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Help Can't open your wav files (incl voicemail attachments) on Droid?

inphoenix

Well-Known Member
Dec 31, 2009
152
29
in Phoenix. Duh!
I just found out that my voice mails forwarded to my gmail will not open on Droid. This is really a poor job on Google's part. Why in the world would they not support wav format? If you are running into the same issue please STAR the issue on their codesite.

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=4875

Make sure you hit the star and turn it Gold. That's how Google gets the response. Also, please post this link in other forums and threads so more people can provide feedback.

Thanks.
 
At the risk of sounding like a jerk . . .

What I don't understand is why so many people buy DROIDs and expect them to do EVERYTHING right out of the box. :thinking: HELLO! They're called "apps" ... look into them. There's some really cool ones out there. Honest.

READ THIS THREAD and see if that sheds some light on the subject. :)

Lastly, using the search tool, after a whole 2 mins I found THIS POST that contains several solutions to your insurmountable problem. Sounds like a $2 app would make your life a whole lot better. Half the price of a value meal.
 
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I tend to be annoyed with people not doing a search before posting, but I must be missing something here.

OP says there is a problem and asks people to go star the google code page if you are effected.

It's completely correct that the phone should do some things natively, and we all expect something different "out of the box". Some simple things really should have been done (wavs and bluetooth) and deserve some coding attention by Google rather than having to always find a workaround App.

If he was asking for a way to open the wav files, then he'd be lazy.
Asking people to "star" a legitamate issue really doesn't deserve that harsh a response.

-edit... Harsh response comment partially directed at a post that has now been deleted
 
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I tend to be annoyed with people not doing a search before posting, but I must be missing something here.

OP says there is a problem and asks people to go star the google code page if you are effected.

It's completely correct that the phone should do some things natively, and we all expect something different "out of the box". Some simple things really should have been done (wavs and bluetooth) and deserve some coding attention by Google rather than having to always find a workaround App.

If he was asking for a way to open the wav files, then he'd be lazy.
Asking people to "star" a legitamate issue really doesn't deserve that harsh a response.

-edit... Harsh response comment partially directed at a post that has now been deleted

Thank you. I knew about the workaround before I posted. It's just that "I" expected that the "new super OS" from "THE internet giant" would play a wav file out of box. You are correct that I was asking people to STAR the issue if they were not happy with it. If someone thinks they "nailed" me with their reponse I would like some of what they are smoking. :)
 
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It's completely correct that the phone should do some things natively, and we all expect something different "out of the box". Some simple things really should have been done (wavs and bluetooth) and deserve some coding attention by Google rather than having to always find a workaround App.

Please allow me to explain to you (and the OP) why I think Google (and Verizon) aren't supporting .wav files on the DROID. Wav files are HUGE in comparison to mp3s and .ogg files. (10 to 20 times the filesize is typical) I don't think they (Verizon) want you cluttering up their network when there are obviously better alternatives; i.e. .mp3 and/or .ogg vorbis files. From that perspective, the problem isn't that the DROID doesn't support wav files ... but that the voicemail system doesn't create a compressed file format for VOICE FILES!!! Are you kidding me??? Wav files for VOICE?!?! Huh?!?!

As well as a lifelong musician, and 20-year sound engineer ... I am also a veteran of Nortel Networks, Exchange, and Cisco voice servers. I'm also no dummy when it comes to compressed voice files, wav files, ogg files, unified messaging, etc... I think it's a very frivalous use of bandwidth to try to push wav files to a mobile phone ... even on a 3G network. Is it any wonder that AT&T is asking their customers to stop using so much bandwidth.

OK ... I'm done. :) Good luck with that petition.
 
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OK ... I'm done. :) Good luck with that petition.

I'm not part of the petition at all, and never even tried to play a wav file on my Droid. I just saw an angry response to what may (or may not) be a valid issue. I would rather see someone get an education of the issues like your last post provides. It's much more helpful and beneficial to our forum community than just saying that someone is lazy or cheap for not buying a $2 app.

The angry response was actually more about another user who's post was deleted.

On a side note, thanks for all of your posts about your experiences with different ROMs, very helpful and informative.
 
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I just found out that my voice mails forwarded to my gmail will not open on Droid. This is really a poor job on Google's part. Why in the world would they not support wav format? If you are running into the same issue please STAR the issue on their codesite.

