Software to scan MP3 files for bad ones without having to play each

Excellent recommendation Jasper, and thank you.

I decided on the first one, MP3 Utility by Peter Smith, even though it is older and is something of a home-brewed program.  To be honest, I did not like the connotations with the 2nd one (Fake MP3 Detector) when I saw the "author/company" details as http://www.kazaa-download-manager.com.  Maybe Kazaa has become legitimate and changed, but I was put off by the name.

The "Fake MP3 Detector" would appear to be a useful utility for people who use Peer to Peer file sharing and have their Windows Explorer settings so that files don't show file extensions.  It would have been excellent for the user of a PC I looked at a number of years ago on which 400+ "filename.mp3.vbs" files had been downloaded, had infected the machine with a variety of viruses, and had then been "shared" with other users.

The MP3 Utility program was the best for me because it runs fine in Windows XP and concentrates mostly on detecting "Sync Errors".  That appears to be what the skipping is on my affected mp3 files.  Here's how it benefits me with my scenario, in case anyone happens upon this question and is interested:

From within the program interface:
1. I can choose to scan a folder at a time or to include sub-folders
2. When scanning folders it only reports the "first sync error" and gives the approximate elapsed time (mins:secs) at which it occurs, along with a % figure as a rough indication of how far through the mp3 file it occurs
3. By double-clicking on the line in the results pane it launches the file in the default playback program so you can jump to the time and see how bad the sync problem is, and then listen for more until the end.
4. I can save a new log file with each scan.
5. The program can be launched from a command that can either be the path to a folder or to an *.mp3 file name, and it opens in that mode with the folder or file name already selected ready to "start" the scan
6. When scanning folders, it ignores non-mp3 files.  I don't have many *.wma files anyway, so that's no great problem.
7. There is an option to Move files with reported errors to a named folder.  This is slightly inflexible in that the folder must already exist.  If scanning with the "include sub-folders" setting enabled, it isn't possible (through the program interface) to create a new folder (eg. "Folder\_CORRUPT") within each sub-folder to have bad files moved to.  I created a workaround (see below).
8. The program is a simple standalone one and only writes its settings to its own *.INI file.  This saves registry clutter and is also useful because I can probably use a batch file to find and replace a line in the *.ini file before launching the program.

So, having scanned a master folder containing many sub-folders of *.mp3 files, and having saved the log file that indicates the "first sync error", it's very easy to then use that *.txt report as the basis for a batch file that will open each file one at a time and provide an analysis report that details all the Sync Errors (and any other possible issues) detected in each file.

I would suggest that this program would be excellent to use after running a data recovery program such as GetDataBack.  That program gets to a screen where it shows the recovered files and allows you to "test" (or preview them in the case of image files).  I am sure that you can configure the "external program" to use, and so it would be possible to scan the recovered *.mp3 files before recovering them to another drive.  This is especially important if the data recovery program is able to recover duplicate files found in different folders or "undeleted", where some duplicates may be intact and others recovered corrupt.  hat was obviously what appened in my case.

Going back to the MP3Utility program, it's easy to add a new Right-Click context menu in the registry for Folders and/or the *.mp3 file type, that sends the path as %1 to MP3Utility.exe and launches it ready to scan the folder or file.  Adding a shortcut to the program in the "SendTo" folder would be an alternative option.

I just scanned a master folder of 82 sub-folders containing 1,074 *.mp3 files, some of which I found to be bad after burning to CD.  It eported Sync Errors in 141 of those files.  That's a significant 13.2% of the total.  The results accurately reflect the ones that skip and need to be re-ripped, so this has saved me an IMMENSE amount of time, and annoyance.

There's nothing worse than burning a CD or copying to MP3 Player only to discover on first playback that the best song skips.  I kept forgetting to write down which songs were skipping and each time the songs play and skip I growl with disappointment.

Thank you for finding this utility for me.  I can zero right in on the tracks I need to rip to .mp3 again.

Regards
Bill