"Licensing info" problem after transfer to new PC

[AckAck]

Hey folks. I'm head-banging again. Any creative input would be sincerely appreciated. I apologize for the long post, but I've tried quite a bit before asking for help.

Background: I had SS 4.3 working fine with my MZ-RH1 on the old PC (Windows XP, SP3). Then it crashed. The hard disk was still fine, so I bought a new Windows 8 machine and added the old hard drive. Great, I can copy between the old E: drive and the new C: drive. So far, so good.

I was excited to find SS 4.3 Ultimate on the forum here, and installed it on the new drive. Connected the RH1 to the USB drive and Win 8 started working with it, no problem. I use the RH1 for voice recordings, using Hi-MD.

Problem:

But SS 4.3 Ultimate won't let me play the files in my library! When I try to play one, error message says:

Cannot play this track because its licensing information cannot be retrieved.

For more information, contact the source from which you received this track.

(000084e0)

What source? Me?! The RH1? OK, so then I try to set this copy protection thing straight. Importing the files from the old drive didn't work. So I copied them to a new folder on the new drive and pointed SS to the new folder. Same error. Then I uninstalled & reinstalled SS. Same error.

I selected all the files and tried using SonicStage’s command Tools > Convert format to convert all the files in the library to ATRAC3plus 352 kbps files. I unchecked the copy protection box to remove copy protection from each file as it was processed. But the “Result” window that appeared after the files were processed said:

Conversion to OpenMG Audio (ATRAC3plus) 352 kbps.

A file conversion error prevented some of the files from being converted.

The following files were successfully converted to the OpenMG Audio (ATRAC3plus) format.

2011-10-12 17:48:52

[Note: This file (with a time stamp for a name) is the only file that got converted?! It's one of my recordings, just like the others, except out of the whole friggin' library, this is the ONLY file I can play using SS! Then the message continued:]

Playback is not allowed.

The file format may not be supported by SonicStage.

[Followed by a list of every other file in the library other than the one listed above]

Next, I optimized the database. No help, although SS seems to open faster.

Next, I ran the SS File Conversion Tool. This is the one that you have to close SS to complete. But the last screen that shows after running says:

The conversion is complete.

Some tracks could not be converted.

Note:

Tracks to be converted are the tracks recorded as ATRAC format and imported from CDs.

Tracks purchased from a music service (EMD service) will not be converted.

The digital recorded tracks recorded by Hi-MD or some Memory Stick supporting devices cannot be converted.

Then I clicked the “Details” button, and saw a list of files that failed to be converted (a list of my files, which were recorded on the MZ-RH1). A big fat help that tool is, since the only files I've ever used SS for are the ones I've uploaded from the RH1, using Hi-MD discs!

Any ideas? I'm dumbfounded.

[sfbp]

Sorry. I can't answer in full as I am on the road. However what you see is absolutely 100% by design.

Do not touch ANYTHING on your hard drive (was there only 1??) and I will see if I can figure out a way to recover your recordings. They will all need "stuff" on that hd. If you had a cdrive and something else (where the music was stored) then you WILL need that cdrive, unmodified for the moment.

If there is any way whatever to revive your system without reinstalling it (ie Windows) that might be interesting too. But if by "crashed" you mean you have to live without screen or keyboard or something, perhaps we can do what we want with the old system.

Hope this helps, sorry for the bad news.

[AckAck]

Yes, the old PC had only 1 hard drive. I've abandoned all hope on that PC, although it's still collecting dust here. One day it wouldn't boot up, with an error message about not being able to detect a chip set heat sink. I cleaned & carefully re-greased & reinstalled the heat sinks for both the chip set and the CPU, but no improvement. So I got a new PC with the latest operating system for equal (or less) than it'd cost to repair the one that's over 8 years old.

The weird thing is, there's just that one file that I can play. I don't remember recording it on a different format of minidisc or anything. Maybe I did & forgot. On that file the Rights info tab in SS says:

Playback restrictions: None
No. of times played: 2times
No. of times transferred: 0times
Remaining transfer count: Unlimited
Remaining ATRAC CD transfer count: Unlimited
Remaining audio CD transfer count: Unlimited

whereas the others say:

No. of times played: 0times
No. of times transferred: 0times
Remaining ATRAC CD transfer count: 0times
Remaining audio CD transfer count: 0times

No, I didn't store anything to CD.

Thanks again,

Alan

[sfbp]

Rules vary for different rates and formats.

The best thing you can do is to try to persuade that HD to boot (as C drive) on some other Windows XP system, if only long enough to "convert" the music (which actually means decrypt it). The File Conversion Tool provided as part of Sonic Stage (later versions) is the only good way to do this (there are some others, but in most cases will come down to "how many, how much"). Once this is done, all your recordings can be imported by any install of SS. Right now, you need that one, ie. without actually reinstalling SS.

It doesn't matter whether you can play the files (ie even if you have a sound card) on whatever machine you lash that drive to. Just that by altering some combination of drivers but not the basic XP system, you can boot up.

I am assuming from your incomplete spec above that you have one file that plays and an infinity that do not. I feel your pain.

