Music Missing when Published as EXE file

[FrankGill]

Has anyone been confronted with the following:

When a the music and slides work in preview but when published the images work but the sound is missing?

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Couple of initial questions, which version of PTE, can you see the music waveform in the timeline view, how did you add the music, is the music an MP3.

Yachtsman1.

[Barry Beckham]

I helped a guy sort a problem with his slide show in PTE8 a few weeks ago and was surprised with what the ultimate cause was and what I experienced may help others perhaps. The show was quite lengthy at 15 minutes long and it had a music track added at that length.

Symptoms : Slide show played perfectly within PTE via the mini player, but the executable file played with no music.

Actions:

1. Imported the sound file to Audacity and exported it back out and into PTE - No change to the fault

2. Imported the sound file to Audacity and exported it back out and into PTE and made some changes to the quality settings - No change to the fault

3. Tried a new piece of music of roughly the same length as the original - No change to the fault.

4. Tried another much shorter track in the slide show - The Show played OK and the music could be heard.

5. I doubled up the track of music that worked to make it extend to around 15 minutes - The Slide show played OK, but not sound again.

6. I opened the folder of images in Photoshop and used the image processor to make a copy, save each one again as a jpg, with a compression of 8. The Slide Show then played perfectly, even using the original track created by the author.

It appears that some unknown fault with a Jpeg image, prevented the music from playing. It then appeared obvious that the problem image must have been quite a way into the slide show because a shorter track that didn't quite reach the offending image played OK. As soon as a second music track was added to reach the end of the show. NO music would play.

I think most people faced with a music fault like this would spend their time looking at the music as my friend did until he ran out of ideas. So a dodgy Jpeg image can cause music not to play outside of PTE. (as far as I am aware from the original author, the offending image, visually played ok in the slide show)

[FrankGill]

Thank you for your response. The actual problem is for a friend who is not a member of the forums so I told him I would post the problem. He uses version 7.5 has ripped the sound file using Windows Media and it is a wav file.

Just another question while I here, what do you need to do if you want to mp3 files?

[Guest Yachtsman1]

It is a well known fact that earlier versions of PTE can have problems with WAV files. In this instance, if your friend has some form of media converter, Audacity being one of many which is free. Import the WAV file through Audacity, export or save it as an MP3 & re-insert it into the show. I would also suggest your friend takes a look at the new on-line help & the tuition section of the new Slideshow Club where there is a wealth of information.

Yachtsman1.

http://www.slideshowclub.com/files/category/5-tutorials/

[davegee]

If you take a look at the OPTIONS for whatever you used to rip the Audio File there will be options to rip to both MP3 and WAV amongst other formats.

DG

[FrankGill]

Thanks again for the responses. My friend has saved the sound file as an mp3 and the publish exe now works fine.

[wideangle]

Within PTE, if you click on Project Options, then click the Audio tab, there is a tickbox you can check to 'Convert tracks to MP3 for EXE'

Would that have cured the problem?

Regards

wideangle

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Within PTE, if you click on Project Options, then click the Audio tab, there is a tickbox you can check to 'Convert tracks to MP3 for EXE'

Would that have cured the problem?

Regards

wideangle

Don't think that applies to 7.5

Yachtsman1.

[PGA]

Don't think that applies to 7.5

Correct, it came with v8.0!

Peter

[David-W-N]

I have had exactly the same issue as FrankG. I am using v8.0.2.

My show played perfectly in preview.

It was 18minutes in length with 290 images.

I was using an .mp3 audio file.

The show when published was well in excess of 2.00gb but there was no music to be heard!

It worked as a published article when cut-back to 257 images - about 2.00gb.

I have resolved the situation by making 2 shows, .84gb and 1.5gb.

I cannot prove it but assume it is a size issue, whether that is with PTE or my computer I do not know.

David

[davegee]

http://docs.picturestoexe.com/en/techniques/exefilesize

DG

[Barry Beckham]

David

I am going to suggest that your images are too large, there is no way you should come close to 2Gig even with 290 images. If I use images straight from a 21 megapixel camera and save them at jpeg level 8, they are around 2mb each. That would give a file size before music of less than 600MB

Reduce the images to 3000*2000 pixels, usually big enough for anyones needs and the images can be saved at only 500k, yet on screen there is no visual difference. Now your file size is down around 150MB.

Most enthusiasts use an image editor to reduce the size of the images before using them in a slide show, particularly with a show containing nearly 300 images.