I have a realtive big mp3 file (54 minutes, 105Mb). When I try to open it with Audacity 2.05, the loading of the file stop and nothing happen any more: I have to press the stop or the cancel button… I have tried it in debian jessie and ubuntu 14.04, using pulseaudio or jack: the behaviour is ever the same. I have tried in audacity 2.05 in windows 
and all seems to work… please there is a way to debug the problem?
Thank a lot
Piviul
All Audacity versions have two periods (dots) between the numbers.
So from your description, the progress dialogue for the MP3 import freezes up? How far does it get?
Does the Linux machine have any disk space? Audacity expands all imports to 32-bit float PCM by default, so for a stereo 54 minute file at 44100 Hz project rate you need over 1 GB merely to import the file, then another 1 GB or so for each edit on the file.
We can’t debug it further without information about the file. What does MediaInfo say about it? You will probably be able to install it from your repository if you don’t already have it.
Gale
Thanks Gale…
All Audacity versions have two periods (dots) between the numbers.
yes, of course, I have forgot a dot. The version is 2.0.5 not 2.05…
Does the Linux machine have any disk space?[…]
yes, there are no space problems, there are 200GB free
We can’t debug it further without information about the file. What does MediaInfo say about it?
Vlc says that the is a mono file, coded using PCM S16 LE (s16l) at sample rate of 16000 Hz using 16bit per sample. Is an mp3 file recorded from a nokia phone…
You will probably be able to install it from your repository if you don’t already have it.
I can’t understand what you mean. You mean I have to compile audacity from scratch or that I have to put my audio file somewhere on Internet?
Thanks a lot
Piviul
It is not an MP3 file if it contains PCM signed 16-bit little-endian. That is lossless audio. Have you looked at the file in a hex editor? If it says “RIFF” and “WAVEfmt” at the top, you could try renaming it from MP3 to WAV.
If that is the problem, yes on Windows you can import a WAV misnamed as MP3 and Audacity’s PCM importer (libsndfile) will still import it, but you can’t do that on Linux.
The reason is that there is a bug in libsndfile where MP3 files with duplicated metadata tags crash libsndfile and thus crash Audacity. We have patched the libsndfile that Audacity is built from on Windows, and so on Windows we allow libsndfile to take WAV files misnamed as MP3.
But on Linux, Audacity supplied by distributions will probably be built with the system libsndfile which has this bug. Therefore to avoid crashes we don’t allow libsndfile to take WAV files misnamed as MP3 on Linux.
As an alternative to renaming the MP3 files to WAV you could use FFmpeg to import the file, if the Audacity builds you have support FFmpeg. To use FFmpeg in Audacity, File > Import > Audio…, choose “FFmpeg-compatible files” in the file type selector, then select and “open” the file.
I meant you could install MediaInfo from your repository. It’s an application that supplies detailed file type information. But VLC has probably answered the question.
Gale
It’s a useful tool to have. You should be able to install it from either the Software Centre or Synaptic Package Manager (whichever you are more comfortable using).
$ mediainfo Documenti/paolo/iu-go/20150122/20150122-2221.mp3
General
Complete name : Documenti/paolo/iu-go/20150122/20150122-2221.mp3
Format : Wave
File size : 100 MiB
Duration : 54mn 38s
Overall bit rate mode : Constant
Overall bit rate : 256 Kbps
Audio
Format : PCM
Format settings, Endianness : Little
Format settings, Sign : Signed
Codec ID : 1
Duration : 54mn 38s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 256 Kbps
Channel(s) : 1 channel
Sampling rate : 16.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Stream size : 100 MiB (100%)
I have renamed the file substituting the mp3 extension to wav and Audacity has opened it without problem.
Thanks a lot… indeed!!!
Piviul