Hi all, new to audacity forums, I too have run into the same issue since last week. i was recording a voice over and editing it and everything was working well. but then i went for lunch for like 30 minutes and when i cameback and stared working on it, the copying and pasting suddenly got really slow. Initially took few seconds to paste a new recording onto the main track and then it gradually got even slower and every time the screen wasnt responding and also noticed the cpu fan rpm is going up.
I always record into a new track rather than to the end of the main track so i do a lot of copying and pasting but it is only a 9 minute long recording with no effects except i sometimes amplify the voice a bit in some sections. I also noticed that everytime i paste the new recording, the waveform pattern of the existing recording changes slightly thus leading me to beleive that something is happening to the entire track. Even deleting a 1 second audio takes so long and screen goes to freeze.
I tried copying the entire track and pasting it into a new file and into a new track but new track still had the same issue. but then i copied one small section at a time into the new file and after few seperate copying and pasting, i was able to get the entire audio backtogether in the new file, and that fixed the slowdown immediately. then i started working on the new file and the next day while, working, i had same issue again. So i did the copying one section at a time in to a new file again, which worked for another day or so and then back to the same issue. Originally i started making this audio in 2019 and was using audacity version 2.3.3, then for the last few months i was using the version 3.0.0. last week i tried version 3.0.3 and did fix the issue so uninstalled that and reinstalled version 2.3.3 again, no difference. just installed the latest version 3.0.4 and still no difference. i even updated to latest drivers for the graphics card and checked kaspersky internet security and avast antivirus i have to see if they have something to do with it. but still no luck. if i were to record a new voiceover, then audacity works absolutely fine. Please help good people. I have no idea what to do.
Audacity should be notifying you of an update that fixes this issue.
The latest version of Audacity is 3.0.4 and is available here: https://www.audacityteam.org/download/
Jademan: thank you very much for replying. I installed the audacityrescue, opened it, opened the audacity file in it and immediately i got a message saying “245831 envelope points have been deleted”. i clicked ok and saved the file as a new file. then i opened the newly saved copy of the file on audacity 3.0.4 and it is a litte faster now, not painfully slow, but it is still much slower than before. no idea what to do.
however i’ve noticed this, my original work file is about 9 minutes long and it is only 24kb, but then i created a copy of it as a backup and kept working on the copy, and the copy is still about 9 minutes without any effects and it is 197mbs. when i had the slow down issues on the the copy, i copied and and pasted the audio in to a new file one section at time which fixed the issue and that new file was initially around 109mb but after adding about 2 or 3 more minutes of audio recording in to it, it got up to 154 mb before it started slowing down. now that i’ve run it through the audacityrescue and the file size has gone back to 109mb. So something is increasing the file size may be that’s why it takes forever to do a simple edit like cut and paste.
My pc is intel 17 7770k, radeon 5700xt graphics, 32gb ram, windows 10. Because i initially though my hard drive was failing, i transfered the files from the sata hdd into a ssd, still no difference so i don’t think it’s the computer.
i transfered the files from the sata hdd into a ssd
Both internal? Good thought. But Windows and Audacity are still installed on the slower spinning metal drive, right? So the workings, caches, etc, are still on the slower drive.
I did have a wake-up experience at work once. One of the guys had a very similar machine to mine except he had spinning metal and I had the SSD. I had to do part of a job on his machine and it was so slow and sloppy I thought it was broken. It wasn’t. But I didn’t have a split machine. Every part of my job was on the SSD.
my original work file is about 9 minutes long and it is only 24kb
What does that mean? A 9 minute simple mono wave file is 47MB, Audacity Projects are larger, so that can’t be a sound file or project.
i created a copy of it as a backup and kept working on the copy, and the copy is still about 9 minutes without any effects and it is 197mbs.
“Copy of it” being the Project? What does “working on” mean if there are no effects and it’s the same length? Is this all Copy/Paste cleanup and covering word fluffs and mouth noises? That may be the common thread. That’s the sort of job that has been killing the other posters with slow-down issues.
The show is 9 minutes long, but how many layers top to bottom do you have?
Both internal? Good thought. But Windows and Audacity are still installed on the slower spinning metal drive, right? So the workings, caches, etc, are still on the slower drive.
my windows is running on a NVME, for all of my recordings were kept on a metal spinning hdd, but now i have moved them in to a ssd,
Copy of it" being the Project? What does “working on” mean if there are no effects and it’s the same length? Is this all Copy/Paste cleanup and covering word fluffs and mouth noises? That may be the common thread. That’s the sort of job that has been killing the other posters with slow-down issues.
