Thanks, DFELD2005, for your thoughtful response. I had already systematically tested every conceivable tag setting(s) and also determined that it didn’t matter how many files were merged. Even two small files, each about 5 minutes long, when merged using MergeMP3 failed to play in either of my two Clips. The individual files played fine by themselves. The files that I’m loading into the Clip are all mp3 files; no M4B files exist.
The files were all ripped using the same settings in MediaMonkey, so I don’t THINK there is a difference in compression settings. I did have to re-tag all of the files because MediaMonkey was very inconsistent in tagging (odd, since I changed nothing between inserting one CD of an audiobook and then inserting the next one).
This is a head-scratcher for me. The last time I did a batch of library audiobooks using MediaMonkey to rip and MergeMP3 to merge was in 2012 and I had zero problems. But things in 2018 are different. I’d wondered if maybe there was some DRM setting that was interfering, but if so, the individual files should be affected, not just the merged files. I experimented with an online merging service and those merged files play fine, although the audio is diminished. I suspect that the service re-encodes (which triples the file size). But that makes me wonder if MergeMP3 is putting something in the header that the Clip objects to. A merged file using a DOS command prompt plays fine, but the Clip can’t resume where it left off because (so I read) there is no header. There is no working email address for MergeMP3 so I can’t email to ask them this critical question.
Can anyone recommend a software program that merges MP3 files that the Clip gets along with? A program that they actually have used within the last year or so?
