SS has all my accompaniment tracks held hostage

[KCJ]

SOMEONE PLEASE HELP! I have a Sony VAIO that was bought in 2005. I use it to manage accompaniment tracks for our church. I didn't buy the mp3's through Sony. Some came off of CDs, others were mp3s I bought and downloaded over the internet and imported into SS. Recently I updated to the latest version of SS, I'm assuming that was 4.3. it worked fine for about 2 weeks and then all of a sudden when I launch a song in SS, it does nothing. When I tried to play the same song in Windows Media Player (which I could do previously), I got errors about incorrect codecs or unrecognizable format. However, songs that are on the computer that were never imported into SS play just fine.

I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling but the install always crashes at the end. I tried system restore to go back to the previous version but that doesn't work either. I copied all the music onto a flash drive and tried playing them on other computers but no luck. CAN ANYONE TELL ME HOW TO CORRECT THIS? I can't purchase all that music again and we use it every week at church.

Thank you.

[sfbp]

Doubtless you have fallen victim to a registry change that makes all the music in Sonic Stage useless or at least unplayable. With ATRAC that might be serious as the files are only properly understood by SS and Sony-produced hardware.

So what is happening is that the SS (converted) version is now useless. Do not despair! - you should have the ORIGINAL MP3's, one would certainly hope.

However, your tracks are MP3's - right? My best guess is you are trying to play the .oma files. Look carefully at extensions, and see whether the tracks you are trying to play are ATRAC files or MP3.

Firstly, if you're going to tell us that these tracks were in fact recorded on Minidisc and uploaded, then ignore all of the above and start over. We need to have a completely different discussion about how (or whether) it is possible to recover your tracks. Assuming this is not the case...... please read the instructions right to the end to see if this is really what you want to do.

Seriously, if you happened to inherit this system from someone else, stop a minute and do a bit more research. It may be as simple as logging on (to Windows) with the right username.

Step 1. Figure out how to turn on extensions in Windows. You may be allowing Windows itself to confuse you between .mp3 and .oma. A helpful article is here (click that link)

Step 2. Search for all files ending in .mp3.

Step 3. See if some other player software will play them. If NOT, then it's probably not Sonic Stage's fault. More likely you have been hacked, or you have somehow redirected your sound card device to something other than the real sound card in the computer. Don't panic yet. They should play just fine in Windows media player.

Step 4. Once you have determined your .mp3 files are safe and can be played, copy the whole lot to a DVD or backup harddrive and put it somewhere else where you cannot possibly damage it.

Step 5. Uninstall Sonic Stage, and delete every file ending in .oma or .OMA. There may be a less brutal solution to this, but if you really did find all the files in steps 2-3, AND all your files started out as .mp3, then this is quite safe to do. Don't kill me if you explained it wrong - if "MP3 files" means to you "any music track", then we have a terminology disconnect, and we may need to start this whole process all over again.

Step 6. Install the "Ultimate" version of Sonic Stage (poke around here or we'll add a link) and reimport all your tracks (assuming you like using SS). Sleep peacefully.

Welcome to the forums!

[KCJ]

Doubtless you have fallen victim to a registry change that makes all the music in Sonic Stage useless or at least unplayable. With ATRAC that might be serious as the files are only properly understood by SS and Sony-produced hardware.

So what is happening is that the SS (converted) version is now useless. Do not despair! - you should have the ORIGINAL MP3's, one would certainly hope.

However, your tracks are MP3's - right? My best guess is you are trying to play the .oma files. Look carefully at extensions, and see whether the tracks you are trying to play are ATRAC files or MP3.

Firstly, if you're going to tell us that these tracks were in fact recorded on Minidisc and uploaded, then ignore all of the above and start over. We need to have a completely different discussion about how (or whether) it is possible to recover your tracks. Assuming this is not the case...... please read the instructions right to the end to see if this is really what you want to do.

Seriously, if you happened to inherit this system from someone else, stop a minute and do a bit more research. It may be as simple as logging on (to Windows) with the right username.

Step 1. Figure out how to turn on extensions in Windows. You may be allowing Windows itself to confuse you between .mp3 and .oma. A helpful article is here (click that link)

Step 2. Search for all files ending in .mp3.

Step 3. See if some other player software will play them. If NOT, then it's probably not Sonic Stage's fault. More likely you have been hacked, or you have somehow redirected your sound card device to something other than the real sound card in the computer. Don't panic yet. They should play just fine in Windows media player.

Step 4. Once you have determined your .mp3 files are safe and can be played, copy the whole lot to a DVD or backup harddrive and put it somewhere else where you cannot possibly damage it.

Step 5. Uninstall Sonic Stage, and delete every file ending in .oma or .OMA. There may be a less brutal solution to this, but if you really did find all the files in steps 2-3, AND all your files started out as .mp3, then this is quite safe to do. Don't kill me if you explained it wrong - if "MP3 files" means to you "any music track", then we have a terminology disconnect, and we may need to start this whole process all over again.

Step 6. Install the "Ultimate" version of Sonic Stage (poke around here or we'll add a link) and reimport all your tracks (assuming you like using SS). Sleep peacefully.

Welcome to the forums!

All of the files are mp3 with just a few that are wma files. There aren't any with the oma extension. Windows Media Player won't play any of them. And when I tried the system restore and it took SS back down to version 2.3, I imported a few of them off of my flash drive but the length shows up in SS as 0:00.

??

[sfbp]

All of the files are mp3 with just a few that are wma files. There aren't any with the oma extension. Windows Media Player won't play any of them. And when I tried the system restore and it took SS back down to version 2.3, I imported a few of them off of my flash drive but the length shows up in SS as 0:00.

??

1. DON'T TOUCH 2.3 with a 35-foot pole. Not even 3. In both Sony was still obsessed with "restrictions"

2. If WMP won't play them, what will it play? What version of WMP?

3. Check your Audio Device for playback, and see if that's why the sound isn't going to the sound card.

NEVER DO SYSTEM RESTORE on a SonicStage-installed system without being prepared to deep-six everything connected with Sonic Stage. Sorry.