CDDB problems (Gracenote Services No Longer Work In Winamp: Reason Why Explained)

[Koopa]

CDex is pretty good too, more easy to configurate than EAC:

http://cdex.mu/

[sahartech]

have you read my first reply in this thread? as under the new ownership (since Winamp was sold in January instead of being completely killed off as was the alternative), we didn't know when the Gracenote access was going to be stopped (as we're not parle of any contractual agreements AOL and Gracenote had and has been reinforced, Gracenote didn't particularly care about Winamp now that the massive payments they took have ended!) so it would not be possible to provide any notice of it (especially as it wasn't clear if it was going to happen in 2014 or 2015).

[Dr.Flay]

sahartech
to iTunes "importing" means to recode your file into an aac file in its own disguised folder system.
This is how people often accidentally duplicate everything they have.


Me, I tag all my CDs in EAC before ripping (anything less is not "exact audio"), and use MP3tag for everything else (inc. video files)

http://www.mp3tag.de/en/

Both programs show the options we should have in Winamp, eg. multiple redundant sources.
Neither of those programs will be borked due to old age or abandonment, because they both offer the original CDDB service, as well as several moden alternatives.
I can fire up a CD player from 15 years ago and it will still fetch tags from CDDB.

Winamp is the only player of its class that put its eggs in 1 tagging basket.

[Aminifu]

...

Winamp is the only player of its class that put its eggs in 1 tagging basket.

Yeah, that was a mistake pushed by the accountants.

Until the sale, Winamp was based in the USA and had to pay license fees that players based in other countries manage to avoid. Gracenote, in particular, charged a lot to partially compensate for revenue it couldn't get elsewhere.

After the sale (before the group was disbanded), the Winamp developers were looking into alternate free and reliable sources of metadata for tagging (with the possibility of letting users choose from among them). Until a new lead developer (familiar with the Winamp base code which, in part, is very old) is hired, progress on this and other updates will remain painfully slow.

[sahartech]

Its power derived from audio finger printing, and this is not a common feature available for home use. Other tagging apps rely on all the tracks from the CD being present and in the correct order and often that you know the precise album name - if you mistag in the first place, then having lost the original track order, I find it difficult to recover, other than manually tagging them.

[MrSinatra]

gracenote does audio fingerprint, but its not the only one that does. afaik music brainz does too, and i'm sure some others.

[technobabe]

While this is an old thread, it still is an issue! May I suggest a simple change that may lead to a solution? Put the URL, Port ID and path usd by the "gracenote code" into the winamp config file!

You may ask why? Well, as DrO has so kindly let us know, the "gracenote code" is inherent throughout Winamp. Right now, we're at an impasse - the people with access to the code are busy, and the users are stuck. However, if the URL info used by the "gracenote code" was made accessable to the users, an enterprising user (or group of users) could create an alternate "web widget", driven by data from an existing service... (perhaps freedb.org?) Perhaps if it is reliable enough, the source service would even accept the web widget as part of their service...

It would be a lot of dirty work, decoding the "gracenote code" protocols, but it would be at least POSSIBLE at that point. Right now, we all lose. And, I have to imagine that adding the "gracenote code" URL info the config file would be a trivial code change.

It could be done either as:
gracenote_url=cddb.cddb.com:8880/

OR

gracenote_url=cddb.cddb.com
gracenote_port=8880
gracenote_path=/

So, there is my 2 cents worth. I hope someone is still paying attention to this issue, as Winamp is QUITE irritating without this feature!

And thank you DrO for all the GREAT info you provided on this subject. It helped me a lot.

[nissa23]

http://www.mp3tag.de/en/

link not working.??

[vita]

test coment from new user

[Elle Hall]

Bugger looks like I'm going to have to re-install Nero for Gracenote CD lookups.

I never had a problem with the Gracenote CDDB It helped me greatly with my tagging.

[Ophelia]

Problems with winamp

When I click on a song in my library on winamp, it won't play. Instead it just starts searching through the whole list of songs as if the songs aren't connected. I downloaded the songs onto my computer and linked them to my winamp; yet winamp doesn't recognize any of the songs. How do I make the songs play on my winamp? I even tried reinstalling winamp and same problem. The songs only play on winamp when I click on my folder of the songs instead of clicking in the program to play.

[Aminifu]

When I click on a song in my library on winamp, it won't play. Instead it just starts searching through the whole list of songs as if the songs aren't connected. I downloaded the songs onto my computer and linked them to my winamp; yet winamp doesn't recognize any of the songs. How do I make the songs play on my winamp? I even tried reinstalling winamp and same problem. The songs only play on winamp when I click on my folder of the songs instead of clicking in the program to play.

When a song is first added to the Winamp media library, the location of the song is saved along with it's filename. If the song is later moved to another location, then Winamp will not able to find it. If a song is copied to another folder and added to the library, Winamp will treat the copied song as if it were a new different song (even though both songs are actually the same).

How did you link the songs to Winamp? The songs are probably not in the same folder(s) they were in when they were first added to the Winamp media library. Right click on 1 of these songs in the library to open a context menu, then click on the "View file info..." command. Look near the top of the window that opens to see if the location (drive letter, root folder, and sub-folders) and filename for the song are correct.

If the location isn't correct, close that window, then press the "Ctrl" and "P" keys on your keyboard (at the same time) to open the Winamp Preferences window. Click on "Local Library" under the "Media Library" heading on the left side and then click on the "Watch Folders" tab on the right side. Click on the "Add folder..." button on this tab to open another window that will let you browse to and select the folder that contains some or all of your songs. If all of your songs are in sub-folders under 1 root folder, then just add the root folder. Otherwise repeat adding root and/or subfolders until all the folders containing your songs have been added to the list of watched folders.

Make sure the option "Automatically remove missing files" is checked, click to select 1 or more of the other options if you want to use any of them, and then click on the "Rescan now" button. This will remove the library records for all of the songs listed with incorrect locations and add records for all of your songs with their current locations. Close the Winamp Preferences window after the rescan is finished.

[Ophelia]

Thank you so much, I actually got it to work. Thank you for the full detail directions it helped alot.

[Cakeway]

Yes, WMP can rip. I prefer to use EAC. Among other things, it lets me easily add more encoders for converting to various formats after the initial rip.

[charbonnier]

even forum is definitely dead...