Shoutbox

I searched the Bug Reports forum but I didn't come up with any similar report. I have experienced this for a long time but I just decided to report it. I think there are two problems with getting random emotion sounds from sound panel.

1. When I select Music for instance from the menu of sound panel and press "New random sound..." it finds sounds from Music category. When I press "Add to my list" it sometimes doesn't add it. Because I use the search function to find it but it cannot find it. Then I check my sound library and I see that sound there. Then I open sound panel again and then the sound appears in panel as well.
2. Also sometimes, it adds the sound to a different category because after I press "Add to my list" button I cannot see the sound in the current category but when I search for it, it finds it. I manually scan all the categories  without closing and reopening the panel and I find it in a different category.

That is it, I hope this can be fixed in the next version.

Edit: Sorry, I forgot these.
Windows XP SP2
WLM 8.5.1302.1018
MP!L 4.60.324

I haven't yet encountered the first case you described, but I did a quick test and was able to reproduce the second scenario.

quote:

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Originally posted by ahmetgns
2. Also sometimes, it adds the sound to a different category because after I press "Add to my list" button I cannot see the sound in the current category but when I search for it, it finds it. I manually scan all the categories  without closing and reopening the panel and I find it in a different category.

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To test this, first of all, I deleted all custom sounds from my sound library. I then opened a conversation and chose the "Cartoon/Games" category from the emoticon sounds panel.
I then repeatedly downloaded sounds via the "New Random Sound..." button and added them to the sound library ("Add to my list" button).

In the end, I had added a total of 100 custom sounds to the sounds library this way and two of them ended up in a different category:



While adding those two sounds via the "new random sound" button, this is what was displayed in the "Get New Random Sound" dialog box:



But after they were added to the sound library, they are listed in the "Vocals" category.
The Custom Sound Properties dialog shows them as being in the "Vocals" category, and adding those sounds with "/sound #1D0C016AD9E1" and "/sound #055B904A6469" will place them into the "Vocals" category as well.



It seems like some sounds sneak into different categories when you use the get random sound feature. Those two sounds seem to really be in the "Vocals" category, but yet somehow they also appear when you try to get a random sound from "Cartoons/Games".

Windows XP Service Pack 2 (5.1.2600)
Windows Live Messenger 8.5.1018
Messenger Plus! Live 4.60.0.324

Edit:
After thinking about this, could it be that when the category of a sound is updated with "Update Server" in the "Custom Sound Properties" dialog, it somehow remains in the original category and gets added to the new category?
I don't know how the sounds are organised on the server, but are the sounds saved with the original categories in addition to the 'current' category?
So, suppose that those two sounds were uploaded as "Cartoon/Games", someone else downloaded them and decided that they would fit better into "Vocals" than "Cartoon/Games" and changed the Category.
That might explain why they show up when you search for a random sound in the "Cartoon/Games" category, and as soon as you add them to the sound library, they get added into the updated category, i.e. "Vocals" instead of "Cartoon/Games".
Of course that's just speculation..

Thank you andrey for trying this. I downloaded those two sounds with /sound command but "youhou"s category appears as "Cartoons / Games" here. But other sound's is "Vocals" like you said. I know it is also possible that someone changed youhou's category as Cartoons again.

Your scenario was what I previously had in my head too. However I did some tests  and see the results.

I ran two Messengers and signed in with my two accounts. I changed sound library of one of them as a Private Sound Library. The other remained public sound library. I find a sound's ID from web and sent it to the other account with /sound command. Then that sound was downloaded and I checked the sound libraries of both accounts. Their language and category was the same in both libraries. Then I changed the category&language and updated the server. Then I deleted the sound from both sound libraries, I checked the storage folder for sounds and I also checked the registry and made sure all the things about that sound is gone. Then I sent the same sound with sound command again. Now, this is interesting. In one sound library, the category and language was what it originally was but in the other sound library, it was what I changed to. But they are downloaded almost at the same instants and I heard both sounds playing in the two chat windows at the same time. I did it many times and in some cases the new infos about sounds came after a delay, I mean, after a couple of times I repeat this cycle (send sound, delete sound from everywhere in the computer and resend sound), the new info appeared in my sound library.

Also, about my #1 case, it may related to the #2. Because I tried it again and one sound didn't appear in my sound panel again after I added it via "Add to my list" button. When I closed and reopened the panel, it was in a different category. It may also be caused by the wrong category bug and when the sound goes to a different category, sound panel may not be updated until you close and reopen it.

By the way, I want to ask something. Are the names and language and category infos an integrated part of sound files or those infos are only listed according to the sound's ID. For example when someone sends a sound, is its ID queried from the server and then those infos appear in the convo windows? Because when I delete all the values about a sound in registry leaving only its key with its ID under CustomSounds, then it shows ??? for name and "unknown" for its category and language.

quote:

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Originally posted by ahmetgns
Are the names and language and category infos an integrated part of sound files

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yes, they are stored in the MP3IDv1 tags. That's why a program like the Sound Library Fixer can restore your libraries in case you've lost or deleted your registry settings (eg: with an uninstall).

And they are also copied to the registry once the sound is downloaded. This greatly speeds up the showing of the sound library and sound panels since Plus! doesn't need to physically read in all the sound files; it just needs to scan the registry to get the information.