Winamp can't read unicode directories! help..

[Luohua]

Hello

I just installed win2000 so I would have Chinese and Japanese support in the OS, which it does now with unicode. However, when I go to play a MP3 that is in a directory with Chinese characters (unicode), winamp gets a "can not find file".... the windows media player, however, reads and opens them fine. I'd love to not be forced to use the windows media player... any suggestions?

[Eyal Rozenberg]

I have the same problem with Hebrew directories; apparently Win9x passes filenames in 8-bit nationa codepages, and Win2k uses UTF-8, so that english filenames are passed smoothly, but higher unicode values (foreign languages)

[Mr. Ice]

i'm just taking a guess here, so the following could be completely wrong...

the problem is probably related to how winamp reads the file, and then the skin file to find out what to display. since skins don't contain anything other than standard ascii letters, winamp doesn't know what to display. i'd also be willing to bet that winamp itself wasn't coded with unicode in mind, only ascii.

[Alu Angus]

I've got the smae problem,too.
I'm using Win2K English Version, configed th use Traditional Chinese (Big5) code as default code page, and also Japanese support.

WinAMP can read files that have Chinese file or path names, however when It come across any Japanese file / path name, It DO can select the file from Open dialog, but WinAMP will simply report file not found when I view it in Playlist.

I think it should not be a great problem as MFC has provided Unicode support, not much recoding is required for enabling Unicode supoort for WinAMP. I hope it can be fixed by WinAMP team in the next few release.

[Karakus]

Friends have sent me a CD with MP3 files from Taiwan. In explorer (NT4.0 SP6) I can see Chinese titles with MP3 extension, but when I want to select them, the titles translate into a row of question marks that cannot be played. However, when I copy the files to the hard disk and give them arbitrary ASCII names like AA.MP3 etc. they play without problem. I have studied the forums, and this problem has been mentioned already from time to time; can a solution be expected?
If it is to difficult to incorporate foreign titles, how about renaming them to arbitrary ASCII names automatically, so that they can show up in the list whithout much manual intervention? That should work for many languages until a more elegant solution can be found.

[This message has been edited by Karakus (edited July 02, 2000).]

[bmhifa]

did you fix it ?
if you did please email me the patch or the commands to fix my hebrew in the winamp app
amir green,israel

[ariel]

My problem is a bit different.
I can live with the fact that Winamp cannot display correctly Unicode characters. When I try to play a file whose names is in Unicode, I get question marks for the non-ascii characters, and the file doesn't play.
I'm using Windows 2000, BTW

How about fixing this?

[mralex]

I have the same problem, and after several trial and error, I find a solution that is most suitable for me, and I would like to share with you guys.

If you search for "unicode" in Windows2000 Help, you will find a article telling you how to display non-Unicode programs in their native language.

For the following, "old files" means files with Chinese name created/re-named under Windows9x with Njstar Communicator (or the like). "new files" means files with Chinese name created/re-named under Windows2000 with either Njstar or Windows built-in MIME.

If you install Windows2000 English version, you have English as your default Language. Then, you are able to play the old files; you just can't see the Chinese words. However, you cannot play the new files.

If you want to play new files, then you need to set your "Language setting for system" to Chinese. After restarting, winamp can then play the new files. However, at the same time, you cannot play the old files.

I think the best way is to convert (retype) all your old files under Windows2000 with Chinese as your default "Language setting for the system". That way you can play files with Chinese right away, and when winamp eventually support unicode, we can switch back to English as the default "Language setting for the system".

[mralex]

Mod,

I think Language Pack only allow the user to change the language of most of the text within Winamp, right?

The problem we are facing is that Winamp can't read unicode filename, so the solution is to set Windows2000 to display non-Unicode programs in their native language.

[Clinque]

Bump!

Please Mr. Winamp people sort this out. This really is a necessary bug fix for people with Japanese files. Or you too busy playing with AVS still? :P

[OCedHrt]

Actually, winamp2 can can play unicode named files (just can't modify them). For quite some time now too. Winamp3 can up to build 493 for which they removed the necessary unicode "plugin" after that.