Trying to edit a FLAC audio file but Audacity only loads half of it

Hello. I have been using Audacity for a long time off and on but never on FLAC audio files. I would like to do some edits as the audio source was a vinyl record. I am trying to load a 6 minute FLAC audio file for editing but Audacity only loads half of it. Here are the specifics of the file:

Size 62.85 MB (69% Compressed)
Original Size 198.29 MB
Length 6 minutes
Channels 2 (stereo)
Sample Rate 96 kHz;
Sample Size 24 bit
Bit Rate 4,608 kbps (DVD)
Encoder FLAC reference libFLAC 1.3.1 20141125
Encoder Settings
Audio Quality Perfect (Lossless)
Type Free Lossless Audio Codec File [.flac]

My computer has 64GB RAM, AMD Ryzen 9 5900X CPU, 2TB NVME storage with currently 604GB free space and I am using Windows 10 x64.
I am also using the latest Audacity version installed fresh (not update) yesterday.
Any other details I should mention?
Any help is appreciated. Thank you.

The FLAC is probably corrupt or invalid.

If you can play the whole 6 minutes in Windows Media Player (or whatever you use) you MAY be able to convert it to WAV with Kabuu Audio Converter.

…I just tried exporting a 1 hour file as 24/96 FLAC and the whole thing re-opened.

That’s the bitrate for uncompressed 24/96 stereo. There are 8-bits in a byte so that’s 576K bytes per second, and a 63MB file would be less than 2 minutes.

69% compression is a lot for FLAC. 40-50% is more common. You might get that much compression if the file was up-sampled from 16-bits, or left & right channels are identical, or if there is lots of silence, or something like that making it “easier” to compress more.

Thank you for all your information. It makes sense what you say. I downloaded the file and cannot re-rip it. I am re-ripping my entire CD collection to MP3 320/44. As for the difference in quality to my ear this is plenty and I convert FLAC to MP3 always anyway. Some of my CDs are damaged to the point that they do not equal the AccurateRip database so I had to download some tracks and full CDs to fix up my collection. This particular track I could only find a vinyl version and because of that it has some clicks as most vinyl records do but also a short break in the audio which appears to my knowledge that the file is damaged as you said accurately. Someone re-uploaded it with the damage and I am trying to fix it. Something is better than nothing as my CD has more serious damage than this FLAC track. This is a rare track from 1997 and I cannot find a CD version of it so I will settle for the vinyl as that is the only version I found online. I did find it for sale in a store in England but it is also vinyl and I don’t have the equipment to make a good digital copy of it even if I buy it. I would rather not convert it to another format as you said to WAV but maybe that is the only thing I can do at this time.

Why? WAV and FLAC are both lossless. If you can make a good WAV file, you can losslessly convert that back to FLAC (or MP3 or whatever you want.)

You said Audacity only loads half of it… What I was trying to say is: If you can play the whole 6 minutes with another program, it can be decompressed successfully. And a converter tool like Kabuu might also be able to decompress the whole thing and convert it to WAV. And actually, if it can do that, it can probably “convert” it to a non-corrupt FLAC.

Or if the song is on Spotify, you can use Audacity to record what’s playing on your computer.

Can you play the CD without audible errors? Sometimes a CD will get audible errors when ripping but the player’s error-correction/error-hiding will fix-up the playback. If it plays OK you can record with Audacity as it plays.

…If I get a ripping error AccurateRip error, but the rip sounds OK, it doesn’t take me long to forget which CDs didn’t rip perfectly. :wink:

You may be on to something! I never tried looking for it on Spotify. As far as re-ripping the CD well, as I said before I downloaded this track and that is how it came. My CD is too messed up that dBpoweramp CD ripper throws an error and can’t even correct it with multiple passes. Just checked and Spotify don’t have it. I will see if converting it to WAV will fix the FLAC. Thanks for the idea as I only looked on YouTube for the song and torrent sites.

I just marked your last post as a solution. Thanks again! The Kabuu converter fixed the file. It said there was an error in the artwork which is beyond my understanding how that would make it crap out the audio in the middle of the track. If by design the artwork is shoved in the middle of the track wouldn’t it be safer to put the artwork somewhere else so the audio does suffer if there is some kind of problem with the artwork in the file?