Winamp doesn't display song titles for CD

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
37,402
8,038
136
I'm running version 2.95, but I don't think that should matter. In the past, when playing CD's Winamp usually fills out the song titles, goes to some internet site and pulls down the song titles. Right now, it's only saying this:

1. CD Track 1
2. CD Track 2
etc.

What do I have to do to get Winamp to pull down the track titles? I've tried several CDs, some pretty well known ones, I think something's not working right. I don't see anything in Preferences...
 

FeuerFrei

Diamond Member
Mar 30, 2005
9,152
928
126
I have the same Winamp version here, but it's playing a fully-titled CD at the moment. Here's what I see:

Right click the track title (e.g. track 2) in the Playlist, and choose "File Info." You'll get a dialog box featuring a CDDB button. Click it to query the database.
I presume you get the same options (as I'm seeing) if your CD is untitled.

*** OK, nvm, I see what you mean. I hunted up a new CD, it autoqueried CDDB, said "success!" but failed to retrieve any titles. U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind, BTW.
 
Last edited:

Ketchup

Elite Member
Sep 1, 2002
14,545
236
106
Hope the updated version works for you. For what it's worth, I have no issue with Windows Media player retrieving track information off a CD.
 

Oyeve

Lifer
Oct 18, 1999
21,899
819
126
Winamp died long ago. The SW will not hit CDDB or anything any more. I stopped using it long ago and switched to AIMP. I like AIMP much better because it will find cover art and actually embed it into the file!
 

balloonshark

Diamond Member
Jun 5, 2008
6,288
2,682
136
If you're hanging on to winamp because of the visualizations Foobar 2000 audio player has a plugin called Shpeck that allows you to use winamp's visualizations. If you want more info let me know.
 

The Day Dreamer

Senior member
Nov 5, 2013
416
2
81
If you're hanging on to winamp because of the visualizations Foobar 2000 audio player has a plugin called Shpeck that allows you to use winamp's visualizations. If you want more info let me know.

+1 . Foobar is flawless. Gotta try those visualizations, bored of the default one.
 

Spacehead

Lifer
Jun 2, 2002
13,201
10,063
136
Is there an option in there to point Winamp to another CD database? Freedb or something.

I'm not familiar with Winamp.
 

Oyeve

Lifer
Oct 18, 1999
21,899
819
126
Is there an option in there to point Winamp to another CD database? Freedb or something.

I'm not familiar with Winamp.

You're better off just not using winamp anymore. Its not worth the hassle. I use AIMP and love it.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
37,402
8,038
136
Version 2.95 is over 12 years old? Why not try a new version? Perhaps 2.95 only works right if you're on dial-up and Windows XP. :D
I use older versions (2.x) because that's all I need, they are generally reputed to be more stable IIRC. The other reasons I use it are:

1. I use a utility that grabs the Winamp position for splitting files in segments
2. I'm used to it.

Windows Media Player has always bugged me, anyway. I think I tried Foobar, wasn't happy. Anyway, reason 1. is ample reason to keep using it. I've been able to suck in track info with 2.x before, don't know why it wasn't working with my WinXP desktop yesterday.
Is there an option in there to point Winamp to another CD database? Freedb or something.
Well, I looked for that and looked again and didn't see it. I'm not on that machine now.
 

farneko

Junior Member
Dec 7, 2008
3
1
66
I'm still using Winamp 5.x on Win10. It's a comfy thing.
The only issue it gives me is a runtime error 'OK' when I close it; likely one of the plugins causing that.


One day last week, after picking up a Time Life 70's music collection from a garage sale, I popped one in to find CDDB hasn't worked in forever, and FreeDB since 2020. So I did something about it; for the track titles to appear on my wall info-center like my ripped music does from winamp.

The info-center being powered by a raspberry pi 4, I added the CDDB/FreeDB database to it, and pointed the cddb.cddb.com & freedb.freedb.com domains to it (is done with the hosts file, or DNS pointers as I prefer to do). Server & Database obtained from archive.org; I now have the entire database through early 2020 on it, and it won't go away some day!

My Winamp is now using the CD Reader plugin, where you can specify the DB location (server). But in testing, I found that the in_cdda.dll plugin from 2.77 and earlier, uses the CDDBv1/FreeDB protocol too. So specifying or redirecting the hosts to where it's still being openly hosted will work with both, but I went with the stand-alone approach.

It was a trip to see if it could be done, but it can. Even by a novice linux tinkerer like me. The hard, yet awesome part; was getting the 'submissions' system working, so I can add to it should I buy a new album :D.
Though, pushing a half century now, the odds of me getting a new album, are increasingly slim.

In short, you can use the CD Reader plugin to point it to https://gnudb.gnudb.org, or add a line in your hosts file to point to it and fool your pc into thinking its cddb.com that the winamp <2.78 in_cdda plugin will talk to.
Additionally, other CDDBv1/FreeDB based software (ripping/tagging) will begin to work again as well, doing the latter.

I even tried out putting the winamp 2.77 dll into the plugins folder on 5.666, and it worked. For reference, the latest (CDDBv1) in_cdda.dll version, is v1.71 from Winamp 2.77.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Muse