silence after 16seconds

[jolyon.sj]

When I save as a project and then open the project again later the sound stops after about 16 seconds. With a few seconds to go before the end of the project the sound starts again. I can still see wave pattern, but hear nothing. The same happens when I export it as a wav file and try to listen to it in itunes. Silence. Any suggestions or help? Is there something I haven't downloaded or something I'm doing wrong?

Could also use help naming files. When I try to save a project and it asks for a file name, whenever I press a key that is a short cut the program runs the command. Trying to save a file called 'fire' for example results in a new recording track and Recording to begin because I pressed 'r'. ??????

[jolyon.sj]

By the way. I have not changed, named, renamed, or otherwise altered the location of the original files. I have opened it in text editor to make sure the file path is exactly the same and it is. I could change the preferences so it saves its own copy of the file entirely, but the files are pretty large.

[kozikowski]

You're running a newer Intel Mac with 10.5 or later, right?

You have the wrong Audacity.

Trash the Audacity application and dig around until you find the Preference file. It changed depending on Audacity version.

Trash Mac Audacity Preferences
http://audacityteam.org/forum/viewtopic ... =10#p34670

Then pull down Audacity 1.3.7 and install that. Yes, I know, the latest one is 1.3.9 or some such, but this one is stable and it works.

Audacity 1.3.7 -- Mac
http://audacity.googlecode.com/files/au ... -1.3.7.zip

The new Audacity should ask you "English?" when you start it. If it doesn't, you didn't get rid of the old preference file and it will torture you until you trash it.

Koz

[kozikowski]

I have a Duo Core Intel machine running Tiger (10.4) and it supports Audacity 1.2.5 just ducky, but this machine also has a test boot into Leopard and it will not run Audacity 1.2.

I also have an Intel MacBookPro running Leopard (10.5) and that one will not run Audacity 1.2, either. Mac/Intel/Leopard is the threshold. Once you do that, it kills Audacity 1.2.

All is not gloom and doom, however, Audacity 1.3.7 is much more modern and comprehensive -- and not "unstable."

Koz

[DrChristmas]

Hello, I'm having a similar problem on my old G4 PowerPC. I'm running Mac OS 10.4.11 and Audacity 1.2.6.

I have a project with several tracks. They were all recorded properly and sounded fine at first. Now, however, I open it a few months later to find that Guitar #3 does not playback at all throughout the project (despite an intact waveform). In addition, at the 3 minute mark a vocal track comes in, sounds fine for fifteen seconds, then cuts out, coming back in twenty seconds later. Again, the waveform's intact.

I haven't had this problem with other files and haven't upgraded or changed a darn thing to my Audacity in years. Given this and that it's an old computer, I don't think compatability is the issue... any ideas?

Thanks.

[kozikowski]

<<<haven't upgraded or changed a darn thing to my Audacity in years.>>>

It's not Audacity you have to worry about. These are the symptoms of a Project with missing parts.

The blue waves on the timeline come from two graphics files. It's totally possible to have perfect blue waves and no show at all if you mess something up.

When you save a Project, it creates an AUP file whose job it is to point to all the other files in your show. It's not a sound file. Once you save a Project it records the folder locations, types, and names of all your other sound files. If you move anything at all including the AUP file, it will lose track of where everything is.

So what did you move, change, rename, or delete? This problem kills people that like to "clean up" their hard drive. When you include a voice track in your Project, you can't change or move that voice file from that time on. Same with the music files.

Another common problem is people who use CD sound tracks in their project. They get to the end of their production, Save their project, pop the CD out and go to bed. That popping just killed their show. Audacity points to the CD to get the music. Remove the CD, no more music.

So what did you change? All this is assuming your computer isn't broken.

Koz

[DrChristmas]

I haven't changed anything to the data folder, but I do notice, taking another look at it, that some of the files, unlike in other projects, are labeled ".auf" instead of ".au" - could that have something to do with it? I could rename them all and see if that fixes the problem, although I don't know how they would have gotten the wrong extension.

[DrChristmas]

Just tried changing the file extensions to .au - bad idea. Now I get error messages looking for the missing .auf files. Don't remember which ones to switch back... sigh.

[DrChristmas]

Actually, that could help diagnose the problem. Interestingly, after renaming the files - now that Audacity doesn't know where they are - the waveform IS replaced by a straight line - and it's in the exact places the audio was dropped. So for some reason, the .auf files were giving it waveform but no audio.

I see what you meant in your post - I did in fact import the voice from an outside .wav file. However, that .wav file has remained intact - and in Audacity, the first part of it still plays fine, then stops for some reason.
I fixed that problem by reimporting the audio file, but I don't see how it would make sense for Audacity to only be able to point to part of that file - and reimporting still doesn't solve the problem of the missing .aufs. The also-missing guitar track, furthermore, WAS recorded in Audacity, so is unrecoverable.

Thanks again for your help.

[kozikowski]

<<<Just tried changing the file extensions to .au - bad idea. Now I get error messages looking for the missing .auf files. Don't remember which ones to switch back...>>>

Right. Now you really have no show. Stay out of the _data folder, or I guess now it doesn't make any difference

This is an old movie. It usually ends many messages later when the poster admits that they "just moved the music files a little bit" or "made a safety folder and put everything in it." Or my favorite "I cleaned up all those sound files that aren't used any more." The list goes on: "I got a new computer and moved all the files over. I added a new hard drive and swapped the internal drives around."

Something Changed. Audacity went out looking for the sound files used in your show and didn't find some of them for one reason or another.

Did you use any music files from iTunes? There was a recent iTunes update that rippled out and that could have killed off some of your clips.

There is a really, really tiny percentage of machines that are actually broken or unstable. Control Click the hard drive icon and Get Info. Do you have at least 10% space free? That's the magic number. If you get smaller than that, the Mac will start going nuts.

Start the Mac from the number one install CD by restarting with the CD in and holding down "C" until the little apple icon pops up. It will be slow. Utilities > Disk Utilities. Select the hard drive and Verify Disk. Then, if that succeeds, Repair Permissions.

Let's see how far you get.

There is one other way to drive a newer Mac nuts. Do you like to put dates in your file names? There is a special way to do that since you can't use slash marks inside filenames. 20091004 is today in Los Angeles.

Upper and lower case letters, numbers, dash, and underscore are the only safe characters inside a filename.

Koz