LibriVox Forum

I find this particular subject to be important, as many of your fans, myself included, suffer from it. It's audio drop-out. Every 5 or 10 minutes while I'm listening to one of your stories, the audio cuts off. This means I need to go back to the app. & press the play/pause button to continue the storyline again. This can get very frustrating especially when I'm listening to a tale that's 10 or 15 hours long. I understand from your point of view that Librivox has a skeleton crew & it would be difficult to take care of problems such as this. However, this is an ongoing problem & sooner or later it must be addressed. Personally, I love Librivox & the enormous benefit it has done for so many across the world so thankyou.

Sounds like a problem with an app?

We don't own, run, endorse, or support any apps - even the one named after us. You'll need to talk to the app developer.

Well, I don't know what happened, but my audio is fine now. Thankyou to one who took notice of this, & repaired the glitch.

Unfortunately this hiccup of audio dropout has surfaced *crumbs!* & I'm stuck in this predicament again. However, I'm sure good news is just a post reply away & TriciaG is my personal salvation! Even though my wife & 2 kids believe I'm some sort of omnipotent wizard, I absolutey know (no matter how many times I've naysaid this) beyond a shadow of a doubt that I'm not. I still thirst for knowledge like a desert-fried sponge.
So... Miss TriciaG, is it possible if you might be able to inform me of who I can get in touch with that runs Librivox & have the skills & expertise to fix this on-going problem, I would very much be in your debt.
With thanks...

She's probably asleep , but even Tricia is not all knowing all the time and I certainly don't know anything about listening on phones
firstly no one runs LibriVox , it just exists . No skeletons
I'l give you the stock answer I give to people with app problems

If I'm wrong and if you are downloading files from us you'd need to tell us a bit more about it , what software you are using , what you are listening on etc. The more you tell us the more likely you are to get a helpful answer

carefully thought out stock answer
May I explain what this site is ? We are a group of volunteers who enjoy reading aloud with the stated aim of producing audiobooks from all works in the Public Domain in the USA. This in general means published before 1923.

When we have made them we release them into the Public domain so that all can listen to them at no cost. Our books may all be downloaded at no cost from LibriVox.org.

We are able to do this because everyone is a volunteer and because Archive.org hosts us and our recordings at no charge. Because we release everything back into the Public Domain, anyone can use it however they want. Over the years a number of outsiders have used our recordings for their own projects. There are sellers on Ebay who burn them to disc and sell them , usually at low cost. There have also been a number of apps developed which include our free audiobooks in the material that they offer. We don't have any control over or involvement with these apps. They don't need our permission to include Librivox audiobooks in their catalog and we don't receive anything back in return.

A problem seems to have arisen with the app named librivox - which I repeat we do not have anything to do with. As far as we can see from the Google Drive and Amazon app stores, that particular app was developed by Book Design and gives a support email of support@bookdesign.biz. If this is the app you were using, you might try contacting them or the app store where you got the app to start with.

Hope this has explained our position

Anne

Hi,
I haven't used the app much and this may be captain obvious advice, but I wonder if you tried downloading the material to your device first to see if it is any more stable. Maybe the app doesn't buffer well over spotty wireless. Of course, in general, dropouts/pauses may also occur if you listen on bluetooth speakers coming in and out of range.
Hope this helps.

Hi Captain - just a bit more about apps. Apps is short for application program and like any computer program needs to be well written and fully tested for bugs and problems. Many are not, and are written quickly, by shall we say (in some cases), not very good programmers.

Provided your computer is working well it is far better to download the entire file for the book. It should not take that long (all things being equal) and this will usually ensure that the audio will play properly and can be paused and restarted at any point. Once you have no need of it you can delete it from your hard drive. If it is needed later another download will not be too much of a hassle.

Hope this helps.

As far as listening via iOS -

• File Hub - Powerful & Intuitive File Manager by Gu Jing (1)
  https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/file-hub-powerful-intuitive-file-manager/id730843281?mt=8
• Documents 6 - File manager, PDF reader and browser by Readdle Inc. (2)
  https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/documents-6-file-manager-pdf-reader-and-browser/id364901807?mt=8
• Total - Free browser with file manager and cloud storage support by App Ideas (3)
  https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/total-free-browser-file-manager-cloud-storage-support/id557285579?mt=8

(1) I File Hub's playlist capabilities a must; 99% of my offline LibriVox files are stored within File Hub. If you want to convert an M4B file into a file recognized by this app, rename it to [name].m4a & say yes to the use of M4A instead of M4B. Handles MP3's & AAC (the underlying audio source of LibriVox M4B / M4A files. ALAC files are handled as well if used as sound source if M4A files. WAV files, too, I believe. This app or Documents, anyhow. Other formats via pro upgrade; VLC (Video Lan) app will play majority of audio files for free, though. Connected cloud providers enabled including Yandex.

(2) Documents has a browser that allows you to download LibriVox audio files directly & quite rapidly. Archive.org link recommended for downloading. Will play M4B files as M4B. Also plays other audio formats. Connected cloud providers enabled including Yandex.

(3) This app I use to properly tag, e.g., stories from the SSF collections (I miss gam aka Gregg Margarite!). With it I've got ~97.5% of my short stories of all genres properly tagged. Need those pics to what I'm listening... You'd be in awe of my collection. All thanks to LibriVox!