When I try to import an audio that is 2 mb or larger then my audacity is just stuck with the rainbow spinning mouse thing. so then I try to force close it and open it again. I don’t recover the crash and try again but it still happens. it’s so annoying. I can barely use audacity :(. if anyone has had the same issue before and knows how to fix it please reply to this.
This is usually a sign of not enough free memory available, or there are too many processes running requiring nearly all of the processor’s power.
It may also happen that there is something installed that does not go well together with Audacity. You may want to create a “new user” on your Mac and try whether this also happens under the new user.
You may want to tell us what Mac you have, how much RAM you have installed, what version of the operating system and what version of Audacity.
If nothing else is running, Audacity (version 3.5.1, I think) has no problem on a Macbook Air with 4 GB RAM and macOS 10.13 High Sierra.
I’m a Windows guy, but…
What’s the format?
WAV files are limited to 4GB due to a 32-bit "data size field in the header. I don’t know of any other format that has an “artificial” limit.
With uncompressed WAV you can import it as “raw” data if you know the sample rate, bit-depth, and number of channels, etc. Or you can guess.
If I’m remembering correctly the offset should be 44 bytes. That’s where the header ends and the audio begins. If the offset is wrong the bytes will be re-assembled wrong and you can get “pure noise”. If that happens try 45 for 16 bit file or 45 & 46 for a 24-bit file. The left & right can still be mixed-up but there are ways to fix that (if you care).
Raw import will not work with compressed formats. Compression is a lot like encryption and if not decoded/decompressed correctly it’s garbage.
I tried it on a new user and it did work. I have a macbook air 2020 m1, I have 8 GB of ram, the version of my operating system is 15.1.1 and I have audacity 3.7.1.
This means, something in your user configuration[1] prevents Audacity from working… However, it is nearly impossible to tell you, what.
Is there an error message when you try a file which does not import?
[1] either something is missing, or there is something installed what Audacity doesn’t like.
There is no error message when I try to import the file.
Can we assume smaller files do open?
If you look at the applications bar on the bottom, is only Audacity running?
Does that user have iCloud or any external or network connected storage? Audacity doesn’t like that very much.
I know this is silly, but did you make any change to the machine, even if it has nothing to do with Audacity? New Application? Did you do any “updates?”
Did you do a shutdown—not restart?
Koz
As I think is mentioned further up, what kind of file is this? Compressed or processed files (MP3) open up much larger than their posted sizes, and then Audacity rolls up its sleeves and converts the work to much larger Audacity format.
So this work is guaranteed much larger than 2MB.
Koz
Nevermind everyone it somehow works again.
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