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Discovery Regarding Sonic Stage 2.2 Dumping Recorded Tracks

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stevetoney

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I've tried to find a message that I thought mentioned this, so I'm sorry if the following has already been mentioned already. It sure seems like I read somewhere in this forum something that mentioned the following, but it also seems like it was 'buried' in a thread, so it can't hurt to mention it again.

First, it should be noted that I'm using Version 2.2 and can't comment on earlier versions, so others that are still using the earlier releases may wish to confirm their results against what I found.

Anyway, I know others have been having the same problems as I have regarding Sonic Stage mysteriously deleting tracks during direct transfer from your player to your harddrive.

On Friday night, I recorded some live music and backed it up (using Method 1 from the sticky guideline) before 'experimenting' a little bit yesterday with the direct transfer method using Sonic Stage.

What I discovered is that, it seems like if the files I am trying to direct transfer are small, they direct transfer fine. But if the file is large, it won't transfer. Here's what has happened to me...

In the past, I recorded the entire show after hitting 'start'. Obviously, for a show that lasted a couple hours, that resulted in a very large file. Every time I tried to direct transfer the large file, Sonic Stage failed 100% of the time to properly download the file and also changed the copy protection bit so that I couldn't do anything else digitally with the file. Fortunately, it didn't delete the file from the hi-MD disc, so I still had my original recording. Obviously, once I discovered this glitch I started backing up my recordings BEFORE trying to direct transfer, as recommended elsewhere in the hi-MD forum.

On Friday night, instead of just starting recording and leaving, I instead used the track mark function on my NHF-800 between songs. This is the 'TMark/Rec(+>)' button on the NHF-800. This inserted track breaks between songs, so each song had its own file. All files downloaded fine using direct transfer mode.

Since I recorded Friday nights show in Hi-SP, the largest file was probably around 20-25MB. This was my first hi-SP experience. My recordings in the past were recorded in PCM mode...an hour show is something like 600-700MB with no track breaks.

So, it seems like I can conclude that Sonic Stage 2.2 will digitally transfer small files fine, but won't do so for large files. It seems like there is a threshold file size that Sonic Stage 2.2 seems to like.

Comments? Have others had consistent results?

Course, the next most logical question is, if the above is true, what is the threshold file size above which Sonic Stage won't direct transfer?

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Hmm, interesting I say...

Didn't test 2.2, have it on for a few days, with 2.1 big files failed, small files failed, big files went through unharmed, small files went through. It wasn't consistent. However, a few times a consecutive group of files where trashed in one go. The biggest I've transferred was about 500 Megs and that one survived. I could reduce the number of failures, in transferring group for group instead of transferring the whole disc in one go. Since SonicStage might use the Windows default for temporary files, make sure, you have enough space on the system/boot drive - 2, 3 Gigabyte are recommended. That could be the reason for generally refusing to transfer big files.

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Maybe I'm not following this right but I can still play my recorded tracks via USB/SS after I have uploaded them. I guess this is only a backup option if SS doesn't erase or trash the actual files on the HD. Is that the issue? Like it was stated before, SS won't even play if the erase prevention tab is activated, kinda scary if you ask me. :ninja:

Mark

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How many hours of audio did you try and transfer?

The most I've tried to record was 1 1/2 hours in PCM mode and, as stated before, it didn't download properly. 1 1/2 hours obviously is a full hi-MD disc, so the file size was close to a full Gig. I suspect, if my observation ends up holding water, that it's not the amount of time, but the amount of data that matters. So, in lower bitrate modes, the length of time probably isn't the issue, although I have NO WAY of knowing if this is true...at this point this is the hypothesis of this post and also what I would like to see discussed and possibly researched.

Maybe I'm not following this right but I can still play my recorded tracks via USB/SS after I have uploaded them. I guess this is only a backup option if SS doesn't erase or trash the actual files on the HD. Is that the issue? Like it was stated before, SS won't even play if the erase prevention tab is activated, kinda scary if you ask me.

Well, my experience is that the original files are still intact on the hi-MD disc after attempting the transfer onto harddrive, so yes I can still listen to the file and can do an analog copy if the digital transfer doesn't work properly.

However, I've read that others have experienced a complete and DISASTROUS loss of file on the hi-MD disc after attempting the digital transfer upload.

It's for this reason that you really should do a realtime backup of you stuff BEFORE trying the pure digital transfer, especially if your recording is critical. Therefore, I STRONGLY suggest you refer to the following link (thanks Dex!) and use Upload Method 1.1 or 1.2 before trying a direct transfer using Sonic Stage.

http://forums.minidisc.org/viewtopic.php?t=6329

Of course, if my original post on this subject holds water, it could be that the problem is a function of the file size you're trying to transfer.