Issue 4875 - android - cannot play wav files attached to corporate email - Project Hosting on Google Code

Make sure you hit the star and turn it Gold. That's how Google gets the response. Also, please post this link in other forums and threads so more people can provide feedback.

Thanks.

FWIW, I had the same problem using a POP3 account on the phone. However, I found that if I sent the email through Gmail to the phone I was able to open the same wav attachment and it plays fine. Go figure.
 
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I guess I should have done this from the very start. Below are detailed steps to my little experiment.

- I created a 10-second .wav file with my laptop.
- I sent the .wav file as an attachment to my DROID's GMail account, from my home's POP3 account using my laptop.
- I heard the GMail notification sound on my DROID.
- I opened my mail client of choice (K-9 Mail Beta), clicked on the email which showed the file attachment.
- I was given the choice to Open or Save, I clicked on "Open" and was given the option to play the .wav file in several media players on my DROID. For the sake of this thread, I chose the DROID's native media player (Music), and the wav played ... no problem. :)
- I closed K-9 Mail Beta and opened the DROID's native GMail app with the exact same result ... the wav played no problem.
- Then I forwarded that email to my home's POP3 account.
- I reopened K-9 Mail Beta on my DROID and checked for mail at my home's POP3 account.
- The email came in with the attachment.
- Just as with my GMail account, I was able to play/save the .wav file from that account as well.

My findings: The DROID supports .wav files.

The Question: What am I doing, or what have a installed that you haven't that allows me to play/save .wav files so easily?

My Suspicions: I have installed a few (FREE) apps that may fix this issue for you. Perhaps the DROID just doesn't have a .wav file association assigned to it out of the box. Try installing the apps below. Please test after each installation.


Meridian Player Noble - an excellent video/music player.
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Linda File Manager - A great file manager that may associate the .wav file to your media player(s).
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K-9 Mail Beta - Regardless of whether this app helps with this issue or not ... you NEED to stop using the native email clients and use this one for ALL of your POP3 email needs.
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Download Crutch - Unfortunately, this app is no longer available on the Market. :( And I am not at liberty to share this with anyone ... sorry. It is my understanding however that the above app, Linda File Manager, performs the same functions.


I cannot think of any other app that I may have installed that would allow me to play/save .wav files on my DROID ... right out of the GMail app, or K-9 Mail.

Hopefully, this experiment can help with your issue. Please respond with any questions or comments.

Note: I am running firmware version 2.1. If you are running 2.0.1 firmware on your DROID and the above apps don't solve the issue, I am willing to revert back to 2.0.1 for further testing.
 
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Meridian Player Noble
Linda File Manager
K-9 Mail Beta

I am running stock 2.01. I installed above three apps and tried to play my wav file after each install but it did not work. I tried using default player and also the meridian player with same results. I also tried playing it from K-9 mail client. Same result.

Note: I am running firmware version 2.1. If you are running 2.0.1 firmware on your DROID and the above apps don't solve the issue, I am willing to revert back to 2.0.1 for further testing.

You are being very kind. You don't have to do this. We know that there are work arounds for this issue. Just that a new (specially non techies) customer should not have to jump through all these hoops on his new phone. Google should have done a better job testing their product.

Also, I agree that using wav for voice msgs would be a waste and phone company should use MP3s for it. Still that is no reason for not supporting wav format. Google should know that some programmer will write an app for a buck or two which will do the job. So there goes the theory of saving network bandwidth but you have a ticked off customer at hand.

Oh yeah, Good morning to you too. :)
 
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I get the same result, wav files playing without going through any of the above steps except just sending it to my gmail account. Email comes in, click on wav attachment and it plays. That's about as simple as it can be.

I tried that (sending it to my gmail account) but it does not work for me. Maybe certain wav files work and some don't. Joe has more experience with this stuff so maybe he can shed some light.

BTW, who is your provider?
 
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Just want to clarify a few things here...

Not all WAV files are the same. So when you test, you must use an actual wav file that is generated by a voice mail system. WAV's created on a computer will probably be playable by your droid.

Phone systems often use the GSM6.1/7.11 wav format. This format is not readable by a droid even though its extension is WAV.

In many cases the GSM6.1/7.11 format is smaller than an MP3. These are not the raw uncompressed WAV files that you might be familiar with.
 
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