Audacity crashes when I add an extra track

Audacity 3 Help Forum macOS
1

Version:
Audacity 2.3.3

Operating system:
macOS Catalina 10.15.5

Details:
I was editing a track which I imported after saving the file from a Zoom recording. After spending hours editing the track with no issues, I added a music file which I had used on numerous podcast episodes before and Audacity then crashed (see the attached image of the error message that appeared). I then had no option but to ‘force quit’ the audacity app on my Mac as audacity was not responding, and this caused the file to be corrupted and I lost the track I had been editing. I have used audacity on my Windows laptop before and have not had this issue.
Could you please advise why this is happening?

I have generated the Audacity.zip file when it crashed but have not been able to attach it to this message.

Many thanks
Screenshot 2020-06-30 at 12.50.18.jpg

2

Audacity 2.3.3 is not fully supported by Catalina.
Try updating to the current Audacity 2.4.2: https://www.audacityteam.org/download/mac/

3

Thank you, I will give it a try!

4

Hi,

I have followed your instructions and downloaded the updated version of Audacity; however, a similar problem is still happening and Audacity now crashes when I add a music track alongside the voice overs.

Do you have any other suggestions as to how I can work around this problem please? (see attached)

Many thanks
log.txt (5.59 KB)

5

Right-click or Control+Tap the music file > Get Info.

Screen Shot 2020-07-03 at 8.32.30.png
When the info panel arrives Shift+Command+4 and draw a box around it like the illustration.

From a forum text entry screen, scroll down > Attachments > Add Files. Select the picture and post it.

Koz

6

Hi, this is very similar to what happens to me! I also am using Zoom files! (though recently have been using a saved mp3 version of the project)

7

Screenshot 1- the wav of the song (I don’t use)
#2- the mp3 (which I do drag into audacity)
#3- the mp3 of the interview (because I deleted the data folder so I can’t open the .aup anymore, tg I saved it as an mp3 first)
#4- the actual project where I combine everything and try to add additional audio tracks to
project.png
interview as mp3.png
song as mp3.png
song as wav.png

8

There seems to be nothing wrong with those files.

Let’s do this step by step.

  1. Open Audacity and import the interview MP3 file
  2. Save and name the project
  3. Do some editing (and Undo if necessary)
  4. Import the MP3 music file
  5. Do some editing

At what point does the crash occur?

If you are having a problem importing Zoom’s M4A files, it is because you do not have FFmpeg installed. See this page for instructions.

– Bill

9

I just hate when we do that and there’s nothing wrong.

Are you close to overloading your machine? Probably not important, but we should remember that tiny convenient MP3 and M4A files explode to many times their apparent size because Audacity decompresses and mounts them as super high quality sound performances, not MP3.

Are you using cloud storage? Cloud drives mount as “just another drive” in your machine, but they are not just another drive. They can cause problems if the program isn’t ready for them, and Audacity isn’t.

Koz