LAME decode gives up early on long MP3 files?

I am using Lame.exe 3.99.5 64-bit for Windows to decode some podcasts. One podcast has particularly long epsiodes such as this one, at 4.5 hours.

When I download and decode its MP3, I get a WAV file of 3.4 hours. Presumably, it gave up partway through, although I see no error. The same kind of problem happens with any long MP3 from this podcast.

Is this a shortcoming of LAME? Am I doing something wrong? Here is the command line and output (I snipped the full path):

C:\...\Temp>"C:\Program Files\Lame\lame.exe" --decode "C:\...\Temp\Show 54 - Blueprint for Armageddon V.mp3"

input:  C:\...\Temp\Show 54 - Blueprint for Armageddon V.mp3
        (44.1 kHz, 2 channels, MPEG-1 Layer III)
output: C:\...\Temp\Show 54 - Blueprint for Armageddon V.wav
        (16 bit, Microsoft WAVE)
skipping initial 529 samples (encoder+decoder delay)
Frame#625408/626055 128 kbps  L  R

C:\...\Temp>

Patrick Szalapski

Posted 2015-01-24T20:47:36.353

Reputation: 197

Maybe a simple bug? Last LAME version was released in 2011. Can you decode the file with another program, e.g. ffmpeg -i input.mp3 output.wav? – slhck – 2015-01-24T21:02:03.407

FFMPEG seems to work, but with lots of overread messages--is that normal? Anyway, the output file is complete and sounds good. – Patrick Szalapski – 2015-01-24T21:42:16.943

Hm. I don't know where these messages come from. There is at least one open bug report, but it's about 24 kHz WAV/MP3 decoding only. Since ffmpeg worked, I posted an answer below. – slhck – 2015-01-24T21:57:07.500

LAME decode gives up early on long MP3 files?

Answers