also "do nothing", but if I check "Start to play" the behaviour is just the same. Importing music and download music are two different things, I think download music relates to the old music service Sony Connect. I can drag and drop all the supported music files, I tried mp3, wma, and atrac (protected and unprotected).

To be honest I never tried drag and drop in all those years I use SS, the question of Kona702 made me trying it and now I use it when I want to import some music.

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Hehe, I may have stumbled on the answer.

When I did the above test, I used a folder with 14 tracks in it that hasn't been touched in a couple of years. Just now, I was synching that entire music directory (100GB+ but not the SS-DB itself) for backup to another machine. Imagine my surprise when I observed that the 14 source files have been altered. I've seen this behaviour from time to time, prompting me to update files which should not have changed, on the basis of a new datestamp (and possibly contents. who knows?). But only now did I connect together that they may have been touched by SonicStage.

If the folder being imported into SonicStage by Drag and Drop is read-only, you may have a serious problem. Evidently it's trying to write to the source folder. Bad bad bad idea, Sony!

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May be it has to do with the settings: Tools->Options->Advanced settiongs check or uncheck the checkbox under "Rename music files"?
Otherwise I don't know in what situation SS changes the sourcefiles, only the metadata in the database should be changed and read-only should be no problem.

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2 hours ago, sfbp said:

Oh, that i can guess. "Transfer count"?

"Transfer count" is only held in the database MtData.mdb in table t_object in column 131. If you use Microsoft Access and update that number into a fake number you see that fake number as "No. of times transferred" when you show the properties of the musicfile in SS.

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Fair enough. So writing some security related info in the file. Maybe updating the database with time of last access and touching the file to make them match.

But think about it: for files to be checked in and checked out, doesn't the actual physical copy of the file need to be altered? (admittedly we know that for NetMD they never actually copied the file back, but maybe in their original scheme they had to allow for it). And I don't know the basis for your use of the key word "ONLY". If you didn't alter the file and db to match then someone can "check in" a copy of a copy and defeat the DRM completely.

All the people whose files suddenly became unplayable on a system information change now make sense.

Sonic Stage updates the actual files, not just the database. What a horrible mess, but it explains why I have had to remove files from SS and re-add them, even when nothing should have happened to them.

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26 minutes ago, sfbp said:

Sonic Stage updates the actual files, not just the database. What a horrible mess, but it explains why I have had to remove files from SS and re-add them, even when nothing should have happened to them.

I have never seen that SS updated an actual file, only when in the advanced settings "Rename music files" is checked. My actual files are mp3 and wma lossless, when SS updates a file I should see that in MediaMonkey because I often check if there are unsynchronized files.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I see there has been some buzz about this issue and I thank you all SO VERY VERY MUCH for your time. As of now, I have not read any of it yet because I figured it out. This is how....its really stupid and doesn't make sense but it worked.

 

I went back to an old windows XP machine and installed SS 3.4. The drag and drop worked. I updated it to SS 4.3 and it worked yet again. I had to do a factory reset on my win 10 machine anyway so I figured that I would try the 4.3 D &D after the clean install. I factory restored my laptop back to Win 8.1 and did a "upgrade-type" install of windows 10. (I previously installed windows 10 from a clean image and installed the firmware and drivers myself, but I'm pretty savvy with that kinda junk...so I don't think that would have affected the SS 4.3 program or cause the D & D issue).  After the Win 10 upgrade, I installed SS 4.3 Ult from this site and guess what? Still no drag and drop! :-(

 

Next I planned to install 3.4 to see if it worked like on XP. After I uninstalled 4.3 Ultimate that I got from the downloads section of this site, I wiped any other SS related file that remained and found an old copy of SS I made years ago on a DVD. I truthfully thought that I had saved 3.4 onto the disc, so I popped it on and ran the install. When it was complete I started the program, and selected the option to scan my computer for music files.

While the scan was underway I realized that I had accidentally installed 4.3 again by mistake!! OH NO!!

 

I tried to click out of it but it, but the scan process froze the program and it didn't respond. I ended the process in task manager. Next is the miracle. I have no clue why i even did this, but something was telling me to try.

I restarted my PC and re-opened SS 4.3 just for the hell of it.

Even though the music search was incomplete and not fully executed, it didn't auto prompt me again to do the search.  

