Problem with MP3 files/MP3 player

[mattyc]

I hope this is the right section to put this in. I've been listening to and very much enjoying The Dollop, downloading episodes from Podbean and sticking them on my MP3 player. Around episode 120 or so, an ad started appearing at the beginning of the podcast. I'm able to listen to the file just fine on my computer, so it's not corrupted or broken in any way, but when I transfer it to my MP3 player, it reads the advert part just fine then comes up with "Format Error" after about 1min15 as the ad ends and the podcast itself starts. This is the case for all episodes where the ad appears at the front of the podcast. Any idea what's going on here?

I've fiddled about with the file using Audacity and lopped off the ad then exported it as an MP3 file again and that works fine on my MP3 player, so it seems to be an issue with the ad or the transition into the podcast itself. I've also found another source for downloading without the ad, so I'm not completely stuck, just curious as to what's causing this issue.     

[Memorex MP3]

Probably worth reporting to podbean? I think they're one of the ones with a built in advert management system to do geo-targeted ads and whatnot (so it's on them rather than the podcaster); it's probably doing some sort of hack with the splicing that most mp3 software is able to handle.

What's your mp3 player?

[mattyc]

I reported it to Podbean, I can't remember exactly what they said but they didn't seem to think that the problem was on their end. The odd thing is that the ad is just a thing read out by one of the presenters, I'm not sure it's geo-targeted or anything, it seems to be part of the podcast. Like you say it must be something to do with the splicing that's messing things up.

My mp3 player is a D-Jix M320 BT. I don't know much about mp3 players but it's a very basic and cheap one! I'm loath to change it because aside from this pretty minor issue it still works, although I'm open to recommendations for an affordable upgrade!

[JesusAndYourBush]

Probably a quicker method than using audacity - get yourself mp3directcut.  Just drag & drop the file onto mp3directcut and from the file menu select 'save all audio' and resave the file.  It takes literally seconds.  See if that helps.  I sometimes get mp3's with bad headers and that fixes things.  (When you save the file you can literally save it over itself, but probably best to use a different filename for your first attempt until you know if it solves things or not).

[mattyc]

Cheers for that I'll check it out!