Xld Detect Pregap

[Alacoque Whitchurch]

Iask this because I have setup a headless Mac Mini to rip my CDs and each time I put in a CD the pregap bar hangs and the CD disappears from the Finder, requiring me to Restart the Mini to get it to recognize the CD again.

I haven't had any other pregap hangups with XLD. I have had a few occasions where the Mini doesn't mount the CD at all. Usually ejecting the CD with the icon in the top menu bar, and then reloading fixes it. Occassionally I've had to restart the Mini to fix it.

Thanks for your input. Unfortunately, this is happening on multiple CD that have completely clean surfaces. I noticed that when XLD does its Pregap process, it dismounts the CD from the Finder, so if it hangs - which it's doing quite a bit - and has to be Force Quit, the CD remains dismounted, requiring the Mac Mini to be restarted. Not a very effecient process ...

While we are on the subject of xld, i was hoping someone would be able to tell me how to convert a file already ripped. My Imac shows that xld is open although it doesn't show an open window. I am new to Mac, but understand this happens with some programs. I can't seem to find where to start this conversion process.

For instance, Sondre Lerche's excellent 'Dan In Real Life' soundtrack - I have no issues with iTunes (error correction on), Max or Rip (both free and available from )...but XLD hangs on the second track for ages...then hangs on the third track...and so on, until I eject out of sheer frustration.

XLD will rip a disc regardless of the pre-gap settings (as long as it doesn't hang, which has happened to me, too, when the Preference for pre-gap detection is enabled). While XLD is ripping, it will detect the pre-gaps as each track is ripped.

I have the same problem as bjast when attempting to rip certain CD's on my mid-2010 Mac Mini. However, I believe the problem is a defective DVD/CD drive, not a problem with XLD, because the same CD's cause iTunes to hang when importing. Specifically, iTunes will download the CDDB track info, but when I click the Import button, it hangs and shows no progress, and the CD disappears from the Finder desktop.

The optical drive in my Mac Mini is HL-DT-ST (Hitachi-LG) model GA32N, firmware version KC08. (This drive also is in most iMac's.) I know there's a more recent firmware version KC09, but I don't know whether it solves the problem. The CD's import perfectly on my Macbook Pro that has a Matsushita UJ-875.

I'm having the same problems. For the record, I'm using a 2010 Mac Mini aluminum with a superdrive HL-DT-ST DVDRW GA32N, Firmware Revision KC08. Even with pristine CDs I'm having the same problem with the drive getting "hung" during pregap detection. I've had LIMITED success by making sure my settings and desired encoder are already set in XLD before inserting the CD (then quit XLD), so that as soon as the CD appears on the desktop I can launch XLD and hit open CD without having to adjust the settings. If I open the XLD Prefs window or change the encoder profile with the CD already mounted it will hang up 100 percent of the time.

2. Like some others have said, I don't think this is an itunes issue, it's only XLD. In fact, when I first insert the CD, it shows up automatically in iTunes, but as soon as I select "Open Audio CD" in XLD it automatically unmounts from iTunes (and from the Finder) to begin the pregap detection process. The progress window comes up in XLD but the bar never actually begins moving.

3. Sometimes I get lucky and everything works correctly, so this problem doesn't happen every single time, probably 70 percent of the time (esp. if I mess with the settings after the CD's already mounted).

4. Neither Toast nor Disk Utility are useful for ejecting the CD...both programs report that there isn't even a drive connected to my machine! When the CD is unmounted for pregap detection it's like the drive is "unplugged".

6. Sometimes it takes me more than one restart to eject the CD, the machine doesn't always respond to the Eject button during startup. To finally get the CD ripped it may take several restarts, making sure to already have my XLD encoder settings set.

It happened to me again today when ripping a CD which is why I searched and found this thread, so the current version hasn't fixed it for me. After a restart and eject, it was ok and ripped normally. As I said, it doesn't happen every time, but well over 50 percent of the time, which is more than enough to be very annoying since once the disc is stuck it requires one or more restarts to "dislodge" it.

I actually emailed XLD developer tmkk about this today....his response was that "he's never experienced nor heard reports of this problem in the roughly 2 years that XLD has been capable of ripping." His suggestion was to disable the pre-gap detection feature, but I'm not sure how that would negatively affect the rip, and I don't think it would jibe with AccuRip. I suspect the lack of pre-gaps would be more apparent on gapless/live CDs, but regardless, just turning it off is like the old medical anecdote: "My arm hurts when I bend it like this. Well don't bend it like that."

