This bug has been spotted when playing on GNU/Linux through WINE, please confirm or infirm it occurs on Windows too.

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In-game music is played from the file "music/track02.ogg", but this track is only 31 minutes long and doesn’t loop. It is very easy to reproduce: just start a new game and let it run for more than 31 minutes, and music will stop.
If GOG wizards are going to fix this, please think about an improvement too: split this track into multiple tracks (like it probably was on the original CD), and play them in a random order. It would add a bit of variety to the musical background.

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A work-around, thanks to MiniBiz for pointing it out:
https://www.gog.com/forum/star_wars_galactic_battlegrounds_saga/fixme_background_music_is_not_looping/post4

Correct me if I am wrong but I seem to remember that this was the case in the version I bought on cd years ago too.

Might be, I lost one of my two CD years ago so I’m not able to check.
It would be nice if someone with the original CD can test this.

It would be nice for a proper fix but if you alt tab out of the game and back after the music has stopped playing it will start again. This works with the CD version as well.

Thank you for the work-around, I added it to the opening post ;)

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If the music doesn’t loop in the original CD version, I’m not sure GOG wizards can do anything about it without the game source code.
Let’s hope I’m wrong and we will see a fix sometime in the near future.

I can confirm this behavior for the german CD version. Under Windows XP the music was properly looping if I recall correctly, but under Windows 8/8.1 the music doesn't loop anymore. Same behavior with the GOG version under Windows 8.1.

As far as i know the reason it doesn't loop is because of how older CD drives read disks rather an issue with windows. That's why most older games that play music stored on the disk only play once.

I don’t think you’re right here: Age of Empires uses similar audio CD-style tracks for the background music, but they are played in a random order and in a loop. The technical limitation here is something specific to SWBG, the engine itself is able to play music in a loop (as it does in Age of Empires II).

Actually, I can’t think of any other game from this era which background music doesn’t loop. Do you have some examples to share?

Well that's odd my Age of Empires 2 hasn't looped music properly for me for years that's why i knew about the alt-tab fix and I had completely forgotten the tracks used to randomize.

As for other games Age of Empires 1 is another if I remember correctly.

On the original CD versions of these games, the music was burned in a format that would work in any CD player. It was not broken up into tracks, it was a 38:21 medley (the CC version. I'm not sure what the length of the original GB version was). The music ALSO looped.

From your respective experiences and mine (music looping in original AoE 1 & 2, not looping in GOG SWBG), it looks like the music not looping in games based on the AoE 2 engine might be a bug occurring only on some setups.
If that’s the case, we can hope for a fix from GOG part at some point. Let’s hope it’s a trivial fix that will come soon.
Hey, they already had to patch a couple things to have the music playing from an OGG file instead of an audio CD, so I think they will be able to tweak the music system further.

Indeed, as some other users have written before, the tracks were looped (sequentially, though, not randomly) both in Age of Empires/Kings, its expansions, and SWGB/Clone Campaigns. The CDs were mixed mode, which means they had the data (game, installer, everything you see while browsing the disc) on the first track, and the music was added from track 2 onwards.

However, some changes either on the MCI driver or in newer optical drive interfaces (SATA does not allow a digital audio connection anymore) have broken the looping mechanism. Since music is not looping in the no-CD GOG version either, I guess it's an issue related to the first.

Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight also had mixed mode CDs, but the GOG version has a patch which modifies one of the DLL files on the main folder. Maybe a similar patch could be applied to GOG SWGB? I have no idea on how it works, though.

Also, you might want to check if the music is on 0%, I had this issue :D

Same issue to me. The fix for me: save the game, quit to main menu and reload the game. The music starts again. Anyway, a little history. Since I own the oroignal retail version from this. SWGB vanilla has a 2 disc edition. Instal Disc 1 and Play disc 2 or vice versa. You need the Play disc insert you're drive to play the music. Since it was a kxied AudioCd and DataCD format. But! That disc can be palyed on any media player, it has a 31:00 music track, you can even rip it to MP3. Firsrt time I played on Win98 that times, it was fine, later on XP I think the music didn't get palyed. I think later drives not support digital palyback. Yeah, old times, when CD-ROM had play/pause buttons...

So, I'm very happy with the GOG release, only had this minor issue, which maybe can be fixed.

EDIT: And I forgot the CC expansion, which has a single CD. Data and AudioCD. IT has a longer track since they added a few tunes from EpII. To be honest, I never had that as an original. I use a pirate image, since nowhere can found.