[Solved]RipperX Taking Hours Ripping an Audio CD in LM17.1

[julianvb]

2015-07-07
Please read my concluding summary message for my final solution and info on various Linux rippers.
Julianvb

2015-07-05

RipperX 3.7.2 on my HP Compaq with 1.5 GB RAM and 80GB HD has been taking more than 6 hours to rip an audio CD and is still attempting to rip the last track of 20. The progress meter is reading VVV>. I am attaching some system data to this message. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Julianvb
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
free-out:
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 1.5G 1.3G 192M 9.0M 89M 748M
-/+ buffers/cache: 471M 1.0G
Swap: 0B 0B 0B
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

fdisk-out:

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders, total 156301488 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0007a7b0

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 153174015 76585984 83 Linux Both ripperX and soud-juicer are great applications with their respective valuable niches.
/dev/sda2 153176062 156301311 1562625 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 153176064 156301311 1562624 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000170586112 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121597 cylinders, total 1953458176 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xbe71bad1

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 2048 1953458175 976728064 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
ripperx.jpg:

[Buzzsaw]

Are there any log files which say what's been happening?

Does this happens to all CDs or only this one? If it's only this one, then the problem is caused by the CD. Try ripping it with 'cdparanoia'.

[Mute Ant]

''ripperX is an X-based program that uses cdparanoia''
A V in cdparanoia represents an unrepairable error...it won't give up unless you relax the copy arguments...
''disable scratch repair'' or ''overlap tests only'' or ''ignore errors''

Drag-and-drop will give you an idea of whether the track exists on the CD.

It is normal for the CD drive itself to retry after a bad read; mine is set to 19 retries, so a bad scratch and the speed drops to 1/20 of normal You can read a bad disk much faster by stopping this automatic attempt at error recovery...

Code: Select all

sudo sdparm --clear=RRC /dev/sr0

...on my machine. The change is lost on the next power cycle.

[jungle_boy]

Try sound-juicer and be happy.

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install sound-juicer

Simple and fast...

[julianvb]

Hi, Everyone,

Please help. A few hours ago I wrote a long report to close this posting and now it's all gone! I'm disappointed.

Julianvb

[julianvb]

Hi, Mute Ant, jungle_boy and Buzzsaw,

I regret that my long report was wiped out for some strange reason. I solved the problem basically by disabling scratch repair in RipperX's Config menu. Yesterday I was able to re-rip all 18 discs error-free and much faster than previously.

I also tried out Sound-Juicer for the first time and was highly impressed with its simplicity. I'll definitely look into it more. Both RipperX abd Sound-Juicer are great ripping applications to have around and occupy valuable unique niches.

Thank you all for your very helpful advice.

Julianvb

[phd21]

Hi julianvb,

I just read your post and the replies...

Here are my thoughts on this. Why aren't you using Amarok to rip your audio CD's? Amarok the wonderful music player - music manager that is built-in to your system and it is super fast and easy to Rip audio CD's with into various audio file formats.

You bring up Amarok, go into "settings", then "configure Amarok", select "local collection" to set your default music folder(s),which you only need to do once. Then put in an audio CD, wait a few seconds until it shows up in the upper left of the Amarok screen, then right click the "Audio CD", select "copy to collection", select "local collection", pick an audio file format that you want, or hit "advanced" to change default audio file formats, then click "okay", and in a few minutes that CD is "ripped" into your music - audio folder. It shows a little progress bar in the lower left of the Amarok panel too. Then, you can remove that CD, insert another CD, and repeat this simple process again until your whole CD collection is digitized into music (audio) files; which you can play on your computer, or copy to your phone, or your MP3 player, or burn MP3 CD's or DVD's with.


PS: If you think that you are going to write a long post, or reply to one in length, then you might consider using a text editor, like "Kate" in KDE, or LibreOffice Writer to write down everything you want to "post" with frequent saving, then you can just copy and paste it into this forum; and if something goes wrong with your system for whatever reason, you won't loose all that you typed, usually.

[julianvb]

Hi, phd21,

It's good to hear your great advice again. I'm about one year old in terms of Linux Mint and used to rip audio CD books for my wife using CoffeeCup Rip & Burn in Windows XP until I got better acquainted with Linux. Thank you for opening my eyes to Amarok. I'll definitely dig into it as soon as possible.

Can you tell me what may be causing ripping programs to produce empty mp3 files? Recently I discovered this phenomenon on a Dell Latitude laptop with 2gb of RAM and a 250gb HDD while running RipperX and Sound-Juicer in LM17.1. Re-installing Lame didn't make any difference. Both applications didn't produce any runtime errors.

Thanks very much.

Julianvb

[phd21]

Hi, phd21,

It's good to hear your great advice again. I'm about one year old in terms of Linux Mint and used to rip audio CD books for my wife using CoffeeCup Rip & Burn in Windows XP until I got better acquainted with Linux. Thank you for opening my eyes to Amarok. I'll definitely dig into it as soon as possible.

Can you tell me what may be causing ripping programs to produce empty mp3 files? Recently I discovered this phenomenon on a Dell Latitude laptop with 2gb of RAM and a 250gb HDD while running RipperX and Sound-Juicer in LM17.1. Re-installing Lame didn't make any difference. Both applications didn't produce any runtime errors.

Thanks very much.

Julianvb

Hi Julianvb & Wife,

Thank you and you are most welcome!

I. I'm pretty sure that Amarok could rip audio books easily too. You should really try it out with an audio CD, or book CD, even though you may have already "ripped" a particular audio CD, just to see how easy and fast Amarok is to use.

