Noise Removal crashes Audacity in 96k projects

[b00m3rang]

Audacity 1.3.12-beta, Windows 7 Ultimate

Recorded audio into Audacity at 96k, selected audio and did a "Get Noise Profile", selected the entire project and went to Noise Removal, program crashes as soon as I click Ok. This problem also existed in the previous beta (I believe it was 1.3.11).

If I change the project bitrate to 44k, the audio clip still shows 96k, and the noise removal works properly without crashing.

Thanks.

[Gale Andrews]

Audacity 1.3.12-beta, Windows 7 Ultimate

Recorded audio into Audacity at 96k, selected audio and did a "Get Noise Profile", selected the entire project and went to Noise Removal, program crashes as soon as I click Ok. This problem also existed in the previous beta (I believe it was 1.3.11).

If I change the project bitrate to 44k, the audio clip still shows 96k, and the noise removal works properly without crashing.

Thanks for the report. On the information you give there isn't a crash for me on Windows 7, and I'm not aware of a general problem with Noise Removal crashes. Changing the project rate won't permanently resample the track, you have to click Tracks > Resample... to do that.

Are you recording into an empty unsaved project and then immediately selecting a short piece of noise and applying Noise Removal; or are you recording into a pre-existing saved project with a lot of data or previous edits? How long is the recording, and how long and where in the track is the piece you are selecting for the noise profile? Are you zoomed a long way in when you select the piece for the profile and apply Noise Removal?

You may in fact be running into an intermittent crashing bug we have when you apply any effect (or just click around). The problems may be more likely to occur in existing saved projects with a lot of data or a lot of edits, or if you are zoomed in at the right-hand end of the project. We have done quite a lot of work to help crashes when zoomed in at the end of the project but arbitrary crashes still do occur on Windows especially when working with projects in a long session. The best advice at the moment is to export a backup WAV file as soon as you have recorded, and if you save projects, save them regularly (File > Save Project) which helps keep the .au files in the project's _data folder ordered more logically.

Please let us know if you have any more information on your exact working circumstances.



Gale

[b00m3rang]

My process has been very similar each time I've encountered the bug. I'll open Audacity with an empty project, hit the record button and record 1-1 1/2 hours of audio, hit stop and zoom in to the first 30-45 seconds (no edits whatsoever). From there I'll Normalize, which works fine, then without changing the zoom, I'll select ~5 seconds of audio, 'get noise profile', then Ctrl+A, and try to perform 'noise removal'. As soon as I hit 'ok' is when it crashes.

Is there any other information that would be helpful? Or can you think of a set of circumstances in which I can test this or a similar scenario to help narrow it down a bit? Would you like me to try applying the effect at different zoom levels and zoomed on different areas?

[Gale Andrews]

My process has been very similar each time I've encountered the bug. I'll open Audacity with an empty project, hit the record button and record 1-1 1/2 hours of audio, hit stop and zoom in to the first 30-45 seconds (no edits whatsoever). From there I'll Normalize, which works fine, then without changing the zoom, I'll select ~5 seconds of audio, 'get noise profile', then Ctrl+A, and try to perform 'noise removal'. As soon as I hit 'ok' is when it crashes.

Is there any other information that would be helpful? Or can you think of a set of circumstances in which I can test this or a similar scenario to help narrow it down a bit? Would you like me to try applying the effect at different zoom levels and zoomed on different areas?

Any steps you can find by experimentation that will reproduce a crash will be welcome. I get random crashes clicking in the waveform, but they tend not to occur in debug builds which makes them even more difficult to track down.

So after you stop recording, you'll have 10 seconds of visible audio, then you press HOME to go to the first 10 seconds, then you zoom *out* twice to view about 40 seconds? Or did you zoom out before you started recording?

I assume your Quality preferences already have a default sample rate of 96000 Hz. Is your default sample format 32-bit?

Using 96000 Hz/32-bit Quality preferences, If I just follow my steps above (only tested with 20 minutes recording), followed by your noise removal steps, I don't have a problem.

• What exactly are the three parameter values in Noise Removal?
• Have you got an "NRP" folder and anything inside it at C:Users<username>AppDataRoamingAudacity? The NRP folder contains a noise profile that is saved if use the Audacity Clean Speech mode, and could potentially conflict, although I don't think it actually does. You may have to show hidden files and folders to see that "Audacity" folder.
• Have you got enough space in your Audacity temporary folder? See the Directories tab of Preferences to find out where it is. Even an hour of recorded stereo audio at 96000 Hz 32-bit float is 2.6 GB of data. To support unlimited Undo/Redo, Audacity needs another 2.6 GB of space (total now 5.2 GB) to store the data resulting from noise removal (or resulting from any other effect). Does Audacity also crash with a 96000 Hz project if you do Effect > Equalization instead of Noise Removal?

Gale

[b00m3rang]

You're right, I left out a step... I always zoom out to show 0-1:45:00 so I don't have to watch the view constantly follow the cursor, and so I can get a better indication of the overall levels of the entire recording.

Yes, my default project settings are 32/96.

Testing log:
Opened 1:33:00 long project, one audio track, no edits done yet, this track was saved just after recording. View starts out at 00:34:00-1:40:00.

Used horizontal scroll bar to navigate to beginning of track. Program becomes unresponsive for 5 seconds and CPU0 spikes to 20% during this time.

Performed 'Normalize' with default settings, no problem.

Clicked beginning of recording and Ctrl+Scrolled in to view 0-0:00:30, selected audio from 0:0:07-0:0:12, did a 'Get Noise Profile'. This time, I got an appcrash
exception c0000005 offset 000f9529 (I had not previously had a crash on the get noise profile, with either bitrate selected).

Reopened Audacity, recovered project (audio already normalized), zoomed in to same spot and selected same clip, 'Get Noise Profile' caused same crash.

Reopened Audacity, recovered project, left view zoomed out to entire recording, selected same clip using the 'Selection Start' and 'End', 'Get Noise Profile' caused same crash.

Reopened Audacity, recovered project, left view zoomed out to entire recording, and as a "Control" test, did an Amplify -10db with no audio selected - ok

Zoomed in to first 10sec and applied 'Compressor' with default settings and no audio selected - ok

Zoomed in to last 10sec and applied 'Fade Out' with no audio selected - ok

While zoomed out to full recording, selected the same 7-12sec, changed project rate to 48k, 'get noise profile' and 'noise reduction' both ok

Selected the same 7-12 seconds again, changed project rate back to 96k, 'get noise profile' crashed Audacity.


Is there any other information about my system that would be helpful? My attached audio devices are on-board AC'97, Logitech USB headset, and Stanton Scratch Amp v2 (which is what I'm recording and monitoring with).

[Gale Andrews]

It would be useful to know if you have a saved noise profile in Audacity's application data folder (see above). It would also be useful to know the exact noise profile parameters being used (what values are in the three boxes in step 2)? Does changing these settings avoid the crash at 96000Hz? Do you get a crash if you resample upwards to 192000 Hz? You'll have to select and overtype a value in the project rate box to test that.

When you have had this crashing problem, have you always saved a project, and if so at what point have you saved it - before the normalize step?

Can you replicate the originally reported crash if you only record 10 minutes of audio and then follow the steps you gave? If so, the size is more practical for you to upload the project file and _data folder to http://www.yousendit.com/, http://www.sendspace.com/ or some similar file transfer service, and we could see if the project will crash here. If it doesn't crash for us, it may be difficult to go much farther unless you can install Visual Studio, compile a debug build of 1.3.13 alpha, run 1.3.13 from inside Visual Studio and look at the point where the crash occurs.

Thanks


Gale