bad cue/flac

[Anoid]

I have noticed some music as cue/flac cannot be opened with VLC or Foobar2000 suggesting

Frankie Goes to Hollywood 3 CD set is known to have bad cue sheets

So can somebody who has this clean this up?

[ill88eagle]

A cue sheet is a plain txt file with timing info, almost as simple as a youtube comment with chapter info. E.G.: title : timestamp. If I recall correctly there are online databases you can search to get the correct info. If that fails, open your flac file with something like audacity, find the timestamps and edit the cue file with notepad or similar to have the correct ones.

[Anoid]

I see this as more of a reaction to attacks on torrents

foobar2000 is one of the most handy tools available

audacity is more work to learn how to use, i have sound forge available but need to install that

[ill88eagle]

FILE
Names a file containing the data and its format (such as MP3, and WAVE audio file formats, and plain "binary" disc images)
TRACK
Defines a track context, providing its number and type or mode (for instance AUDIO or various CD-ROM modes). Some commands that follow this command apply to the track rather than the entire disc.
INDEX
Indicates an index (position) within the current FILE. The position is specified in mms:ff (minute-second-frame) format. There are 75 such frames per second of audio. In the context of cue sheets, "frames" refer to CD sectors, despite a different, lower-level structure in CDs also being known as frames.[6] INDEX 01 is required and denotes the start of the track, while INDEX 00 is optional and denotes the pregap. The pregap of Track 1 is used for Hidden Track One Audio (HTOA). Optional higher-numbered indexes (02 through 99) are also allowed.
PREGAP and POSTGAP
Indicates the length of a track's pregap or postgap, which is not stored in any data file. The length is specified in the same minute-second-frame format as for INDEX

After refreshing my memory, i now recall that the most common problem is the FILE entry not corresponding to the actual flac (or ape or wav) file, so check that first. Open your .cue file with notepad or similar to verify and/or edit any mistakes.

[Q91]

Either FILE points to the wrong file, or the CUE file itself is saved in a format (windows vs unix vs mac or ansi vs utf-8) that Foobar2k doesn't like.

The Quotation marks can also be wrong. It needs to be " (ASCII 34).

I don't think the indentation (moving a line to the right by using space or tabs) should make any difference, unless using an "illegal whitspace" (something not a blank space (ASCII 32) or a tab (ASCII 9))

[Anoid]

I use Windows so its likely some unusual Linux convention that makes it incompatibile, so much for an open standard everyone can follow