I was writing an mp3player script while I hit few .mp3s that mIRC 6.35 was unable to play using /splay. Error message being: "/splay unable to play: <filename>"

This was on Vista, where I use newest ffdshow codecs rev. 3029 (20090710). I tried playing the files on Winamp, VLC, GomPlayer and they played it fine. I moved the errorous files to my another computer, which has XP and the same codec pack and mIRC versions and the files played fine with /splay and Winamp etc.

I visited couple friends that had XPs, Vistas and 7s installed. All XPs were able to play the files with /splay, while all Vistas, and 7s weren't.

So I started to investigate further by editing headers of the files in Winamp. When I came to remove id3v2 tags from the files, they suddenly started playing with /splay on Vista.

Even if the id3v2 was somehow errorous, that should't prevent it from playing when every other player is able do it. Songs I encountered the problem with were from few different albums. While most of the files on those albums ran into the same error, there were couple songs that didn't.

It's a shame I probably can't send the files I ran in to error with, since it's copyrighted work we are talking about.

If I discover something more, I'll be posting.

Editing any of the id3v2 details seperately in Winamp didn't work (artist, title, etc). Only unticking the "Include ID3v2 tag in file" seems to make it work. Afterwards you can re-enter all the details without problem existing.

You can access this option in Winamp by: right clicking a song -> View file info... -> ID3v2

So to me it seems there something more in the tag that Winamp shows. However, it doesn't make Winamp go crazy, neither should mIRC.

Oh, and the Vista I'm experimenting on is 32bit.

Problem doesn't seem to be with any particular version of id3v2 (id3v2.2 - id3v2.4) I was able to find errorous songs using all those versions. Anyway, all errorous songs I've met have been using a version of id3v2.

In all cases removing the tag (with Winamp) fixed the problem.

$sound() seems to return nothing on .id3 and .tags, on .tag it returns 0. other $sound() properties work fine. This also is happening on Vista / 7 only.


I belive I've done all research I can. But still be posting if I discover something new.

Running mIRC on "Windows XP SP2 compability mode" or "Run as administrator" didn't have effect on Vista.


This doesn't happen with all the errorous files, but some. Every file still containing an id3v2 tag (checked with Winamp)

I've made a workaround for this problem.
It's a dll that is usable with mIRCs /dll and $dll(). It rewrites specified music files ID3v2 tags in a (proper) form mIRC is able to read, and thus making /splay of the file possible.
Rewriting tags in middle of script is time consuming, so
I've included a short example of how to use it effectively in mIRC scripts by replacing the default /splay with an alias that only uses the dll when default /splay fails.

The dll along with the sources and documentation is posted on mircscripts.org and is currently waiting for acceptance and review. If you feel like reviewing/checking it out, find "tag.dll (/splay fix)" at http://www.mircscripts.org/queue.php

this is actually a windows 7 bug
media player fails to read mp3 ids too