vanishing sound! Big chunks!

Special Interest Groups Audio Processing
1

I have been using audacity (mostly v1.2.6) to compose a series of radio shows, each one a half-hour long.

I am on my fourth and fifth plays, so I have learned a lot about how the program works and what I have been doing wrong.

Now, however, a new problem has arisen.

In v1.2.6:
Sound just vanishes. Seriously. I will have a scene composed, put together, with music and sound effects and voice, and save and close and when I open it again, half the sound (usually the voice track) has simply vanished. It still appears on the screen, but the sound is not there.

It has not been muted in any way that I can tell (for instance in the track control box at the left hand side), and if I output a wav at that point, any missing sound appears as blanks in the output file. Also, If I use the normalize function, it makes all the visuals for the phantom tracks disappear.

So I have to save endless backup wav files, clogging my computer’s memory, just to make sure I don’t lose anything as I go along, which also makes future editing problematic, since once a track is a wav, I can no loger take out or shift or even adjust volume on individual components (such as sound effects).

It is so incredibly frustrating - every time I think I finally have the latest collected episode mastered, I listen through and a scene or two has just dropped away again.
AAARRGGH.
–Serendipity

2

<<>>

What are you doing between those two events? Exactly what? After you save an Audacity Project, you can’t go in later and move sound files around. I mean at all. You can’t neaten up a little, rearrange, or clean up all those “unused” sound files or suddenly alphabetize your folders. Nothing, nada. No changes.

The blue waveforms on the screen are drawn by two files inside the _DATA folder. If you mess with your collection of sound files, the actual performance will vanish but the blue waveforms will remain.

The AUP Project file is not a sound file. It’s a listing of the locations of all your snippets, clips, songs, and other files. If the show’s files are different or in a different location from that listing, your show turns to garbage. Open the AUP file in TextEdit (Mac) or NotePad or WordPad (Windows). Pull the window really wide to see the XML coding in original format.

aliasfile=‘/Users/koz/Desktop/piano2.wav’

That’s an actual line from one of my AUP files showing the location of a sound clip.

And yes, repeated exports of WAV are the desperation method if all else fails.

Koz

3

I understand about not moving the sound files - there have been time when I have moved pieces and found that screwed things up, but that can’t account for every instance here - since I’ve learned generally not to do that.

I have a “scenes” directory, in which I have a subdirectory for each scene, within which is the aup, the audacity-created subdirectory, the wav backups, etc. I don’t, I admit, copy each and every sound effect into the folder as i go along - way too much redundancy that way - but it’s most often the voice tracks, which have backup right there in the folder, that keep going missing.

Generally, when working on a scene, I compile all the voices, get them where I want them, and then, to avoid major complexity, I burn them to a “voices only” wav, then re-import the wav into audacity before adding the sound effects, music, etc. Makes more stuff fit on the screen (plus - now - it leaves me with a backup of the darn voices, for when they disappear later…)

As each scene is completed, then, I output a wav of the scene into a “completed scenes” directory, which I then draw from when assembling the completed scenes into the entire episode - so I make a long audacity file, pasting in each scene, with the linking music between them, and export it as a wav.

Now, just as often, when i come back to the audacity version fo the complete show, half or more of the wavs i pasted in have also vanished. And having to re-open, repaste, re-everything each of 14-35 scenes into the file each time I want to make a teensy change is excruciatingly frustrating.

Again, not understanding this at all. I tried upgrading to version 1.3 thing, but it REALLY doesn’t like the final compile when I paste a half hour’s worth of stuff together - it freaks out and starts stuttering and making horrible noises when I got to that point.

So then i tried doing each scene in 1.3 and a final compile from output wavs in 1.2, which works but is UBER-annoyingly complicated, and easy to forget which files are in which format - particularly when it’s a dumb problem that shouldn’t probably be happening in the first place.

The other stupid part is it didn’t do this from moment one - it has just recently developed this habit. - I used to lose a small sound effect here or there, but not entire tracks this way.

Also, I can’t just keep the latest wav files - not until I double check by listening to them again - Since I can still see any phantom tracks, there is always the chance that some part is missing that i will find out only when my wav cuts out later…
Argh!

4

This has got to be a Windows machine, right?

When was the last time you did a serious virus scan on your machine? I don’t mean the one that runs silently in the background, I mean the one that takes over the machine from you and you have to run it all night.

What happens if you do a disk check from the Disk > Properties menu? Check everything. I’m not comfortable telling you to defrag until the machine passes the first two tests.

Are you filling up one or more hard drives? A struggling hard drive anywhere in the system will drive Audacity nuts.

Koz

5

This has got to be a Windows machine, right?
Yup.

I’ve done a virus/spyware check fairly recently. I’ll do it again.

What happens if you do a disk check from the Disk > Properties menu? Check everything. I’m not comfortable telling you to defrag until the machine passes the first two tests.

I’ve defragged recently, too. Also, not sure where to find the disk/properties menu - is that under control panel?

Are you filling up one or more hard drives? A struggling hard drive anywhere in the system will drive Audacity nuts.

I always clear and defrag my drive after I complete each episode - Each episode’s folder ends up around 4 gigs by the time I’m done (now that I’m backing up everything into wavs - before ihad to do that, it was 2-3 gigs per episode), and I back each one up and move each one to my backup drive (312 gig mybook), clear it out and defrag before starting a new one.

Thanks for your patience with my strident cries for help!
–Julie

6

<<<Thanks for your patience with my strident cries for help!>>>

I hate people who do all the correct things right up front. It means we’re going to have to really work to figure out what’s wrong.

