Certain WAV files won't play in Audacity

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Audacity 1.2.x is now obsolete. Please use the current Audacity 2.1.x version.

The final version of Audacity for Windows 98/ME is the legacy 2.0.0 version.
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RzfX
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Certain WAV files won't play in Audacity

Post by RzfX » Tue Feb 10, 2009 2:23 pm

It's strange; they can be played by media player, iTunes and all my other audio players except Audacity (Version 1.2.6). When I open these files in Audacity, no error is displayed however, when I play, the timeline moves only a little then automatically stops before it even hits the 1 second mark. No sounds can be heard from it either.

What's wrong?

kozikowski
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Re: Certain WAV files won't play in Audacity

Post by kozikowski » Tue Feb 10, 2009 3:21 pm

Do you have Windows set to show you File Extensions? That's the first step when you start having unexplained file issues.

My Computer > Tools > Folder Options > Deselect [ ] Hide File Extensions....

If Windows still thinks it's a WAV file (unlikely), make it tell you which one.

Right Click > Properties > Summary or Audio Properties.

Chances are it's really an m4a or other type of file. Audacity 1.2 was designed in the fourteenth century when they didn't have MPEG4 audio compression.

Try installing one of the 1.3 versions. Those recognize many more file types. You can have 1.2 and 1.3 on your machine at the same time. Just don't use them both at once.

Koz

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