URGENT Exporting to MP3 nothing happens

Audacity Help Forum macOS
1

Hi everyone, I am doing an audiobook at the moment and Audacity isn’t making me export to Mp3 a chapter that I have spent a long time on. I click on export to MP3 and nothing happens. It’s always worked fine so far. Saving as an Audacity project, exporting as anything else, mix and render, resampling, even copying and pasting it to another audacity file, resetting configuration…I’ve tried everything but nothing seems to work.

I am quite worried as I can’t keep using Audacity but I really need to make this deadline so I am not able to stop. Can anyone please help me solve this issue without having to restart the programme and loose everything? I also have the latest version of Audacity 3.2.1 on MacOs Monterey.

Thank you!!

2

This has happened in the past, but very rarely.

This is a long shot, but… After choosing export to MP3, move the main Audacity project window aside and see if the Save dialog has somehow been moved behind the project window.

3

Thank you, sadly there’s nothing. How did you solve it in the end? Did you have to quit without saving?

4

Here is a post from a user who was able to correct the problem by reinstalling their software: Audacity wont let me export audio file as Wav Or Mp3 - #31 by Sq561

5

Don’t “quit without saving” - you will definitely lose your work. The following may work. Since you can’t save your project you have nothing to lose. I’ve never encountered this problem so I don’t know for sure that this will work.

Do Apple (menu) > Force Quit then choose Audacity. The unsaved project should still be available in the Audacity temp directory and you should see a project recovery dialog next time you launch Audacity.

Reset the Audacity preferences following these instructions: https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/resetting-audacity/50613/1

Although it really shouldn’t make any difference, you could also download and re-install the latest Audacity version from here.

Now start Audacity. You should see the project recovery dialog. If you project is recovered, try saving the project.

– Bill