Why aren't my transferred MP3 files playing on M1 Mac mini?

Question

Level 1

8 points

Why aren't my transferred MP3 files playing on M1 Mac mini?

Can someone please help, I moved from a MacBook Pro 2016 to a 2020 M1 Mac Mini, now running Sequoia. I copied my media files from the MacBook and imported them into music on the new Mac mini, the problem all the files apart from wav files transferred, ie Mp3, m4a etc all fine.

I have hunted all the internet for a solution and the main solution is to redo the CD's again, now the problem with that is, that there are around 100 CD's that have been converted to wav and I'll have to do them all again which is not really feasible.

Can I ask, why are they working on the MacBook fine and not the mini?

Please help or I will need to transfer them all again.

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Mac mini, macOS 15.0

Posted on Oct 10, 2024 2:41 AM

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Answer 1

turingtest2

Level 10

274,083 points

Oct 10, 2024 12:39 PM in response to tomb_65

Hi.

The issue here is likely to be that .wav tracks don't contain a tag. When imported into a new library the filename (complete with any leading digits) is treated as a track title, and the tracks are added to the Unknown Artist/Unknown Album section of the library. See Move your iTunes/Music library to a new computer - Apple Community for details of a way to move the library that preserves all of the metadata that isn't stored in tags, including ratings, play counts, playlists, etc. and details for .wav tracks.

tt2

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Answer 2

Oct 10, 2024 5:42 AM in response to tomb_65

Can QuickTime Player play your .wav, what does Invisor or MediaInfo say about its codec? At least plain uncompressed PCM .wav plays OK in my Mac mini 2018 with Sequoia and I can losslessly convert it to .aif or smaller Apple's lossless alac etc with Finder Services, Shutter Encoder, ffmpeg etc. Some encoders might drop metadata so do a test before running a larger batch.

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Answer 3

tomb_65 Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 10, 2024 8:11 AM in response to Matti Haveri

Thanks for the reply, If I open the wav file with Quicktime, it plays fine, if I choose Open with say Music, it plays in the music app but it will not stay there, its driving me crazy, I'm already about half way through transferring my CD's but its a long process as most of the time, music doesn't find the album art so have to get it from other places, this has been a nightmare

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