I’m receiving a consistent error message whenever I try to split an audio clip, resulting in not being able to split any audio, which is a major hinderance…
Audacity has also been operating at maybe 1/10th of it’s normal speed prior to this.
I’ve tried exiting the program, restarting computer, and uninstalling and reinstalling the program (around 3 times). Yet to find a solution.
Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks
Which Audacity? Did this start happening when you upgraded to 3.6.1? Which version did you have before?
How full is the hard drive?
Are you using any drives NOT the internal one? External, USB, home network, internet, cloud?
Do you use Skype, Zoom, Meetings, Games or other internet apps?
Are you set up for Cloud backup of Projects to audio.com?
Koz
Thanks for the quick reply!
Did you go to “more information may be available about this error here?”
How about Problem Details…?
I don’t think I would bother with submitting problem details. That service has been overloaded for a while.
`
Audacity doesn’t like dealing directly with external drives. You can put your files wherever you like as long as Audacity can’t see you doing it. All actual work and editing should be on the local drive.
That’s an old line. Said in a gruff voice: “I’ve been doing this for lumpty-leven years and never had a problem.” Until now. I think Audacity has been getting a little more sticky about this. I have a stupid joke about trying to set up a critical music overdubbing session with a cloud drive outside of Houston. That’s clearly silly, but where’s the cutoff? How about three USB drives on a multi-unit hub? I think rather than sift through all that, they just decided Internal Only.
That is an actual bug. It showed up in version documentation.
We are recommending strongly not to lurch immediately into The Very Latest Version without haunting the forum for a while as the user stories come in. Nobody wrote that your particular problem is going to be fixed in where-ever you are plus 1, either.
The upper-case “P” Producer is recommending continuing to get the work out the door on your current version and ignoring the full-screen promotions at startup, at least for a while.
There is at least one forum posting suggesting that sticking with your known-good-working Audacity may be getting harder and harder.
I’ve been using “Update,” not “Upgrade.”
Koz
Roger. But are there any solutions? I’ve tried moving the files onto the computer drive, to no avail, didn’t help… Tried the older version, to no avail… Are the files having these problems just corrupted now and I have to re-do from scratch? Or are there any bug fixes?
Clicking ‘here’ just takes me here: Error codes | Audacity Support
Problem details are well above my monkey-brain level, but come accross like this:
{
“timestamp”: 1722708765,
“event_id”: “35e04f0a70e342f996a7f6064092ac54”,
“platform”: “native”,
“release”: “audacity@3.6.1”,
“contexts”: {
“os”: {
“type”: “os”,
“name”: “Macintosh”,
“version”: “10.16.0”
}
},
“exception”: {
“values”: [
{
“type”: “Warning”,
“value”: “Automatic database backup failed.”,
“mechanism”: {
“type”: “runtime_error”,
“handled”: false,
“data”: {
“sqlite3.query”: “INSERT INTO (id, dict, doc) VALUES(1, ?1, ?2) ON CONFLICT(id) DO UPDATE SET dict = ?1, doc = ?2;”,
“sqlite3.rc”: “18”,
“sqlite3.context”: “ProjectGileIO::WriteDoc::step”
}
}
}
]
}
}
Didn’t realise Audacity would have had beef with using external hard drives. Good to know for the future! And good for them to flag somewhere (or i missed it…). Either way doesn’t really help with the current dilemma 
I know you want me to say, “Push This Button.” But as near as I can tell, this is one of the serious system problems drifting through the forum with no ready solution.
I do know that every time you edit or change something, Audacity saves a copy of The Whole Show. When you Edit > UNDO, Audacity doesn’t carefully unwind the last edit, it just plays back the show before this one. Easy-Peasy. If you have an edit heavy production, this UNDO collection can go into the bazillions of GB. There was a plea a while back to please give us a way to flush the UNDO Cache. Yes, I know the UNDO is going to go away. I got that. But my machine is starting to smoke.
I don’t know what ever came of it.
There was also a push to do UNDO a different way. No word on that, either.
There is also a contamination problem. Once a Project is damaged, no amount of opening up in a healthy Audacity is going to help. Opening up in the original Audacity may not bring you back either.
But wait, there’s more. Once you install Audacity 3.6.0 or 3.6.1, your Applications System becomes cursed and you can’t easily go back to an earlier version. First level corrections can be had with Tools > Reset Configuration. But if that fails, you have to flush all of the Settings, Notes, Changes, and System Postings. I got notes on how to do that and I don’t remember which computer they’re on.
`
If you do elect to step back, I would try 3.4.2 and start the show over.
Now that it’s too late, you are urged strongly to keep separate copies of all your music, stingers, beds, and backgrounds. Each time you record voice work, File > Export it as WAV (Microsoft) backup whether it has mistakes in it or not.
You should be planning to reconstruct your show from building blocks right now instead of wondering where the script is for your live performance—or worse yet the phone number for your live interview.
There is a sister forum posting from someone whose Audacity will not recognize his microphone.
Will.
Not.
I posted some tricks to record his voice track without Audacity.
Koz
Thanks for the information Koz.
I’ve found a reasonable workaround - will post here in case it helps any rookies like me stuck in this situation.
I just exported what was currently completed, started a new project, imported that file, and now I can split on this new file. Good enough for now.
This topic was automatically closed after 30 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
