Throws an error processing M4A/AAC files

[rgdeen]

Checked for duplicates

Yes - I've already checked

🐛 Describe the bug

When running validate on an audio stream, I get this error:

  ERROR  [error.validation.internal_error]   Could not process the encoding type: encoding parameter 'M4A/AAC' is not known to this version of validate.

The label is correct as far as I can tell:

    <Encoded_Audio>
      <local_identifier>art002a000026_pcd3_raw_v01.m4a</local_identifier>
      <offset unit="byte">0</offset>
      <encoding_standard_id>M4A/AAC</encoding_standard_id>
      <description>Audio file</description>
    </Encoded_Audio>

🕵️ Expected behavior

The only valid values for Encoded_Audo.encoding_standard_id are M4A/AAC and WAV. So the error message is a bit disturbing.

If validate can't check the contents of the M4A/AAC files, that's fine... but the message saying so should be an informational message, not an error! An error indicate there's something wrong with the file, but taken at face value this message is simply saying validate doesn't know how to check it ... which is absolutely not an error.

📜 To Reproduce

Simply run validate on an m4a file. Currently my sample is not yet cleared for public release so I can't post it here but I can supply it on request.

🖥 Environment Info

Running on some flavor of AWS Linux

📚 Version of Software Used

[rgd@ip-10-0-5-167 validate]$ ~/tools/validate-4.2.0/bin/validate --version

gov.nasa.pds:validate
Version 4.2.0
Release Date: 2026-06-15 22:25:06

Copyright 2019, by the California Institute of Technology ("Caltech").
All rights reserved.

🩺 Test Data / Additional context

No response

🦄 Related requirements

🦄 #xyz

⚙️ Engineering Details

No response

🎉 Integration & Test

No response

[rgdeen]

Ok... this error does NOT go away when using --skip-content-validation !! This makes it very very bad, there's no way to successfully validate this product.