Yes, it's certainly possible I've just been lucky lately. I've found that I need to let the CD "mount" in iTunes before I start XLD. Once I do that, the CD is easily accessible in XLD, it takes the track info from iTunes, and it rips just fine.

That said, I'm surprised the author is saying he's unaware of this problem - it seems fairly prevalent from what I'm hearing here. I like XLD, but it's a bit buggy in my experience (see my workflow, above - it shouldn't really matter if iTunes is running before / after I launch XLD, etc.)

@Goldsdad....sorry I overlooked your earlier post. I disabled Pre-Gap scan (I had to recreate all my profiles to reflect the small change; unless I'm missing something you can't simply modify existing profiles), and so far have had no problems. I don't think it's a fluke as it was hanging on every CD today until disabling that setting. So far two rips and no worries. I was concerned that it would mess up the Accurate Rip, but the log showed that all is well.

@jhwalker, did disabling the auto-pregap detect help you? I have iTunes set to not automatically open when I insert discs, but I've also tried letting iTunes mount the disc first. Neither method seemed to make a difference; both were capable of producing the hangup.

Well, I thought my problem was solved, but it appears not. Regarding XLD hanging up when Pregap Detection starts and can't eject the CD without restarting, or the Mac itself freeezing>>> I contacted XLD's developer a while back and he advised me to check the "Don't Detect Pregap" option, because he said once I actually ripped the CD, XLD would detect the pregaps anyway.

Well, unless I'm missing something, XLD does NOT detect the pregaps at all with that setting checked. I took a CD that I knew for sure had pregaps, ripped it both with and without Detect Pregap checked (ripped to FLAC, individual files, using the standard ripping setting "Include Pre-gap For All Tracks".

In the resulting logfiles, the one that detected the gaps prior to ripping shows "Gap Status: Analyzed, Appended", while the other logfile (as you'd logically expect) shows "Gap Status: Not Analyzed".

Moreover, I also exported a CUE sheet at the conclusion of each of the two rips: Again, as expected, the pregap analyzed rip showed various pre-gap lengths in the form of INDEX 00 followed by varying time values on the tracks that had pregaps, while the Pregap NOT-Analyzed rip just showed the standard INDEX 01 00:00:00 for EVERY track.

It doesn't seem that proper rips can be made without pregap detection, and yet the pregap scanning process is buggy for me and others; it gets hung up more than half the time and I have to restart the machine....not good.

Every time in put in a cd to rip - XLD goes though a very time consuming process of measuring pre gap - I haven't actually timed it but, it's probably in the neighborhood of a minute or more - feels like several minutes.

My settings under Preferences-CD Rip have "Don't detect pregap, ISRC, and MCN" enabled. "Scan replaygain" disabled. "Verify suspicious sectors" disabled. I am using an external Apple USB Superdrive. So I don't think it is a USB 2.0 issue.

I'm curious - my understanding (limited at best) is that checking pre gap allows the calculation of checksums to match the accuraterip database. When you run with it Checked (disabled) what kind of result do you get from accurate rip and do you know of any other consequences?

I disabled the pre gap, ISRC and MCN. Seems to work fine - no 4 minute delay, accuaterip still works. Makes me wonder what that heck it really does - still searching web for an answer that makes some sort of sense. Most of the answers I've found seem to say - it does everything it needs to do when you rip the track before hand, then does it again while you're ripping the track - which means - it just waists time - I'd say that can't be right since it makes no sense, but then, I've been doing software since 73, so I've seen more than my share of code that makes no sense.

Pregap (countdown between tracks on CD players) detection makes sense only if you intend to burn a CD. No part of the TOC of the CD, is manually read by the drive-software; so the process is slow. The information is stored in the cuesheet (like the ISRC and MCN - stored in the subchannels CD).

AccurateRip only takes into account the information of the individual tracks [starting at index 01 and include audio content (or silence) of pregap of the next track] The pregap not exist as independent in the PCM data stream.

[...] "Do fathers always know more than sons?" and the father said, "yes". The next question was, "Daddy, who invented the steam engine?" and the father said, "James Watt." And then the son came back with "- but why didn't James Watt's father invent it?"

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