No sound from project files - intermittently

[hmcm2006]

One of our volunteers is trying to edit files that were recorded at a consultation but we are having some problems and don't know how to get to the bottom of it.

He has about 30 indivdual project files and on one machine the files open and work, on my machine they open but there is no sound and on one of the other machines we get an some kind of exception error message.

This is even further complicated by the fact that sometimes the files have opened on the other computers, we are a really loss to understand what's happening.

All help would be very much appreciated as this is holding us up as we want to get the consultation podcasts online as soon as possible.

Thanks in advance for all help that will be very gratefully received.

[steve]

How are you transfering projects from one computer to another?
Audacity does not work well across networks because it requires fast and reliable access to the data and network delays cause problems.

Moving Audacity projects from one machine to another can be a risky business as all of the project data must be available in the directory where the .AUP file has it listed. There is a very good article about this here: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/File_Management_Tips

[hmcm2006]

Hi Steve

They are on the file server and are being accessed from various machines - I suppose it would have been useful to say that! I'll have a read of the link you sent over and then I may be back with more questions.

My only concern now is being able to transfer them from the server to a specific machine, every time we have tried to do that it hasn't worked by using burn to disc and transfer to pen drive.

Thanks for the help

[kozikowski]

Projects don't lend themselves to complex editorial systems as you're finding out. Yes, they don't work well on a network, but they tend to "marry" the computer they're on.

You need to know that Audacity projects will not open across versions. Audacity 1.3 projects will not open in 1.2, although it's supposed to work the other direction. Best to keep to the same version if possible.

If you use a number of external or pre-recorded sound files in your show, it's extraordinarily dangerous to try to move the show from computer to computer. You have to not only move the files (sometimes a surprise), you have to move the directory structure, too.

http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/aup1.jpg

This is a very simple Project file as an example. Count down to about line 7 and see my directory listing. /Users/koz...etc. If my sound files aren't in that exact directory listing, Audacity will not be able to find them.

When you edit, it's best to tell audacity to pull all sound into itself for editing rather than leave sound in a collection of external files. That's a preference. "Copy all sound...(Safer)."

And if we haven't told you yet, you should probably be in Audacity 1.3.12. Audacity 1.2 has stability problems on modern computers.

http://audacityteam.org/download/

Koz

[steve]

When you edit, it's best to tell audacity to pull all sound into itself for editing rather than leave sound in a collection of external files. That's a preference. "Copy all sound...(Safer)."

In Audacity 1.3.12 there is an option in the File menu "Check Dependencies". This will tell you if all of the data is within the project " _data" folder or if the project depends on external files. It also gives you the opportunity to "pull in" any dependencies so that the project " _data" folder contains all of the project data.

To transfer a project form one machine to another (over a network/on disk/on flash drive, or however), a good way to do it is as follows:

1) create a folder on the local hard drive.
2) Create the project
3) Check Dependencies and if necessary copy into the project any dependencies.
4) Save the project into the folder created in step 1)
5) (optional) Zip the complete folder created in step 1)
6) Transfer the entire folder to the local hard drive of the other machine.