You can also use CD/DVD programs like "K3b" to "rip" audio cd's into music or audio files, and obviously to create, "burn", data cd/dvd's of mp3 or other music formats (aka mp3 discs), or make regular audio CD's, video DVD's, etc...

II. As for you getting blank tracks or empty mp3 files, that could be a few different things:

II. a.) Dirty, or scratched CD's ...

http://www.howtocleanstuff.net/how-to-f ... cd-or-dvd/

http://www.wikihow.com/Clean-a-DVD

https://shopping.yahoo.com/blogs/digita ... 57727.html

How To read or recover CD or DVD's
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=li ... amaged+dvd

Roadkil.net - Recovers files from disks with physical damage. Allows you to copy files from disks with problems such as bad sectors, scratches or that just give errors when reading data.
http://www.roadkil.net/program.php?Prog ... Version=11

"Recoverdm" - a program that might be able to read the CD or DVD if scratched or damaged, and
"ddrescue" & "cdparanoia" , etc... Read Link Above

FYI: "gwc" - wave file cleaner to clear up static and noise from audio; Audacity a great sound editor.
"xwax" - a cool interesting program, open source vinyl emulation software; "terminatorx" is another.

II. b.) Something wrong with the CD/DVD player, reader, writer ... Test it by reading and or writing something to or from a clean CD/DVD or a new CD/DVD.

II. c.) Improper installation or usage of whatever audio ripping program you are using ... Re-install it or try another program.

II. d.) Bad audio ripping software or programs; They are defective or not working on your system ... Remove the bad program(s) and Try another program

[julianvb]

Hi, phd21,

Thanks again for your thoughtful detailed input.

(1) Empty mp3 Files
As for RipperX and Sound-Juicer's empty mp3 output files, I've done an extensive investigation by ripping the same CDs using Windows Vista Home Premium's Windows Media Player on the same laptop and am convinced that the CDs and dvd drive are all in good shape. Windows Media Player automatically ripped the entire CD to mp3 in no time. As a matter of fact, I would give it an A+ for user-friendliness and simple design in Play, Rip and Burn.

(2) K3B Ripping to mp3
I think I would use K3B exclusively for all my audio work if I could make it rip to mp3 format. Last year I ripped more than 150 music discs of various genres to wav format for my son-in-law using K3B. This morning after i used K3B to rip a 10-track music CD, I experimentally converted the outputs to mp3 via lame as follows.

lame -V2 filename.wav filename.mp3

I almost got a perfect score except for the overture.wav file, on which lame declared "Unsupported format". All the 9 lame-produced mp3 files sound all right. This experiment seems to suggest some sort of lame-related problem with my laptop's Ripperx and Sound-Juicer. In other words, lame may not be working properly or effectively in these two applications.

(3) Amarok
For some reason, no disc image shows up in the screen after I configure Amarok and load an audio CD.

Julianvb

[phd21]

Hi julianvb,

You are welcome. Here is some more:

1. Since you are using the KDE edition of Linux Mint, I would remove "RipperX and SoundJuicer" because they are unnecessary duplications and use the GTK desktop vs KDE (QT) desktop. You do not need to, but I would.

2. "K3b" can save, "Rip", audio CD's into MP3 formats without having to rip to ".wav" first and then convert them to ".mp3" format; check the "K3b" file type options when ripping.

Put in a CD, bring up "K3b", click "rip audio cd", click "start ripping", you will see a pop-up window showing the CD and the tracks, you will be on the "settings" tab, look at file type, select "mp3", or whatever audio file format you want, select your "target folder" (your music folder), if you want a "m3u" playlist file too, check that, click "start ripping", that's it.

3. Amarok is awesome, and works just like I said it does; I got the procedures from the developers of Amarok. I found it to be much better than WIndows Media Player, personally. Although, if you are using MS Windows, then Windows Media Player and iTunes are also really great multi-media players.

So, you might have something wrong in your current system configuration. Go into your Synaptic Package Manager (SPM), search for Amarok, right click and select re-install for each: "Amarok", "Amarok-common", "Amarok-utils", then click "apply".


Linux Mint KDE related: I checked to see what other "CD" related files I have installed in my SPM, so you might check to see if you have these installed as well, and if not, install them: kio-audiocd, libkcdd4, wodim, libcdaudio1, libkcompactdisc4, libcddb2, libcdio *, cdrdao.
Note: if you are installing something, and the installer comes up and wants to remove something you are not sure of, don't do it without getting more advice.

Then, restart your system, reboot.

[julianvb]

Hi, phd21,

(1) RipperX 2.7.3 (GTK) and Sound-Juicer3.5.0 (GNOME)
I reloaded and re-installed these two applications on my laptop and they all seem to be working. As stated in a previous message, I corrected my basic RipperX problem by disabling scratch repair in RipperX's Config menu.

(2) K3B 2.02
I think I've finally got it. It would be a great help to rename Settings>File Type to Settings>Output File Type for slow folks like myself.Now I can use K3B full-time!
Now I can use K3B full-time!

(3) Amarok 2:2.8.0
Amarok still does not react to the presence of a disc in the dvd drive. Nor does the screen show a Rip button.

(4 ) Audex (0.781) and Asunder (2.2-1)
Out of curiosity, I installed Audex and Asunder also. They both began ripping immediately after I opened them. I like their screens' utter simplicity very much.

Thanks very much again for your patient and generous help.

Julianvb