Audacity failed to write to file

Audacity 3 Help Forum
1

I’ve been trying to edit a 1h 55min audio file but I consistently get Error 11 and I’m not sure why or how to fix it?

I recorded the file onto my PC, copied an MP3 and aud3 version to my SSD, and have been editing the file on my laptop while saving the edited file to my SSD but it always seems to end up corrupted despite the fact my SSD has more than enough space for the file.

{
“timestamp”: 1734690064,
“event_id”: “917ef514158bb5479910d3648480a724”,
“platform”: “native”,
“release”: “audacity@3.7.1”,
“contexts”: {
“os”: {
“type”: “os”,
“name”: “Windows”,
“version”: “10.0.22631”
}
},
“exception”: {
“values”: [
{
“type”: “File_Error”,
“value”: “Audacity failed to write to a file.\nPerhaps is not writable or the disk is full.”,
“mechanism”: {
“type”: “runtime_error”,
“handled”: false,
“data”: {
“sqlite3.rc”: “11”,
“sqlite3.context”: “SqliteSampleBlock::Delete::step”,
“sqlite3.rc”: “11”,
“sqlite3.context”: “SqliteSampleBlock::Delete::step”,
“sqlite3.rc”: “11”,
“sqlite3.context”: “SqliteSampleBlock::Delete::step”,
“sqlite3.rc”: “11”,
“sqlite3.context”: “SqliteSampleBlock::Delete::step”,
“sqlite3.rc”: “11”,
“sqlite3.context”: “SqliteSampleBlock::Delete::step”,
“sqlite3.rc”: “11”,
“sqlite3.context”: “SqliteSampleBlock::Delete::step”,
“sqlite3.rc”: “11”,
“sqlite3.context”: “SqliteSampleBlock::Delete::step”
}
}
}
]
}
}

Any help would be greatly appriciated

2

Audacity is not a fan of working with drives other than the internal one.

Audacity assumes any drive it can see can be used for any job no matter how delicate or easily damaged. You might sometimes get away with using a simple external drive … but maybe not. File management accuracy gets worse and worse the further away the drive is. Home Network drives are not recommended. Probably the worst you can do is try to do production on an internet connected drive two time zones away.

What’s the show? What sound is in that two-hour file?

Koz

3

Thanks for the response Koz! I didn’t know audacity wasn’t a fan of working on other drives haha.

I’ll try to clear out some more of my laptop’s drive so it has more space to work with on the main internal drive. I didn’t think it’d have trouble with an SSD attached to the laptop :sweat_smile:

the audio is for a youtube video of mine, would be a bit of a pain to rerecord it!

4

I can make this worse. Every time you perform an edit or change, Audacity saves a unique copy of the whole show. If, for some reason, you have to correct a bad edit, Audacity doesn’t unscramble your last edit, it just plays back the show before this one. So there’s two hours of file at each edit. And it’s two hours in Audacity enhanced format, not WAV or MP3.

Did you talk constantly for two hours, or does the show break up here and there into portions or chapters? If you have portions, I think I would export perfect quality WAV (Microsoft) versions of each shorter version and then do the production with each one alone. Slam them together later into the completed 2-hour show.

Koz

5

The code “11” here indicates a corrupted project file. You will need to start a new .aup3 audacity project or repair the old one: Corrupt or Otherwise Broken Audacity Project Recovery

6

Did you talk constantly for two hours, or does the show break up here and there into portions or chapters?

I take fairly regular breaks throughout the recording so I think I should be able to break it down into portions and get them together at the end! Thanks for the advice!