It’s a voice over. my original recording had a lot of mouth noises and outside noise and stuff so i was redoing the voice overs on those bad bits on a new track and copy pasting them into the original track. so the length of the voice over is same. 9 minutes. and then i delete the new track, move over to the next bad audio on the original track, re do it on a new track, copy paste on the original track, delete the new track, and it repeats. the reason i do it this way rather than rerecording the entire audio is to keep the consistency of the tone of the voice throughtout the entire track coz i have a little voice issue, i can’t speak for too long without feeling irritated in throat. anyways, so i only have one track. no layers from top to bottom. no effects. just one single mono audio track that is 9 minutes long.
i’ve been doing voice over for few years now using audacity i just looked at my previous audacity recordings. they are all in KBs, even after effects they’re are all less than 1mb. only this file and all the copies i made of it are in huge sizes like 109MB, 157MB.
Audacity 2.x used a multi-part project format. A project comprised of an “AUP” file and an associated “_data” folder. The folder contained the audio data, and the file contained instructions that tell Audacity what to do with the data. The “AUP” file would typically be less than 1 MB, but the _data folder could be huge (depending on how much audio data in the project).
Audacity 3.x saves projects as an “AUP3” file. The AUP3 file contains both the “instructions” and the audio data.
Mike, I had a similar issue. I have found, for me, it helps greatly to drink fluids, especially, Throat Coat Tea (Traditional Medicinals), I have learned to stay away from things that tend to dry you out. These include anything with caffeine such as coffee or tea or coke, also avoid alcohol and cough drops (except Ricola). Stay away from carbonated beverages which irritate your throat. The other thing I do is use Sinus Rinse to clear out my nasal passages which will reduce post nasal drip and the associated throat irritation.
Noel, I can see your frustration. I tried to load your .aup3 file in 3.0.4. It took 68 seconds to load on my machine. I then tried to do a save As. After 12 minutes of waiting (Not responding), I aborted Audacity 3.0.4. However, it did seem to have created a save as file.
AudacityRescue took about 2 seconds to delete 2,359,288 extraneous envelope points and to load the 54 second stereo track. Another second or 2 to do a save As. And now 3.0.4 loads the same project in only 2 seconds.
I have uploaded your “Rescued” file and PM’d you a link.
Mike, I had a similar issue. I have found, for me, it helps greatly to drink fluids, especially, Throat Coat Tea (Traditional Medicinals)
thank you very much for the advice jademan, that’s a really good idea, i live in western australia (that explains my late replies due to time differece), so that product is not local to me but i found online sellers who sell them, will definetely give that a try, also thanks for all the help you gave regarding my issue. Also thanks steve for the support. I have a little suggestion, you can include a link or something either on your website or in audacity so people who would like to do a small donation to audacity can do so.
Audacity 2.x used a multi-part project format. A project comprised of an “AUP” file and an associated “_data” folder. The folder contained the audio data, and the file contained instructions that tell Audacity what to do with the data. The “AUP” file would typically be less than 1 MB, but the _data folder could be huge (depending on how much audio data in the project).
Audacity 3.x saves projects as an “AUP3” file. The AUP3 file contains both the “instructions” and the audio data.
Ok so that explains why the file size is getting huge. but after opening my 154mb file in audacityrescue, i got a message saying “245831 envelope points have been deleted”. and the same file is now 110mb. now it is faster than before but still so laggy so i ended up making a new voice over which is so much work. worrying my new file will have the same issue later, everytime i’m done working on it, i open it in audacity rescue and everty time i get a message saying “15 envelope points have been deleted”. even if i repeat opening the file without doing any work. thought to mention it in case if that helps developing a fix.
yes, i’m running 3.0.4, because i originally created the file in the older version, 2.3.3 in 2019, it must be an aup file in the begining, and then i was working it on 3.0.0 and then on 3.0.3 and now on 3.0.4. So the aup file is now an aup3 file, may be it has something to do with that. just a thought.
Nobody wrote you can’t roll the machine back to Audacity 2.4.2. That was a perfectly serviceable Audacity version. It did use the two part Project format and it will not open aup3 files, but Audacity 3 will open up earlier projects.
The main problem with the Audacity two-part project was the surprise factor. Once you know it’s going to do that, it just works.
Yep, I’m having the same ultra frustrating issue!!!
In the beginning everything seemed fine, just moving right along on project then one day…total slow down with " not responding" on literally every move I made. It’s beyond annoying