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I have had tracks lost that were very small, very large, etc. in HiSP and PCM.

Basically, the tracks that have gotten trashed have happened completely at random, with no specific regard to length, format, etc.

It appears to be completely a matter of chance, if you ask me.

I have transferred entire 950MB tracks [a nearly full disc] without any problems, so I really don't think it's the size issue. Unless - unless it is to do with the temp folder. My temp folder is on a separate partition of 6GB just for temp. It's not likely to get filled.

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However, I've read that others have experienced a complete and DISASTROUS loss of file on the hi-MD disc after attempting the digital transfer upload. 

It's for this reason that you really should do a realtime backup of you stuff BEFORE trying the pure digital transfer, especially if your recording is critical.  Therefore, I STRONGLY suggest you refer to the following link (thanks Dex!) and use Upload Method 1.1 or 1.2 before trying a direct transfer using Sonic Stage.

Unfortunately this becomes a ridiculous proposition with recordings longer than a few hours. It wasn't such a big deal with the original MD because the maximum time you could record was limited. But since the record times are extended so much with HiMD it makes analog re-recording impractical. Why should people have to tie up their computer(s) and get high quality cables, etc just so they can spend 10 hours re-recording... So far I haven't lost any tracks (knocks on wood), then again I've only uploaded maybe 10 tracks total... Even when Sony fixes the file rampage that SS is doing the copy protection on personally recorded tracks is still the limiting factor.

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Unfortunately this becomes a ridiculous proposition with recordings longer than a few hours. It wasn't such a big deal with the original MD because the maximum time you could record was limited. But since the record times are extended so much with HiMD it makes analog re-recording impractical. Why should people have to tie up their computer(s) and get high quality cables, etc just so they can spend 10 hours re-recording... So far I haven't lost any tracks (knocks on wood), then again I've only uploaded maybe 10 tracks total... Even when Sony fixes the file rampage that SS is doing the copy protection on personally recorded tracks is still the limiting factor.

I disagree, unless you still happen to have a 10GB hard disc in your computer.

I have done this up to 6+ hours by leaving it unattended overnight. Yes, it required splitting the >2GB file later and opening the segments as raw if I needed to use them [i didn't] but the backup is still possible and not really that big a deal.

[As a note: WAV file sizes are generally limited to 2048MB - a limitation imposed by many if not most programs that use WAV files, as part of the file format, not hard disc format.]

Most of my recordings are about 2-3 hours in length, and I -always- back them up first. Perhaps I have the luxury of lots of space dedicated just for A/V editing, though.

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Since SonicStage might use the Windows default for temporary files, make sure, you have enough space on the system/boot drive - 2, 3 Gigabyte are recommended. That could be the reason for generally refusing to transfer big files.

While some people have replied that they have had both large and small files screwed, can anyone provide any support or denials regarding the credibility of the above thought? I'm definitely not a computer savvy person, but I can see the potential for there being a link between the amount of space one has available in their temp folder versus what Sonic Stage successfully converts. I guess it depends on how the information is processed and/or what Sonic Stage does with the converted information as it's processing.

Marc and/or those that were involved in writing himdrenderer, any light you might be able to shed on this subject?

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I'm really sorry that my words were misinterpreted as a challenge of Dex by me. Please don't overreact to what I was trying to ask. All I was trying to do was inquire about the potential of the comment that Dex made as being a potential solution to the problem.

The word 'credibility', even though a poor choice of words, in my post wasn't meant as a challenge to what you were saying, Dex. Substitute the word 'viability' instead.

The bottom line is, I was trying to ask the experienced software programmers in our community if your comment regarding temp files might hold the key to this issue. All I was suggesting is that the process that Sonic Stage uses in creating the uploaded .oma files may be the key to figuring out why the software dumps the files, and I was hoping that some of the software experts might investigate this and provide either support to it's viability as a potential solution, or dispel it (e.g. refute it) as not possible that it's not possible that it's the answer.

For example, is it possible, as you suggest Dex, the if a person's computer only has a limited amount of space available to their temp file, that this could be a reason why the program skitzes? It also could explain why some people lose small files and big files somewhat 'randomly'. Because if you do lots of audio or data processing like I do, there are times when I have lots of extra space on my hard drive, and other times when I have very little extra space for my temp files.

Again, please accept my apologies for the misunderstanding.

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Point is, SonicStage has a lousy error reporting. Unless it gets so bad, that Windows itself ticks out, the user is left in the dark about what really went wrong. Continuous refusal above a certain filesize points me to a space problem, while size independent upload failures plus trashing are definitely a SonicStage bug.

