Document frequently asked questions

[Freso]

Either as its own file, its own page, or as a section in the README.

Certain questions get asked again and again, and while a FAQ won’t prevent from getting them asked, some users might actually see it, and for those that don’t, it’ll be an easy place to point to when they do get asked, instead of having to type out new variations of the essentially same paragraphs time and time again. :)

What questions should we have though? Please comment with things that should get asked and answered.

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CD can’t be ripped

Likely damaged and/or dirty disc and/or bad drive. E.g.:

• Cannot rip certain CDs #479
• ripping fails frequently, but not repeatably #290

CD isn’t found

E.g., it doesn’t exist in MusicBrainz. Maybe some mention of FreeDB and why MusicBrainz is used/preferred over other sources.

Failing to get drive offset

I feel like I see this reasonable often in the IRC channel. Should include tips like making sure to use a reasonable widely distributed CD as basis, and if that still fails, maybe how to look up the most likely offset from a drive offset database/data set/table.

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[JoeLametta]

Some ideas:

• Ability to skip unrippable (Ability to skip unrippable track #128)
• Harmless "sub-channels with CRC errors" message
• Whipper currently doesn't work correctly with drives having offset > 587 samples. Upstream bug (Finding offset fails for one drive "file size 0 did not match expected size" #234 )
• Whipper only outputs audio files in FLAC format
• Whipper offset find command is often unreliable (it's easier using AccurateRip's CD Drive Offsets list)
• MusicBrainz lookup may fail even if the exact release is already present in the DB if its Disc ID is missing
• Note about missing manual (add manpage #73)
• Why FreeDB metadata isn't used for tagging purposes
• Why is CD-Text if found not used for naming Disk and Tracks?

[nathanbibb]

MusicBrainz lookup may fail even if the exact release is already present in the DB if its Disc ID is missing

I've found this is the most common reason for metadata missing issues. I could write up a short set of steps a user could take to address this (log in/create account at MusicBrainz, open TOC link provide by whipper, search for release).

Might also be good to have a "recommended" workflow for archiving CDs (whipper's primary use case). That way users have a similar set of steps to follow, and won't report issues based on an illogical/unsupported workflow. I could help set that up, but would need to make sure I understand the recommended workflow :)

[JoeLametta]

MusicBrainz lookup may fail even if the exact release is already present in the DB if its Disc ID is missing

I've found this is the most common reason for metadata missing issues. I could write up a short set of steps a user could take to address this (log in/create account at MusicBrainz, open TOC link provide by whipper, search for release).

Thanks, that's a good idea. We can ask @Freso too whether there's a best practice for this. 😉

Might also be good to have a "recommended" workflow for archiving CDs (whipper's primary use case). That way users have a similar set of steps to follow, and won't report issues based on an illogical/unsupported workflow. I could help set that up, but would need to make sure I understand the recommended workflow :)

Yep, related to #144 and #167.