 

Guess what???? DRAG AND DROP WORKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm thinking that the program was "tricked" into believing that it had completed the performed auto search of my entire for music, and found nothing. I guess that a box was ticked in the program to perhaps ran a macro alteration of the program or something similar, which enabled or unlocked the D &D feature. Maybe it allowed this because the software had a feature that allowed the drag an drop, but perhaps only if a scan was done and concluded that there were no audio files on my computer at all. Maybe it is programmed to allow this because each time you loaded music onto the computer or as you downloaded some audio onto the PC, it enabled D & D to make the addition of music to the library a little more user friendly.

What do you guys make of this Steven and Kalkie? Sound plausible??

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Maybe you tried drag and drop musicfiles while SS was still searching your drives for musicfiles to import in the database, I know that in that case you get the "non smoking" circle as you called it. After completing the search you can use the drag and drop method but not during the search.

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Thanks so much for all the "discoveries" you guys stumbled across while investigating this problem. I'm kinda glad it happened now that I fixed it. That prob revealed things that I was unaware of, and answered so many questions regarding file problems and SS errors. This issue seems to have helped all of us long-term. When Steven was reffering to the actual file changing, I believe he was talking about the oma files themselves in the SS packages directory. Meaning those files that SS ripped from CD, or were converted using SS after a folder import. Any change in the actual SS userinterface would only alter and update that individual file in SS Packages. The original audio source file that was imported into SS remains unchanged. That explains why you had to delete the track and info from SS..and reimport the source file when you came across your directory error.

 

I'm certain you already know this.....but this is for all the noobs out there that read this...lol!

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No Kalkie I wasn't. It had long since finished searching months and months ago at the time of install. This problem was static for months. I just now got it likely by tricking SS into thinking it had searched all and found nothing. A week ago,the week before that, and the month before that, I could not drag and drop. I'm sure the folder search was completed by then...lol!!!

The reason I use the D & D is because I hate ticking all those check boxes and navigating my whole file system to locate a folder with the songs that I want in it. Also if you want to import a specific folder, you have to tediously UNCHECK EACH AND EVERY parent folder that is in the C drive besides the one you want. That's ridiculous. With the "import" method you can not select multiple individual files. If I had a bunch of different music in one folder, I had to import the whole folder, or choose "import music file" and import them one at a time. For example: If I only want 10 songs in a crowded folder, I have always held cntrl, selected all the tracks I wanted, then drag and drop them. The alternative way that you guys use would require me to select the "import music files" option 10 times for 10 tracks. Or I would have to scan the folder and import the 5000 loose songs in my music folder, then delete the other 4,990 files. I know I can just make a new folder with the tracks I want and tell SS to scan it,  but thats too much work to have to do every time I wanna import and make a playlist.  If I scanned my entire library the files would be all over the place in SS....that's why I load them in an "as needed" basis. So for me..... D&D is SO much more efficient!!!!

Does it make sense now that you understand why I was getting so flustered? XD!!!

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  • 1 month later...
On 21/08/2015 at 10:28 PM, sfbp said:

0. Turn off driver signing (F8 on boot)

1. unzip them to somewhere (NOT THE DESKTOP)

2. plug in your netMD machine

3. Look in devmgr for the yellow exclam

4. Click update drivers

5. Select the drivers you just downloaded

6. Ignore messages about unsigned drivers

Hooray!! Thanks for this.

Just got around to using SS43 on my Win10x64 system.

HiMDs work well, but the NetMD driver failed cos of missing hash error message.

Followed the above instructions and it now all works. Wonderful stuff.

See also:

Google: how to turn off driver signature enforcement on windows 10.

thanks sfbp,

 

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  • 2 months later...

Hi -I have this error upon starting SS4.3 (Windows 10)

(in a dialog box)

'The selected music file cannot be played back because the system information has been changed.

Click OK to automatically close SonicStage and open the SonicStage System Information Restore Tool'

I do this and can then run SS after a couple of other dialog boxes, but I have to go through this procedure every time. Also, if I try to import a CD from my D drive to SS, I get the error message 'SonicStage has stopped working' referred to earlier in this thread and SS closes. If, however, I import a CD into iTunes and then convert/import these files into SS, I can transfer to my NetMD (NZ-510) OK - so I can get SS to sort of work, albeit a bit circuitously - any suggestions as to what I might be able to do about these errors would be most gratefully received!

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  • 1 year later...

The driver is non-Windows-release specific. You need the 32-bit or the 64-bit version depending on your Windows system. Both are here on the site. In addition you will have to disable Windows checking signing (certification) of the driver for long enough to install it (and then can be turned back on again).

Good luck

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