One of the developer’s has reviewed the “Internal error” messages and applied a fix. However, there are several of these kinds of error and we can’t be sure if they are all fixed until there has been a substantial amount of testing. Hopefully he’s caught all of them - time will tell. The fix will be in the next Audacity release which is due out next month.
Thanks for the update.
And were you able to look into the data and aup file that I linked?
I’m the developer Steve mentioned, but I don’t have access yet to your Google Drive folder.
Paul
A guess: Did you at any time change sample formats of tracks?
Hi Paul,
Not knowing the lingo too well, I never changed out of .wav files, if that’s what you mean. Anytime I continued working on the project, I hit open recent, and then called up the project. The error message started when I went to export as mp3.
I’ll go about getting you access to the drive files now.
Thank you.
I have opened your project. Somehow it got into a very bad state.
Please explain what you did in detail.
Was this project saved in a previous version of Audacity, or was only version 2.2.0 used?
Did you record anything, or do any editing? Or did you simply import tracks?
If you can start with an empty Audacity project, and find a sequence of steps that recreates a project in this bad state, and describe that precisely, then that would be most helpful to me.
Paul
So here’s what’s weird:
You can open the .aup file in a text editor and you can see that all filename attributes in it are blank. What unusual thing did you do when you saved? Were you not saving to an ordinary drive?
But you also have all your .au files. It is possible to open each of those individually and hear some sound. Yet, the information Audacity needs to piece them into proper sequence in tracks is lost.
Paul
Tracks>Add New>Stereo Tracks
Select All of new track imported from iTunes
Copy
Paste into project timeline
Highlight beginning of track > Fade In
Highlight end of track > Fade Out
Repeated with 11 different tracks.
In addition, Track 5 was cut into three segments to avoid certain areas of the song using the cut command
Track Track 8 was cut into two segments to avoid certain areas of the song using the cut command
Songs 5, 6, 7, 9, and 10 had beginnings or endings trimmed with cut command.
All racks overlapped at their beginnings and endings to create a blended sound, with the use of cutting the timeline of the song fading in.
Upon saving, I clicked “Save As” I was warned that the file was only for Audacity project and could not be played as another file with the offer to “Export” to play as another file. I hit “Save” and saved it both to Dropbox and to my Desktop.
Upon reopening the project, I was successful in continuing my work for a couple days.
On the third day, and after completing the project, I now not only “Saved As” but used, “Export” “mP3”. This seemed to work. But when I went to reopen the files, the error report began showing- in Audacity, from my desktop, and from Dropbox. Up until this first export attempt, I never changed the files from .wav[/b][/color]
Was this project saved in a previous version of Audacity, or was only version 2.2.0 used?
No, I"ve had this newest version for one week and have never used a previous version.
Did you record anything, or do any editing? Or did you simply import tracks?
See aboveIf you can start with an empty Audacity project, and find a sequence of steps that recreates a project in this bad state, and describe that precisely, then that would be most helpful to me.
So I understand the Export was not MP3 conversion under File > Chains > Apply Chain…
but was File > Save Other > Export As MP3
I suspect this export was only coincidental with the problem.
But now: I understand you had redundantly saved the project, already, in two places, desktop and DropBox.
You reopened which one?
And why were you still Saving-As rather than simply Saving? If really Saving-As, then, from which folder, into which other, when the problem happened?
Was there any other error dialog seen about failure to write a file and exhaustion of space on your drive?
PRL
And tell me too, what version of macOs you have? (Apple Menu > About This Mac…)
Paul,
As it happens, I’ve created the project again. This time, instead of saving .wav files, I simply exported as mp3 and I have a perfectly sewn together playlist that I am now playing in iTunes!
The only thing I did differently was I “mixed and rendered” the whole project before exporting.
If the absence of this command is what lent to files being in “bad shape” then I’m sorry I didn’t communicate this or know sooner that it was the issue.
My hunch is though that there was also an error message for other reasons unknown to me.
Feel free to let go of fixing my project, but if it benefits the program, then by all means continue.
Thank you to everyone on this thread for responding, I’m happy with my results and plan to continue using Audacity for my upcoming projects.
Mia
“Mix and Render” before exporting should not be necessary, though doing so does have the benefit of showing what the audio file will be like after exporting. It can be useful to Mix and Render multi-track projects before exporting as it allows checking that the mix does not clip (does not exceed 0 dB).
The downside of Mix and Render is that it can’t be “un-mixed” back to separate tracks. Saved Audacity projects do not contain the undo history.
What I often do when working with multi-track projects is to Mix and Render before exporting, then “Undo” (Ctrl + Z) the Mix and Render before saving the project. If I need to go back and change anything at a later date, I still have the un-mixed version to work with.
I agree with the hunch.
I am glad you have got past your difficulty, but as a developer I am not satisfied that I understand what went wrong, and what would be best is to discover a repeatable procedure for making it go wrong.
If you have any continued interest in attempting that for us, the team will be grateful.
If I understand your descriptions, though I am not confident I do, then your procedure was,
Save the new project to Desktop and also save-as into DropBox.
Close the projects (to come back later and edit again).
Reopen the Desktop project again
Save, and Save-as into DropBox folder again, so you always have a duplicate project. (How many times?)
(You exported, which may be irrelevant to the bug.)
Afterward the Desktop and DropBox projects became unusable when reopened.
Were your steps exactly like this or could there be some important detail left out?
Exactly
I explained it exactly?
You shared some files, in which the .aup was corrupt (blank “filename” attributes) – this was from the desktop.
You also shared many .au files in a folder tree, which were good files (you can even open them directly) – from the desktop project too?
Yet what got lost was the information in the .aup about how to piece those many little .au files back into sequences.
PRL
When I follow these steps Paul’s outline of Mia’s editing (2.2.0 W10)
0) open Audacity and import 3 minute song
1)Save the new project to Desktop and also save-as into DropBox.
2)Close the projects (to come back later and edit again).
3)Reopen the Desktop project again
3.5) basic fade and cut edtrs - plus an MP3 export
4)Save, and Save-as into DropBox folder again, so you always have a duplicate project. (How many times?)
5)(You exported, which may be irrelevant to the bug.)
6)Afterward the Desktop and DropBox projects became unusable when reopened.
At Step 3 I get a number of orphan block files.
At step 6 I get just over twice as meany blockfiles as at Step 3 (from opening the desktop version)
If I then close the desktop project an I open the Dropbox project then I see no orphan blockfiles
Both the desktop and Drop box projects are usable/editable/saveable with no Asserts/Internal errors.
Peter
The known problem of orphan block files is already fixed in 2.2.1.
Mia, I said export was probably irrelevant, but I have not better guess. Tell me if this was the EXACT procedure:
You opened from Desktop.
(Maybe some edits then happened?)
You EXPORTED first, into the DropBox folder.
Then you saved-as into the DropBox folder – while background sync with the remote DropBox folder was still in progress.
You also saved Desktop. (Before or after saving in DropBox?)
(Then, did you close the project, to reopen it later?)
Then you opened (which copy of the project?) and found it all silence.
Lacking any better guesses here, I wonder if, perhaps, the background sync concurrent with the attempt to save the project is the missing variable.
PRL
Another question, did you at any time import .wav files using the “faster” rather than the “safer” option?