HELP! Error: reference to invalid character # at line 2489

Audacity 3 Help Forum Windows
1

Hey community. First, thank you for making such an incredible open-source piece of software. I have absolutely loved working with Audacity this week. I’m under the weight of a massive project for my church and have run into this problem when trying to re-open two of my project scenes.

Error: reference to invalid character number at line…

I’ve tried reading through the forums to understand the issue. It seems to be common, but at different line numbers. Just not sure how to remedy it!

Here are some details;

Version: 2.1.3
Windows 10 x64
Working with WAV & MP3 files. Mostly recordings that I’ve created myself. A few free sound effects pulled from YouTube; thunder, earthquakes, etc.

I’ve uploaded the two .AUP file that I’m having trouble opening. I don’t seem to have problems opening any of my other project files, there being 20 in total.

Reenactment 11B.AUP has this error;
Error: reference to invalid character number at line 587

Reenactment 19.AUP has this error;
Error: reference to invalid character number at line 2489
Reenactment 19.aup (179 KB)
Reenactment 11B.aup (38.4 KB)

2

An Audacity project is a barrel of loose sound snippets and fragments (_DATA folder) and the AUP file which has the programming to put it all together into a show. The AUP file is the Project blueprint.

Somehow, 587 of the first AUP file, there is an error.

(Typical AUP file)

I don’t have an easy way to scroll down numbered lines, but one of the other elves may.

While we’re waiting for the sun to come up in Manchester, you should open all your works one at a time and Export them (assuming mono or stereo) as WAV (Microsoft) 16-bit protection files. If they’re multi-track, three or more blue waves, then you’re stuck with the Projects.

As we go.

Koz

3

I think you mean line 567:

bad-chars.png
bad-chars.png800×484 155 KB

There’s also another occurrence of the same thing at line 675.
In this version I’ve deleted those weird character, so this should work if you put it with its _data folder:
Reenactment 11B.aup (38.3 KB)
To correct the other AUP file, open it in a good text editor (I’d recommend Notepad++, scroll down to line 2489, and change the line that starts with

<wavetrack name="&#xd83c;&#xdfa7; Wildfire Sound Effect -- 8 Hours

so that it starts with

<wavetrack name="Wildfire Sound Effect -- 8 Hours

then do the same on line 2597.

4

Thank you for looking into this!! I didn’t receive an email notification that anyone had replied, so I had abandoned all hope until now. I’ll take a look and see if I have any success with things again.

5

To be notified, click the link at the bottom of the page “Subscribe topic”.

Good luck :slight_smile:

6

Quick note:

Mac TextEdit doesn’t have line numbers, but it does let you go directly to a line.

Edit > Find > Select Line [__]. It even has a shortcut: Command-L.

Of course that will tell you nothing if you have no idea what you’re looking for.

Koz