[AckAck]

Yes! I found a backup I had forgotten about entirely! (Maybe I should be more worried about my memory than the sound files?)

It was a couple of years old, but I reclaimed a fair chunk and consider myself lucky.

I suppose before too long I'll move over to a flash drive recorder. Surely the software it works with will be around a year or so before that too becomes officially unsupported. The RH1's still in great shape, but ....

Again, thank you very much for your help! I said the software's "unsupported" above, but that's not really true. Sony would be doing themselves a public relations favor by paying you!

[sfbp]

Make sure (if it is .oma files, ie ATRAC) that you suck them into SS and run the File Conversion Tool. However it sounds like you already turned them into something else.

Have fun.

[apglad]

Hi all

I was in the same situation with more then 16Gb of my self recorded files unusable after old pc hard disk crash. I had only the oma files backed up on an external hdd.

 

The files were unreadable with the error 000084e0 on sonic stage (no more available for download now since some months)

Even on Sonicstage (downloaded from third party sites like 4shared), the licence update service on sony connect store is no more online. Thousands of consumers like us who trusted sony Md products are now in big trouble.

 

But finally there is a solution to recover those files.

 

Since the 2.2 version of FFMPEG (https://ffmpeg.org/)  the atrac+ format decoding is included in it.

no more need to have sonicstage to play your files.

 

We can just simple convert our oma files directly to mp3, mp4, AAC or wav format very easily with it.

I used the GUI WinFF for that. http://winff.org/html_new/ and converted with very ease all my oma files to mp3 with approx the same quality. 

 

So all guys having 000084e0 who are now on a new pc (of course since 2000-2006 most of the people are now new pcs) can now convert or play their oma atrac+ files using ffmpeg. 

 

May be to directly play those files it would be possible with players using ffmpeg to decode the files like videolan with a version released with ffmpeg2.2 or later (https://www.ffmpeg.org/projects.html).

 

 

Enjoy...

 

 

[sfbp]

Not quite accurate, sir.

 

1. The sony content validator is still working according to a report to this board in the last month. It does seem to go down from time to time but it's more likely that people are running firewalls on their PCs that actively prevent this from working.

2. Not ALL files are playable/convertible with ffmpeg - notably, Atrac Advanced Lossless which are not decoded yet. However those are not copy-protected, and so can be played by any player (such as WMP) on a machine with the Sony dll's installed (from our downloadable version of Sonic Stage).

 

However, you're right, the "lost" files that didn't get de-protected are now "unlost".

 

Edit: I added in the other post the comment that you better use at least 256kbps mp3 on all ATRAC encodings; otherwise you will find yourself significantly shortchanged in terms of sound quality.

[mdenter]

On 6/17/2014 at 3:55 AM, apglad said:

Hi all

I was in the same situation with more then 16Gb of my self recorded files unusable after old pc hard disk crash. I had only the oma files backed up on an external hdd.

 

The files were unreadable with the error 000084e0 on sonic stage (no more available for download now since some months)

Even on Sonicstage (downloaded from third party sites like 4shared), the licence update service on sony connect store is no more online. Thousands of consumers like us who trusted sony Md products are now in big trouble.

 

But finally there is a solution to recover those files.

 

Since the 2.2 version of FFMPEG (https://ffmpeg.org/)  the atrac+ format decoding is included in it.

no more need to have sonicstage to play your files.

 

We can just simple convert our oma files directly to mp3, mp4, AAC or wav format very easily with it.

I used the GUI WinFF for that. http://winff.org/html_new/ and converted with very ease all my oma files to mp3 with approx the same quality. 

 

So all guys having 000084e0 who are now on a new pc (of course since 2000-2006 most of the people are now new pcs) can now convert or play their oma atrac+ files using ffmpeg. 

 

May be to directly play those files it would be possible with players using ffmpeg to decode the files like videolan with a version released with ffmpeg2.2 or later (https://www.ffmpeg.org/projects.html).

 

 

Enjoy...

 

 

Thanks for the info about WinFF.   I was able to convert 12 years of oma files to mp3.  I lost the ability to play or convert these files when I moved to my new laptop.  I want to add that I found that Potplayer will play oma files without license restrictions.  It does not list oma files unless you select "All Files".

[sfbp]

Not all formats are played by VLC/ffmpeg (the same code went into both). However the ones most generally protected (encrypted) ARE playable.

Exceptions:

PCM 1411 kbps. It's too bad they couldn't figure this one out, but I am pretty certain encrypted PCM files cannot be played.

Atrac Advanced Lossless - it's not a protected format but you will need Sonic Stage DLL's to play it.

And I'm not entirely sure about LP3 (105kbps, but most people never discovered that format!)

But the most common formats (LP2,LP4,Hi-LP,Hi-SP, and probably other Hi-formats such as 352kbps) should be fine.

ONE VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: do not assume that 64kbps ATRAC needs 64kbps MP3. You'll get garbage. My recommendation is to convert all forms of ATRAC less than 256kbps to MP3 256K, and Hi-SP (256kbps ATRAC) to something higher than that. ATRAC is a very good encoding scheme, much better than MP3 at low bitrates. Above 256kbps it doesn't make so much difference.