Several times I've had music files that I've downloaded (paid for,
legal downloads), or ripped from a CD, "mess up" just because the
computer "hiccuped" and lost a single bit from the file. And when I
say "mess up" I don't mean just had a little blip in the song, but when
the MP3 player gets
to that one little dropout, it f***ing gets stuck
and you can't FF past it, you can never again listen to whatever
comes after that one little missing bit. All you can do is skip to the
next track, or you may even have to reboot the player.
It seems as though the manufacturers of a lot of players figured that
since MP3 files aren't (usually) on removable media that's played
directly, and therefore there's no media to wear out, it seems that
they designed it with absolutely zero thought given to how the player
handles a "messed up" song file.
It's so annoying especially when it's a download that I paid for, but
there's no way to make it function properly again, reguardless of
how much you played it before this happened, or even if the
download didn't work right in the first place due to a hiccup in the
internet connection. Basically your ability to use a product that you
paid for relies one hundred percent on your computer never ever
having any type of problem while reading the song file, moving it to
different folders, transferring it between computer and walkman, or
ever having a single bad sector pop up in the hard drive. If there's
ever any type of problem anywhere in this long chain, you can kiss
"pump it" goodbye, or buy it AGAIN, even though you just bought it a
month ago and meticulously maintained the drive that it was on!
Here's a potential fix for those with this type of problem. Basically
how this works is you go online to this website, where you select the
song in question that is not working properly. To speed up the
process, you can enter the name of the download site if you still
know where the song came from. The software on the website
confirms that the song is really what the file name says it is, to
prevent potential pirates from naming a random file after a certain
piece and attempting to turn it into the song they refuse to spend $1
on even though they like it enough to have it on their walkman. How
it does this is that it will go to the music artist's download site or
whatever the song came from, grab a "good" copy of a song of the
same name, and "play" them side by side. If some amount of the song
matches (with the obvious exception of the messed-up bit you want
to "fix", and it will also check what's left AFTER the screwup if
anything) then it will allow you to re-download the song for free,
erasing the "broken" file, and then telling you to listen to the "new"
one all the way through on your computer, to make sure the
download made it through and everything. Then, you just click
"confirm" if it works, or "retry" if it gets stuck again. If the file is
really messed up, it will attempt to confirm that what's left of it is
an MP3 file. After all, there's no worn/damaged media to repair or
replace here unless you're hard drive is screwed-we're talking about a
digital file here! If the file isn't even close to ever having been a
music file, or if the song does not match whatsoever, it will simply
stop and say "This file does not appear to be a music file. Make sure
that you have selected the right file and try again. Unfortunately, if
a music file has become corrupt to the point where it cannot even be
recognized as a music file, we cannot confirm that what you are
sending was actually a legitimately acquired track. If entire files are
totally disappearing, this may be a sign of a failing hard drive, and
you should back up what you still have. If anything has been totally
lost or accidentally erased that you really want/need to get back, we
suggest seeking professional hard drive recovery service."
Another potential way to do this would be for each user account on a
music download website/software program to keep a permanent
record ON THE INTERNET SERVER of what the user has downloaded.
That way, if something gets messed up, a user would only need to
enter their password, then request a re-load of the file. It will
search the computer and over-write the "broken" music file with a
working one, free of charge. This could even be used to restore a
totally wiped music library as long as the user still had the password
or whatever is needed to download.