emplode won't accept certain mp3 files

Help... emplode (v1.01) won't accept some of my mp3 files. It doesn't like files with some non-alpha characters in the file name ('/', '?', '>', ...). It also happens to directories with those same characters. Once it hits a file or directory it doesn't like, it stops importing the rest of the files in that paste operation. It appears that all of the characters it doesn't like have meaning in a shell environment.

Is there anything I can do about this? It's happened to me quite a few times and I can't quite bring myself to change the song titles.

- Eric

Is there anything I can do about this? It's happened to me quite a few times and I can't quite bring myself to change the song titles.

Change the filenames, leave the correct song titles in the ID3 tags. As long as you have your tags filled in properly, the filenames don't matter at all.

Borislav

What I don't understand is how you were even able to create files with the characters /, ?, >, since those are illegal characters for filenames on Windows boxes.

Unless you're trying to pull the files across the network from a non-Windows machine, then I'd understand.

I've got very specific code in my MP3 software (GapKiller and Jack) to filter out those characters if the user enters them, as well as a couple others that sometimes cause trouble in file names.

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Tony Fabris

What I don't understand is how you were even able to create files with the characters /, ?, >, since those are illegal characters for filenames on Windows boxes.

I'm doing everything on a Mac which allows those characters just fine. I'm using emplode within VirtualPC w/Win2K. The files are all on a Mac volume which appears in Win2K just fine (although I haven't tried to see if I could even copy those files from within Win2K, so this probably isn't even a emplode issue). I knew there had to be a reason I couldn't find any other discussions of the problem.

Thanks everybody...

- Eric

Ah, OK. I knew another OS had to be part of the equation.

FYI, illegal characters in Windows are :

\ / : * ? " < >

I also would avoid % and most of the extended characters, such as the directional typographer's quotes.

Most of that stuff can go into the tags, just not the file names.

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Tony Fabris

FYI, illegal characters in Windows are :

\ / : * ? " < >

I guess I knew that somewhere in the dark recesses of my brain. I just chose not to remember it.

I also would avoid % and most of the extended characters, such as the directional typographer's quotes.

This is probably a good idea. Unfortunately I'm using a Mac application (SoundJam MP) that generates the file names from the song titles. (Hmm - I wonder if there are any options to have it avoid certain filename characters.) Otherwise I'll just have to keep an eye out and change the file names once they're created.

Thanks...

- Eric

You might consider using the Java version of emplode, which runs fine on a Mac. I would guess that it will not have a problem with those characters in filenames.

Right now the software is Beta, but the author has indicated that a first release is not far away. Details can be found in the development forum.

Rob

Heh, just experienced this and thought I'd add a post that'll add a few keywords (like "French")....

I ripped a Maurane CD under grip/cdparanoia/lame without problems onto my Linux file store, but when it came time to move it to the Empeg, emplode refused to move most of the files. Looking at it more closely, the freedb lookup worked perfectly -- giving me titles in French complete with accents. While these show up perfectly under Linux, the accented characters appear as a dark "uber-pipe" character under Windows (a darker, thicker pipe character) and any songs with those characters refuse to transfer under Emplode.

So, I went back to Linux, renamed files to eliminate accents, and all is well. Once they synch, at title such as "Qui a part nous ?" does show up with the accent over the A in the ID3-derived title, it just can't seem to work in the filename.

I can't start to think of what other languages this might apply to, or whether there is a way to get around this illegal character issue by installing additional character set support under Windows. Would this be an issue for Emplode users who have a different character set by default?

Jim