<<<I’ve done a virus/spyware check fairly recently. I’ll do it again.>>>

No, no. Calm down. I got another idea.

It’s remotely possible you have an unstable machine. Files do not just “vanish” never to be heard from again. Ever do a memory check?

This is Microsoft Windows Memory Diagnostic.

http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

The version I use makes a simple floppy disk which starts the machine (remember floppies?). I think there is a version that will work from a bootable CD.

Start the machine from the floppy and the memory checker starts automatically (as I recall). Just let it go. Go to bed. I let the checker run for 24 hours on new machines. The software is checking the internal memory of the machine using a lot of different methods, but the rest of the machine has to be in reasonable health, too. I have found bad power supplies, bad memory, and at least one bad motherboard (on different machines).

All this will not check the hard drive, but it will give you reasonable assurances that the rest of the machine is in good health.

[time passes]

The same place that houses the defrag tools should also have the disk check or something like that. The earlier Windows had a strict health check option which would go through all sectors and rings of the hard drive and make sure everything was OK. I don’t know where that is now…

Koz

7

My one demurral over the “files do not disappear” issue is that the ONLY place they disappear from is audacity. I have not had ANYTHING else go missing - word files, pdfs, music, etc. Audacity just seems to periodically dump chunks of my sound.

I will still give your suggestion a go, maybe tonight.

I have been looking at other sound editing programs - I really LIKE audacity, and I am used to it, but if I can’t resolve this issue, it’s kind of pointless to continue with it.

8

I have a similar problem, which I had presumed was due to my inexperience using Audacity until I read this thread :wink: .

I am using Audacity 1.2.6 on an iMac G5 running Mac OS 10.5.

I have a large .WAV file (ca 90 minutes, 1.025 GByte). The .WAV file is fine and can be played via iTunes etc. and can be loaded in to Audacity. When it is loaded I can see the wave-form and can play and edit it. It’s just gone wrong for the second time in two days. The first time all the sound disappeared (although I could see the waveform). This happened after I saved the project as a .AUP and re-loaded it.

Now (somewhat irritatingly after a couple of hours editing), having re-loaded the .WAV file in to the project – essentially starting again – I can see the waveform etc. as before, but the sound just disappears after the first couple of minutes of the recording. Despite showing the waveform, Audacity clearly “thinks” there is nothing there after the first couple of minutes, as if I perform a mix the displayed waveform diminishes to nothing.

I haven’t done anything to any of the files created by Audacity (I wouldn’t know where to start, to be honest).

Any ideas? All I have been doing to the .WAV this time is cutting out pauses and other verbal tics from the recording.

9

Bugger. It’s done it again. I’ve saved the .AUP file and then when I’ve re-loaded it everything to the right / after the part I last edited has lost the sound (i.e. it plays back silence) but I can still see the waveform.

So, another topic: can anyone recommend a reliable alternative to Audacity for the Mac? :stuck_out_tongue:

10

Long discussion, sorry if I repeat.

If you import files, I think, the default is only to note what files are imported,
without copying its content. (This is fast.)
Thus if you delete/move/modify the original file,
the content silently dissapears from audacity, too.
(Exception are blocks that you edited e.g. by efects.)

Make sure to (re)set the corresponding option in Edit>Preferences ( > ? Import/Export ?)
before you start a new project.

Audacity beta (?1.3.5) has File > Check Dependences (or whatever)
that would report you such ‘external’ files.

11

By the way, you hardly test system with small .doc files. I would have to be UNZIP, ZIP and delete tousend of them
simultaneously in four session (simultaneously!) to emulate what disk I/O requests audacity might do.
And them check the content of the result, if it is exact :slight_smile:

12

<<<I have been looking at other sound editing programs - I really LIKE audacity, and I am used to it, but if I can’t resolve this issue, it’s kind of pointless to continue with it.>>>

Post back if you find something you like.

<<<Thus if you delete/move/modify the original file,
the content silently dissapears from audacity, too.>>>

Yes, we have visited this town already. The poster is not moving any files, although he gets dangerously close to admitting he does here and there, and moving things is a major cause of Audacity Insanity.

<<<I’ve saved the .AUP file >>>

That’s dangerous. Audacity doesn’t save AUP files. It saves 'Projects" and the lead file of hundreds in an Audacity Project is the AUP file.

I get the feeling that we are reading the 8 volume set called “How To Ride A Bicycle.” If you started in the middle of any of the eight volumes and start reading cold, you would never figure out what the end result needed to be. So let’s go back to basic engineering.

Do you have a System Drive or any other drive on your machine that’s over 90% full? Doesn’t matter if you’re using it for the project or not–any drive the machine can see.

Do you run an anti-virus software? Have you done a comprehensive system scan–the one where you can’t use your machine for several hours?

<<<Bugger. It’s done it again.>>>

I swear this is a known problem, but I can’t put my finger on it.

<<<The other stupid part is it didn’t do this from moment one - it has just recently developed this habit. - I used to lose a small sound effect here or there, but not entire tracks this way.>>>

So your machine has always been unstable, but it got worse.

I would clear the basic machine with the Virus Checker and then run this Microsoft memory checker overnight.

http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

I’m not kidding. Start it looping when you go to bed. Normal machines will do this for a week straight. I had two machine with bad memory that would go two hours under test and then crash. These were the machines that would “do funny things” every so often and drive me nuts. Sound familiar?

<<<iMac G5 running Mac OS 10.5.>>>

OK, so that machine is running Leopard. Is the PC running Vista? I don’t know that we ever established that.


Koz