I only had a dozen or so "bad" mp3 files. I think it has to do with how the mp3 files were created in the first place. None of the ones I personally made were "bad".
Johnman, all of my mp3's are personally made from my collection of LP's. You may be correct about the variable bit rate contributing to the problem to some degree. I had a collection that I had encoded at a straight 128kbps and letting those randomly play didn't result in any random closing of the program.
If I do re-encode one of the problem files, it will generally be OK. But I'm pretty sure there's nothing really 'wrong' with them in the first place. I'm taking the time to use the '-extreme' setting of LAME to encode my files at a high variable bit rate, so I'd rather not dumb them down. I'm of the 'every little bit help's' mentality when it comes to mp3 quality. Lower bit rates kind of give me a headache after a while.
One other behavior that I've had win DosCAB (and I think with WinCAB) is that if I let it play for a very long time (1 hour or longer) then the mp3's begin to sound very rough.
It's a wonderful program with a super interface, and was really what I was looking for in terms of pulling up a random selection of my lp tracks. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Chris can fix this issue that is minor to most but kills mine within 5-10 songs on random play almost every time.
Chris, I'll send you the short one that dies. 1 1/2 minute song.
Brian