I strongly suggest, that you check, how much space is available on the harddisk - for each logical drive. Another point (especially when the library is on the system/boot drive), when uploading, you need twice the amount you want to upload in free space on that drive (because of the subsequent copying). Oh, and from time to time it is useful to remove unused stuff/emptying the recycler and defrag the drives.

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I'm really sorry that my words were misinterpreted as a challenge of Dex by me.  Please don't overreact to what I was trying to ask.  All I was trying to do was inquire about the potential of the comment that Dex made as being a potential solution to the problem.

The word 'credibility', even though a poor choice of words, in my post wasn't meant as a challenge to what you were saying, Dex.  Substitute the word 'viability' instead. 

The bottom line is, I was trying to ask the experienced software programmers in our community if your comment regarding temp files might hold the key to this issue.  All I was suggesting is that the process that Sonic Stage uses in creating the uploaded .oma files may be the key to figuring out why the software dumps the files, and I was hoping that some of the software experts might investigate this and provide either support to it's viability as a potential solution, or dispel it (e.g. refute it) as not possible that it's not possible that it's the answer.

For example, is it possible, as you suggest Dex, the if a person's computer only has a limited amount of space available to their temp file, that this could be a reason why the program skitzes?  It also could explain why some people lose small files and big files somewhat 'randomly'.  Because if you do lots of audio or data processing like I do, there are times when I have lots of extra space on my hard drive, and other times when I have very little extra space for my temp files.

Again, please accept my apologies for the misunderstanding.

Not a problem. Jadeclaw suggested the temp folder/file possibility; I can't verify it as I know that my own system doesn't fill up its temp folder as some do.

I can verify from experience that SS trashes the occasional track regardless of the fact that I have between 6-15X more than the amount of free space required to both temporarily store and copy tracks from HiMD->hard disc with SS, though.

That doesn't eliminate the possibility, of course. It just means that it's not the issue in my case.

I also do a lot of audio processing, but the partition all my recordings get stored on has between 10-30GB free at any given time, which would suggest that free space on the destination partition is also not my issue.

My biggest suspicion is that it's something to do with how SS handles USB communications or serial tasks - the times it's dumped tracks on me were when I selected a large number to transfer in one go. I now select 4 at a time.

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Well, my experience is that the original files are still intact on the hi-MD disc after attempting the transfer onto harddrive, so yes I can still listen to the file and can do an analog copy if the digital transfer doesn't work properly. 

However, I've read that others have experienced a complete and DISASTROUS loss of file on the hi-MD disc after attempting the digital transfer upload. 

IIRC, there's an option in SS to "Delete tracks from MD after upload" or something to that effect, and I think it was enabled by default.

If this option is un-checked, could it make the transfers safer, so that even if it fails you can still resort to analogue or Total Recorder capture methods? Or has anyone still had their tracks trashed even with this option switched off?

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  • 3 weeks later...

Folks... a newcomer here who has lurked in the forums for a while before taking the plunge and buying a Hi-MD unit recently. Hats off to you all for working together to overcome the problems with uploading your own personal recordings: the main reason I wanted an MD unit but avoided buying one up to now.

Seems to me like a few weeks ago johann has asked the $64,000 question:

IIRC, there's an option in SS to "Delete tracks from MD after upload" or something to that effect, and I think it was enabled by default.  

If this option is un-checked, could it make the transfers safer, so that even if it fails you can still resort to analogue or Total Recorder capture methods? Or has anyone still had their tracks trashed even with this option switched off?

I've had my unit only for 2 days, so I'm still fiddling around with it, but what have people discovered in this regard? Can we safely try uploading the fast way, with deletion switched off, to fall back on the Total Record method in case SonicStage chokes? Or do tracks sometimes get damaged even if the deletion option is unchecked?

I'm happy to stick with the slow but safe method, if that's the recommendation.

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I've had my unit only for 2 days, so I'm still fiddling around with it, but what have people discovered in this regard?  Can we safely try uploading the fast way, with deletion switched off, to fall back on the Total Record method in case SonicStage chokes?  Or do tracks sometimes get damaged even if the deletion option is unchecked?

SS damaging tracks has absolutely nothing to do with the deletion option.

If the delete option is turned off, and something ges trashed, you can't recover it by the Total Recorder method. [Note that one user reported a trashed track that still played after not being uploaded, but this appears to be the exception rather than the rule].

I run the realtime method as a backup, then upload with SonicStage after. This way tracks can be combined in SS if I wish, and there are no gaps to have to clean up later. If SS trashes a track, all I have to do is open my backup and take the section I need.

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