Opening/importing files - Network install

[GreyFox]

Hi,

We use Audacity in a school network environment. We've recently upgraded to 1.3 beta after using older versions for quite a while. In the past we've had Audacity installed on a network drive, which has caused some security issues. To fix these, I've created and plan to deploy 1.3 via group policy to our machines - which works fine on both Windows XP and Windows 7. However we have a problem when trying to open/import a file to work on, such as an mp3 file. Audacity uses it's home directory, or the last used folder for the default location used when you click 'open' under file - or has this changed in 1.3? Luckily, regardless of this, it looks at 'My Documents' now whenever you click 'open', which is great. However we get an error saying it can't open the file. This is strange, as if we try to open the file from a student's home directory - we use 'N:', then the file opens fine. 'N:' and 'My Documents' are the same location.

Any ideas please?

Thank you in advance.

Grey Fox

[steve]

Audacity is not really designed for running over a network. If you have had an older version running over the network with few problems then you've been extremely lucky - there's a lot of things that can go wrong.

Audacity 1.3.12 uses the last used folder as the default location for Exporting files. I think the default folder for saving Projects may now be the users "home" folder, but I'm not on Windows at the moment so I can't check that.

Are you using Audacity for recording, or just for editing files?
Do the students have individual user accounts, or do they share a "student" account?
Do the students have access to any local disk space?

Could you check the exact version number of Audacity that you are now using (see "Help > About Audacity")

[GreyFox]

Hi,

Thank you for the reply. The only problem I know we've been having is to do with the default folder, so students have either been unable to get to their home directories to open files, and/or been able to access network drives other than the one where Audacity is installed. Not matter what security we put on the drives, Audacity and MS Office 2003 seem to allow them to browse. Well 2003 is being phased out, and Audacity is being deployed to the machines, so that will block access to the network drives. One problem solved.

I've just had a go on a Windows 7 machine. It appears that for some reason (our end) you can't open 'My Documents' from Audacity, and it automatically defaults to N: So that works out just fine. The issue only seems to be on XP. So I'd imagine this could possibly be something to do with permisions here. It just seems a bit strange that other programs allow you to open and close, from and to both locations.

We use Audacity for a bit of both.
The students each have their own user area/home directory which they can access either though My Documents or My Computer - N:
The students don't have write permission to any local disc space.

The version we're planning to use is 'Audacity ® 1.3.12-beta (Unicode)'

Thank you

Grey Fox

[steve]

The version we're planning to use is 'Audacity ® 1.3.12-beta (Unicode)'

That's currently the best version.

When recording the data that is recorded needs to be written to a local drive. For a new project this will be the Audacity temporary folder. You can check (or change) the location of this folder in "Edit menu > Preferences > Directories". Recording to a network drive is not recommended because the data needs to be written as a continuous stream and if there is any network congestion the recording will skip or have gaps. In the worst case scenario Audacity could freeze up entirely.

Unlike Audacity 1.2, Audacity 1.3 does not store its settings in the Windows registry - it uses a much more friendly file.
The file is called "audacity.cfg" and its default location is:
* Windows 98/ME: WindowsApplication DataAudacity
* Windows 2000/XP: Documents and Settings<user name>Application DataAudacity
* Windows Vista/7: Users<user name>AppDataRoamingAudacity
The audacity.cfg file must be writeable.

It is also possible to create a self-contained (portable) version of Audacity. This can be useful when running Audacity on a computer with limited access.
http://wiki.audacityteam.org/index.php? ... _and_later

Starting with Audacity 1.3.1, there is a way for you to keep your Preference settings with the program, rather than in a global place for user settings. It works as follows:

On launch, Audacity checks if there is a "Portable Settings" folder in the same directory as the executable (audacity.exe or Audacity.app). If there is, it stores its settings there rather than in the user's home folder. Thus, a user can create a portable Audacity thus:

1. Extract the Audacity .zip or .dmg download to a USB stick or similar
2. Create a folder called "Portable Settings" on the USB stick