Disclaimer
This article mentions third-party software which is not manufactured or supported by Native Instruments. Though we have successfully tested it in-house for some time, we cannot guarantee the safety and correct functionality of this software.
If you experience a sudden crash when loading a track onto a Deck, there is a high chance that the track might be corrupt. A corrupt audio file is a file that has a certain type of missing or malformed information either in its metadata (ID3-tags) or in the actual music data. Corrupt files may have various consequences on the stability of TRAKTOR. These can be as harmless as displaying a tag with an odd character or as harmful as causing the whole application to crash. Other than loading a track to a Deck, crashes due to corrupted files may also happen when performing the following:
- Opening TRAKTOR
- Closing TRAKTOR
- Analyzing tracks
- Consistency Check
- Importing tracks
- Browsing with the Explorer node
- Relocating tracks
In order to protect yourself from unexpected behaviour caused by corrupt files in your Track Collection, it is necessary to scan and either repair or delete your corrupt files. The free software tools Mp3Val (for Windows) and Mp3 Scan+Repair (for Mac) are designed for the specific task of scanning and repairing corrupt files. Find more detailed instructions for each of the programs below.
Note: Although the repair process is very safe, it is advised to create a backup copy of the files you want to repair. Only after you have encountered no issues with your repaired files, you may delete the backup copy.
Mp3Val (Windows)
- Go to the Mp3Val website here.
- Download the latest version including Frontend from the list of available downloads.
- Open your download folder, right-click on the .zip file and select Extract All...
- Define a location on your hard drive to save the extracted folder and click on Extract.
- Open the extracted folder and execute "mp3val-frontend.exe".
The mp3val File menu allows for adding single files or whole folders containing your audio files. Once they have been added to the list, the Actions menu offers scan and repair tasks. The State column as well as the lower console provide information on the state of scan / repair after the action has been executed.
Mp3 Scan+Repair (Mac)
- Go to the Mp3 Scan+Repair website here.
- Download the file from the link for the current Download Version.
- Open your download folder and double-click on the .zip file
- Execute the file "Mp3 Scan+Repair" that has been extracted in the same download folder.
Note: If you use MacOSX 10.8 (Mountain Lion), the Gatekeeper default feature will prevent you from opening the application since it is considered an untrusted or unknown application. To change this, open your Mac OS X System Preferences > Security and Privacy menu. In the General tab, click on the Lock symbol to make changes (you will need to enter your Mac password). Then, for Allow applications downloaded from, select Anywhere and confirm the change.
The Mp3 Scan+Repair File menu allows for adding single files or whole folders containing your audio files. You may alternatively drag files directly to its main window. Once the files have been added, they will be automatically scanned. For files where errors are found, a yellow warning sign will be displayed next to their entries. The Messages column provides information on the type of error found in the scanned file as well as its repair status. After the scan is completed, you can click on the hammer icon to repair the damaged items. The damaged items will be moved to the Trash and replaced by repaired ones in the same location of the original file.
