Can play .mp3 files but not .m4a files

[stevemarkus]

Hi, I am a complete novice when it comes to Squeezecenter. I've installed Version: 7.3.3 - 27044 on a Ubuntu box to act as a server, and put all my music onto it. This consists of a mixture of MP3 and M4A files, the former which I can play (on a laptop pointed at the server, also Ubuntu, using the Gnome media player) but I can't play the M4A files. I've had a look through the forums but can't find anything particularly relevant to my situation.

The log file from SC reads thus:
[09-09-08 15:41:56.3548] Slim::Player::Song:pen (341) Error: Couldn't create command line for mp4 playback for [file:///home/smarkus/Music/Amy_Winehouse/Back_To_Black/01_-_Rehab.m4a]

I initially had spaces in the filenames but changed them to be underscores, thinking that might be the cause of the problem (not realising that the MP3 files also had spaces so it obviously wasn't!).

From what I've read elsewhere in the forums (and quite a lot isn't relevant as it seems to be Windows based and suggests Quicktime be installed) an earlier version of Squeezecenter may help - can anyone point me in the right direction to find one? Sorry for asking such basuc questions - as I said, I am a music lover rather than a computer lover....
[Ignore this last para - I've found the earlier version download files]
[update 09/09/09: Ignore the earlier version idea, I tried it and it failed to play either .mp3 or .m4a files. Another idea I have is to use a converter to change the format of the .mva files to something different for Squeezecenter purposes - might try this today. Still interested in any ideas that might result in a fix for M4A files]

Anyway, it is all very odd - it works really well for MP3 files, and I'd very much like to get it working for M4A files so that I can then justify buying some Boom boxes! Please help if you might know what I'm doing wrong and can point me in the right direction.

Update 10/09/09: Fixed it - I didn't have faad2 and lame installed, plus some messing about with convert.conf. I'd like to say thanks for the help, but unfortunately, I didn't get any.

Many thanks,
Steve.

[d_c_h_w]

Hi,

not an expert myself, but it is because sb3 and boom do not support m4a (AAC) natively.

You therefore need to install fadd and lame on your Linux box and setup the squeezecenter to transcode using them.

There are various forum threads on this, try a search using 'AAC' rather than 'm4a'

There is also a wiki entry for AAC support under Linux, although it may be out of date, I don't remember having to edit any confiuration files to get it working for me.

http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/AAC#AAC_on_Linux:

Good luck

[bpa]

In 7.3.3 - faad comes with SC installation and should have worked out of the box unless you are using a 64 bit kernel in which case you should have installed the compatibility libraries.

There should be no need tro modiufy any conf file. Your problem may have been just missing lame as that cannot be redistributed but why do you need to transcode to MP3.

Using standard faad and not the SC supplied one will mean you can't play AAC and AAC+ streams.